I've noticed the word hub appearing more frequently in British English, and the meaning is shifting. Apart from being literally the centre of a wheel, hub is usually used in a figurative sense meaning 'centre', eg the pub is the hub of the village, the kitchen is the hub of family life. Hub generally describes an idea or an ambience, rather than an actual place, but today's Sunday Telegraph mentioned 'family relationship hubs' as being proposed centres where divorcing couples will have to go for relationship counselling (yes, have to go!).
I searched for 'hub' on Google's news page and there were hardly any UK hits; the word is more common in the United States and India. Perhaps the popularity of the networking site HubPages is partly responsible for the word's renaissance in Britain.
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