My computer's spell check always seems to want me to use American spelling, how do I make him more British?
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How do I make my Mac British?
- Thread starter Balli
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Unorthodox
macrumors 65816
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.
If you right click in a misspelled word you can select "learn spelling", and your computer will remember that word.
Mitthrawnuruodo
Moderator emeritus
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.
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... 🙂
Ah, just like home cooking.
You can always trust a country that spells Colour properly 😉
Unorthodox
macrumors 65816
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.
Bern
macrumors 68000
Does that mean we should spell it Umerican like "up" ? 🙄 It's called english for a reason.
mac-convert
macrumors 6502a
dukebound85
macrumors Core
Well OK, from what I recall,
French (and most of Europe at one time or another) > UK >
>USA
>Australia
>Canada (nice mix of British, French, German and Russians who banded together to stop the Americans taking over the spelling of Colour!)
😛 😛
GITANAJAVA
macrumors regular
SpookTheHamster
macrumors 65816
Dozer_Zaibatsu
macrumors 6502
steve_hill4
macrumors 68000
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.
thewhitehart
macrumors 65816
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.
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.
thewhitehart
macrumors 65816
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. 😀
Unorthodox
macrumors 65816
SpookTheHamster
macrumors 65816
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.
Hey give us Aussies a fair go, we spell colour properly, it's these Americans that don't understand, poor souls. The 'our' sound in colour is nothing like the 'or' sound in motor.