I had a conversation about odd spellings today (great conversation, I know) in which my friend told me that the traditional English way of spelling centre / center differed depending upon the meaning.

Centre referred to, for instance, the centre of the Earth or the centre of a circle; center referred to a building such as a sports center or conference center.

I always thought that the two words centre and center were just (respectively) the British and American spellings. I was pretty insistent but it seemed like a silly thing to argue about. So instead, I thought "I'll Google it. And if that's not helpful, I'll ask DiS".

Can you clarify?