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Background

I realised today that humour when made an adjective by adding the suffix -ous, loses its -ou- spelling to -o-. There are some other words which have a change in spelling, such as miracle → miraculous (presumably from Latin influence (mīrāculum), or mischief → mischievous (probably to represent the change from unvoiced to voiced pronunciation between vowels). But there is no change in pronunciation to argue the case for a change in spelling in the word humorous, as noted in the Oxford Dictionary:

humour
Pronunciation /ˈhjuːmə/

humorous
Pronunciation /ˈhjuːm(ə)rəs/

Yes, the schwa is bracketed, but the schwa is a weak vowel in any case, and it is in both cases on an unstressed syllable; one would expect it to (have the option of) be(ing) lost when concatenated with suffixes and/or words. The dictionary further comments that:

Usage
Note that although humor is the American spelling of humour, humorous is not an American form. This word is spelled the same way in both British and American English, and the spelling humourous is regarded as an error

Here is a list of some examples:

  1. With schwa omittable:
    1. dolour, dolorous – /ˈdɒlə/ → /ˈdɒl(ə)rəs/
    2. flavour, flavorous – /ˈfleɪvə/ → /ˈfleɪv(ə)rəs/
    3. humour, humorous – /ˈhjuːmə/ → /ˈhjuːm(ə)rə
    4. rancour, rancorous – /ˈraŋkə/ → /ˈraŋk(ə)rəs/s/
    5. odour, odorous – /ˈəʊdə/ → /ˈəʊd(ə)rəs/
    6. rigour, rigorous – /ˈrɪɡə/ → /ˈrɪɡ(ə)rəs/
    7. savour, savorous – /ˈseɪvə/ → /ˈseɪv(ə)rəs/
    8. vigour, vigorous – /ˈvɪɡə/ → /ˈvɪɡ(ə)rəs/
  2. With schwa non-omittable:
    1. clamour, clamorous – /ˈklamə/ → /ˈklamərəs/
    2. clangour, clangorous – /ˈklaŋɡə/ → /ˈklaŋɡərəs/
    3. glamour → glamorous – /ˈɡlamə/ → /ˈɡlamərəs/
    4. tumour, tumorous – /ˈtjuːmə/ → /ˈtjuːmərəs/
    5. valour, valorous – /ˈvalə/ → /ˈvalərəs/
    6. vapour, vaporous – /ˈveɪpə/ → /ˈveɪpərəs/

Questions

My main question is:
Why isn’t the -ou- spelling preserved when adding -ous to humour and similar words?

From this follows some sub-questions:

  1. Is this in some way a rule in British English when adding specific suffixes? (Talking about spelling rules in English is a challenge, I know.)
  2. Are there etymological reasons for this, or perhaps etymological fallacies?
  3. And finally, why is it that the schwa is optional for some of these words, but not all? (My suspicion is that it simply is an error by the editors, but I look forward to learning whether there is a method behind the madness.)

Finally, my question is regarding contemporary English, not older variants, such as with e.g. ‘behavioral’ (q.v. the comments).

Notes

These questions are tangential:

  1. Root pronunciation change when adding suffix
  2. How come 'ou' was reduced to 'o' in the US?
  3. “ou” versus “o” in spelling words like “color”/“colour”
Canned Man
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    But the -ou- is preserved in humoursome. – Decapitated Soul May 14 '21 at 16:41
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    humorous (adj.): early 15c., in physiology and medicine, "relating to the body humors, characterized by an abundance of humors," *a native formation from humor (n.), or else from Medieval Latin humorosus.* – user 66974 May 14 '21 at 16:46
  • Spelling in English was decided by publishers long ago, with schoolmasters rushing to get in front of the parade to make spelling consistently inconsistent and humerus. – John Lawler May 14 '21 at 16:50
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    Another such pair is glamour and glamorous. – Decapitated Soul May 14 '21 at 16:50
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    ... and vigour and vigorous... – Decapitated Soul May 14 '21 at 17:06
  • I will allow myself to add these comments to the question above; a list might be useful. – Canned Man May 14 '21 at 17:42
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    behaviour, behavioural, also behavioral — clamour, clamorous — clangour,clangorous – LPH May 14 '21 at 18:36
  • The first one (behavioral) is US spelling. I will add the other two. – Canned Man May 14 '21 at 18:39
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    @CannedMan For "behavioral" my dictionary (abridged OED) specifies "Now chiefly in the United States" . – LPH May 14 '21 at 18:47
  • @LPH, OK, that’s interesting; the online OD simply states ‘behavioural (US behavioral)’. Should I add it as well, or would it be more suitable for it to stay in the comments? – Canned Man May 14 '21 at 18:53
  • @CannedMan A note saying that it has been found in English English in the past is perhaps better (so as to keep to present day English) . – LPH May 14 '21 at 19:00
  • dolour,dolorous — flavour, flavorous — odour, odorous — rancour — rancorous —rigour, rigorous — savour, savorous —tumour, tumorous —valour, valorous — vapour, vaporous – LPH May 14 '21 at 19:03
  • @BenjaminHarman That might be one answer to the question; maybe not the answer, but a answer (considering exactly what you mention: the dropping of the vowel. – Canned Man May 14 '21 at 22:30
  • I wrote a pretty long post about which suffixes (tend to) go with -or- and -our- here: Is “vapourise” considered incorrect, even in British English? I think that might partly answer your question, but I don't discuss sub-question 3 ... I don't want to just repeat what I wrote there, though. Could you let me know what I might have left out there and I'll try to write an answer to your question here? – herisson May 15 '21 at 03:02
  • I believe it does, yes, though not the third subquestion, as you yourself note. An answer with a link referencing this other answer of yours, then a more in-depth look at the third subquestion, might prove useful. – Canned Man May 15 '21 at 12:21
  • I imagine it's because "our" and "ous" were formerly pronounced with a stronger vowel than the current /ə/ (or similar), and the vowel became weakened when a suffix was added. So at some point the pair humour & humorous would have been pronounced something like /ˈhjuːmaʊr/ & /ˈhjuːməraʊs/. But it's hard to trace historical pronunciations: if I had any actual evidence I'd post this as an answer ;) – Stuart F May 18 '21 at 15:50

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