English - why I hate Americans

[druid]

OK, now that JB and I have exchanged rants, I'd like to offer some practical help.

1. When you get a red-lined word, Control-Select it and choose Learn Spelling.
In time, that should reduce your red-lined "labour" items.

2. If the application uses Mac OS X spell-checker, use the app's Edit:Spelling:Spelling menu
and choose British English.

3. In Snow Leopard, the System Preferences for Language & Text has four tabs:
Language, Text, Formats, Input Sources.
Each has a British English option. Select, and they should place you in marmite heaven.

Peace, coz. My people hail from Lancashire and Kerry, which explains me feisty manner.

And peculiar affection for vic-k. Nice YooToob link, vic!

[vic-k]

compliment and complement. (Aaaarrrgggghhh!)

Mr dafu,
I believe my human has copyright on the above. Tis not a congenital condition afflicting either the sophisticates on this side of the pond, or the good ol` boys on your side. It`s just the kind of (..I`ll just go and check he isn`t stumbling about nearby. s`OK I can hear him upstairs snoring and farting) crap he comes up with on a regular basis, usually without even trying.

So, Mr dafu, your, `above`, isn`t a contentious issue.

Going for a sniff around the garden now ( some fit young toms around here)
Fluff

[Juddbert]

OK, now that JB and I have exchanged rants...

...Peace, coz. My people hail from Lancashire and Kerry, which explains me feisty manner.

And peculiar affection for vic-k. Nice YooToob link, vic!

Okay Druid, barrels lowered, though I did rather enjoy the brief skirmish. Let’s do it again sometime. It’s not only a Lanckerry descendent who can do ‘feisty’.
My rant did serve to assuage the boiling frustration I feel when forced into confronting my own limitations. But I nonetheless remain intensely wary of the pernicious American spell checker. It is the binary equivalent of The Terminator, having just one terrible and consuming purpose: to correct. AND. IT. WILL. NEVER. STOP.

[hrmhrm]

Why not create your own spellcheck program? I'm sure if it's high quality it will sell well in the UK.

And BTW, the Americans have had far less effect on your native language than the British had on, say, the native languages of India.

Things change.

[Juddbert]

Why not create your own spellcheck program? I'm sure if it's high quality it will sell well in the UK.

I'd love to think that was a possibility but, in truth, I don't have the requisite skills. My last programming efforts were back in the dark days of DOS. Where technology is concerned I think, these days, I'd prefer to remain just a consumer.

And BTW, the Americans have had far less effect on your native language than the British had on, say, the native languages of India.

Things change.

You're right of course but, while it's an interesting observation it's not really relevant to my complaint. When I'm chuntering and fulminating over the dotted red underline, the last thing I'm thinking about is the British occupation of India – but perhaps I should...

[hrmhrm]

Actually, India should thank you for giving it English. The language is helping unite the country and make it competitive in the world economy. Furthermore, we Americans and you Brits should thank our lucky stars that English and not some other language has become the planet's common tongue.

Still, computer programmers at Apple are able to solve the spelling problem. And solve it they should.

[Wock]

The spoils go to the winner.

Britain lost the war.

[vic-k]

Awwaaayyy!! Y` wazzak! Y torkin crap as yoosual.
We...let...you win. Feck me! downt y` no nuthing
Every nation writes its own history books. The problum with you`s lot, is y`carn`t spell!

[tannie]

My children ask me what I mean by this word or that word all the time, and I tell them. I don't use words that I know that they will understand, as I think their vocabulary will be all the richer for it in the long run.

Although it's always slightly offputting to have done a stern telling off, at the end of which some blank faces stare up at me before one of them finally says "What's 'odious' ?"

And I was fairly amused to learn that "Trash" is an old english word that died out of usage here, but lived on in the USA. It's one of those words that some English people often get really twisted out of shape over!

Having grown up with both BBC (and multiple other UK channels) and tons of US programmes, I ended up speaking a mixture of both. It took a while to sort it out so I didn't confuse my English friends by saying something about pants when I mean trousers ('I bought new pants! Want to see them?' could cause a certain weirdness amongst friends...)
I do not remember if I knew about 'trash'... I do use 'put it in the bin' when speaking to UK-friends and 'put it in the trash' when speaking to my US-friends, because they use it like that.

Why do English people get twisted out of shape over that? (which I may have misinterpreted as getting upset over it, I still have a lot of sayings I haven't figured out yet)

Tanja

[Skallegrim]

Having plenty of experience from both sides of the pond I think my favourite source of confusion has to do with what a 'rubber' is for and how you go about 'knocking someone up'.

[pink]

being "pissed" is another that can bring confusion.

As I grew up in Australia I had a healthy dollop of language from both side of the ponds, and then additionally my own special words.

Like sandshoes, thongs, esky and stickybeak.

Go west to New Zealand and you get to talk about chilly bins and judderbars.

[Juddbert]

Judderbars? Now that sounds like just MY sort of waterhole.

[fauxparse]

Go west to New Zealand...

...from Australia? That's taking rather the long way around, isn't it?

[pink]

erm... * quick scramble round for a plausible excuse, so as not to admit complete stupidity * I was looking at it from the corrected map of the world perspective.

mcarthur-large.jpg (153.3 KiB) Viewed 1382 times

[vic-k]

Gorran answer for everything! Aint`y tch!