Why does american english change “metre” to “meter” but not “wire” to “wier” or “lyre” to “lyer”?

Question

Why does american english change “metre” to “meter” but not “wire” to “wier” or “lyre” to “lyer”?

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Answer 1

“Meter” is spelled by Americans this way thanks to the efforts of the Simplified Spelling Board ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board)). The Board was an organization active at the beginning of the 20th century, and included people like Melvil Dewey (who was such a fan he changed the spelling of his first name) and Mark Twain as members. Some of their proposed changes were not widely adopted: i.e. changing “ough” to “o” in words like “although”, or using “t” instead of “ed” to indicate the past tense. But some were – including changing from “re” to “er” as in “meter”, the elimination of digraphs like “æ” so that “anæmia” became “anemia”, and using “z” instead of “s” in words like “brazen”.

The movement fizzled out around 1920.