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Do yo mean words like that are spelt differently? Like "coulor".
If you right click in a misspelled word you can select "learn spelling", and your computer will remember that word.
 
My computer's spell check always seems to want me to use American spelling, how do I make him more British?
Find the application you want British spelling in, if it's one that uses Mac OS X' built-in spell checker, like Safari, Mail, TextEdit, etc, this is always found in the Edit menu -> Spelling -> Spelling... and then choose British English.

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If you correct this for one of the applications, it remembers it for all...

If it's other applications, like Firefox and Word, methods might vary, just specify which you want help with... :)
 
Change your language in the International preference pane.

Plus, this has been asked and answered many times before, and is available in the Apple help file.

TEG
 
I knew there was a "u" in there somewhere.....
It should be spelt "color" anyway.
You might as well spell "motor", "motour" while you're at it.

Does that mean we should spell it Umerican like "up" ? :rolleyes: It's called english for a reason.
 
I think that the electronics are probably too reliable for it to ever be truly British :p
 
I knew there was a "u" in there somewhere.....
It should be spelt "color" anyway.
You might as well spell "motor", "motour" while you're at it.

Well considering very few English speakers had emigrated to North America at the point of the largest reformation in the history of the language English, you can only assume a lot of those who arrived already spelt it "colour" and changed several aspects of the language, including this.

There isn't strictly a right or wrong, but I would tend to side on English English in this case, (remember, you can still have Scottish and Welsh English within Britain). Also, since mass immigration also leads to language and pronunciation evolution and divergence, you can't preserve any one way of speaking forever.

As ever, I point to wikipedia as a good source on this topic: American English.
 
The spelling system of English was never phonological, but entirely historical. Native speakers of phonetically orthographic languages such as Spanish often find the idea of learning to spell amusing. Learners of English are usually dumbfounded as to why we spell words like "rough, plough, through, and though" the same, but pronounce them differently. The many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation result from regional dialects in England developing independently prior to the inventing of the printing press, which froze our spelling habits in its current state rather than alleviating the differences. Words in Old and Middle English were spelt differently from region to region, and even by the same authors in the same works!

So basically, tell your teacher to go shove it when they circle spelling mistakes. There is no phonetical precedence for spelling 'correctly' in English other than for helping foreigners learn the language. Our phonetics are so ****ed up that 'proper' spelling should be considered trivial. Back in 11-dickety-something, if you were from Northumbria, and read something written in London english, you'd probably have no idea how to read it. Considering that, spell your English however you please.
 
Well considering very few English speakers had emigrated to North America at the point of the largest reformation in the history of the language English, you can only assume a lot of those who arrived already spelt it "colour" and changed several aspects of the language, including this.

What's ironic too is that a lot of grammatical forms that are no longer used in England today are still used in America, due to the 'snapshot' of the language taken to the New World at the time.

One of my English friends thought it was very sexy when I said words like "gotten", as in "I had gotten sick the other day", as she would never use that form of the word. :D
 
So I put the "u" after the wrong "o", ha ha.

Sorry to offend, I just find it quite interesting that an American doesn't know the British way of spelling, when most Brits will know American equivalents to our words. For example, a lot of Americans won't know what a courgette or aubergine are, but I've always known what a zucchini and eggplant are.
 
Sorry to offend, I just find it quite interesting that an American doesn't know the British way of spelling, when most Brits will know American equivalents to our words. For example, a lot of Americans won't know what a courgette or aubergine are, but I've always known what a zucchini and eggplant are.

Agreed. Just like World Series Baseball, that gets me everytime *chuckles* :D
 
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