How do I get British English spellchecking?

[burningbright]

Hello, although a tiny Union Jack stares at me from my menu bar, whenever I write words that are spelt differently in the US, the spellchecker drawing squiggly red lines under them. I don't have a particular animus against US English but it's really annoying to be told that words are misspelt when they're patently not. Is there any way to get a British English spellchecker? Thanks in advance!

 

[atlanticza]

Are you using a word processing program? If not, have you changed your Region? System Preferences > International

 

[burningbright]

Thanks for the suggestion! Pages and Safari both had the same problem. The Region was already set to "United Kingdom", but the language list just read "English." I tried to edit the language lists and found "British English" lurking about halfway down. Replacing "English" with "British English" and restarting the apps fixed the problem. Can now use words like 'colourful' without red line interference-how civilised! Don't see why Apple can't be a little more precise with language names and automatically match the input language to the specified region though (I run Tiger. Grrr) Thanks again atlanticza!

 

[ruku]

When will Americans learn that there is no such thing as British English? There is only English and Americanish. What a cheek to steal a language's name for themselves and rename the original.

 

[Cromulent]

When will Americans learn that there is no such thing as British English? There is only English and Americanish. What a cheek to steal a language's name for themselves and rename the original.

Well, English and American English. I wouldn't be so nice as to class the American dialect as a language worthy of a different name .

 

[ruku]

Well, English and American English. I wouldn't be so nice as to class the American dialect as a language worthy of a different name .

But they have their own Dictionaries. To top it off they even take them seriously and put the electronic version all over the worlds software as a first (and often only) English choice.

 

[portent]

I love the way Britons defend their use of Franco-Norman derived spellings as true "English."

 

[John T]

Franco-Norman derived spellings as true "English."

Bit more than that! Don't forget Latin, German etc ....

But that of course happened before America was discovered!!

 

[Randman]

Most of the Brits I've known call it British English since American English tends to be the lingua franca in many countries and many business have adopted it.

But at least we can all agree that there's also "Aussie English".

 

[Neil321]

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[Cromulent]

I love the way Britons defend their use of Franco-Norman derived spellings as true "English."

Everyone knows English is a mongrel language containing words from French, German, Latin, Sanskrit and more. The point is that the English language coalesced into what we now call English before the Americans decided to go off on their own (in fact before the European Americans even existed ).

 

[northernmunky]

Don't get me wrong, I love apple... but what really gets me is how in the international language list in System Prefs, English is catagorised as:

Australian English
British English
Canadian English
English

The latter option deceptively being American English as default of course... so it seems that since our language belongs to the Americans now they can omit 'American' from the title!

Same on my iPhone... if you go to the language prefs it will clearly state:
English
English (UK)

 

[IJ Reilly]

Thanks for the suggestion! Pages and Safari both had the same problem. The Region was already set to "United Kingdom", but the language list just read "English." I tried to edit the language lists and found "British English" lurking about halfway down. Replacing "English" with "British English" and restarting the apps fixed the problem. Can now use words like 'colourful' without red line interference-how civilised! Don't see why Apple can't be a little more precise with language names and automatically match the input language to the specified region though (I run Tiger. Grrr) Thanks again atlanticza!

The spell-checking language can also be set by opening the spell-checker in one of the applications that supports it, and making the selection from the drop-down menu. The good news is if you set it in one application, it sticks for all of the others. But you're right, the method Apple uses for this setting is hopelessly obscure.

And FWIW, "British English" and "American English" are distinct dialects of the language, with their own rules of grammar and spelling.

 

[portent]

The point is that the English language coalesced into what we now call English before the Americans decided to go off on their own (in fact before the European Americans even existed ).

Spelling had most certainly not been standardi[z|s]ed at the time of US independence. That's the whole source of this issue. The dialects diverged before the spelling was decided upon.