I think you're right.

Example:

Jesu Worte = Jesus' sayings/teachings.
Jesu Wörter = the thesaurus of the words Jesus used.

Die Wörter der deutschen Sprache = the complete German vocabulary
Worte deutscher Dichter = sayings and quotations from German poets

eric and Paul: absolutely correct.

I must admit that I'm still somewhat unclear as to the difference in meaning between Worte and Woerter.

Can anyone explain further? I've read the replies to my query, and I've also checked my deutsch-english Woerterbuch but can't really find a very good explanation.

Am I just a slow learner?

thanks.

If you refer to words as mere agglomerations of letters, the German plural form is "Wörter". E.g. the first sentence of my contribution consists of 16 "Wörter".

"Worte" refers to agglomerations of words, where the content of one or several sentences is important. I'll try it with an example sentence:

Hoffentlich haben Dich meine Worte nicht noch mehr verwirrt.

Hi Eric,

As the others have already suggested, "Worte" tends to be used where you are dealing with words that have been strung together to express a meaning, and not just a random selection of words in general.

If you think about all the fixed expressions in English that use "words", this will pretty much always be "Worte" in German - eg. "in other words" = "mit anderen Worten". If you want more examples, just look up "Worte" or "Worten" in Leo. If you look up "Wörter", on the other hand, you will find no such phrases.

Hope this helps you a bit more.

The difference can be memorised, I believe, quite simply:

Wörter bestehen aus Buchstaben, Worte bestehen aus Gedanken.

Dies ist klar ein thread fürs Quasselzimmer - bitte dorthin verscheiben ...

@7: For what possible reason? This was definitely a question about the use of language, totally different than the back-and-forth of the chat room.

Auch nach fast zehn Jahren besteht wohl kein akuter Bedarf, hier irgendwas zu "verscheiben" (sic) ...

I'm certainly glad eric asked the question and that it was so well answered. It's an issue I had wondered about.

Wörter bestehen aus Buchstaben, Worte bestehen aus Gedanken.
 
That's excellent help to make clear the difference IMO. :-)

Der Worte sind genug gewechselt,
lasst mich auch endlich Taten sehen!
Indes ihr Komplimente drechselt,
kann etwas Nützliches geschehen.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, »Faust 1«)

»Wer Geist hat, hat sicher auch das rechte Wort, aber wer Wörter hat, hat darum noch nicht notwendig Geist.«
(Konfuzius)

Was auch immer Dr. Dark veranlasst haben mag, diesen Faden, der natürlich ins Sprachlabor gehört, nach zehn Jahren sinnlos zu exhumieren - nun, wo er wieder am Leben ist, drängt es mich, anzumerken, dass die Pluralform "Worte" nach meinem Gefühl heute mehr und mehr auch dann verwendet wird, wenn es eigentlich "Wörter" heißen müsste. So zum Beispiel bei der Angabe von Textlängen, wo oft von "soundsovielen Worten" die Rede ist, oder auch beim Titel dieses Films.

...just watched the trailer; the film might be well worth seeing. It will be interesting to see and hear comments (there will be some?) about the title. :-)