There’s only one thing so far that’s bugging me about OSX and the apps that rely on it. American English.
I don’t want to write in Americanese, I want to write in proper english, thank you very much. I don’t drop that ‘u’ from colour, I don’t spell apologise or realise with a ‘z’, and I don’t do any of the other little things that differentiate our supposedly common language.
Obviously, I’ve started teaching that little dotted red line the error of its ways, but is there any way to install a British English dictionary on OS X? I’ve not found a way as yet, but surely Apple have foreseen this eventuality… haven’t they? Or are they simply hoping to avoid confusion by forcing us brits to spell “the right way”?
Any insights will be much appreciated, as Google’ing this hasn’t revealed anything of note.
codeman38 | 23-Jun-06 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
There’s actually one already installed; it’s just hidden in a not-so-obvious place. Hit cmd+shift+: and then select ‘British English’ in the ‘Dictionary’ dropdown.
codeman38 | 23-Jun-06 at 2:30 pm | Permalink
(That’s cmd+shift+colon, for the record. Or just go to Edit - Spelling - Spelling…)
Splee | 23-Jun-06 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
Awesome, you rock. It seems it has to be done for every app though. Still, it shouldn\’t take too long to change the spelling on the apps I use most frequently.
jr | 24-Jun-06 at 7:09 am | Permalink
great tip codeman
gb | 12-Jul-06 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
Can I say how great it is not to have my OS constantly tell me I’m wrong when I type? I mean, just because I live in the states doesn’t mean I have to write like I do.
and a nice little thing you can change as well to not feel so ameri-centric: if you are like me and show your input manager icon in the task bar, for quick access to the character palette, you don’t have to have the american flag displaying non-stop. You can switch it to a canadian flag, british, etc… or in my case, I chose the Aussie flag. Other nations in the list generally have to do with other keyboard layouts, languages, etc, but this is pretty much just a nicety for the non-US english speakers. To change it, just open the menu and choose Open International. Find your flag and bam.
Jack Mottram | 12-Jul-06 at 9:30 pm | Permalink
Thanks codeman38 - you’ve changed my life! (I’m not joking there, sadly enough, and I’m also deeply embarrassed as someone who writes for a living that I hadn’t discovered this myself.)
I wonder why Apple don’t set the spelling dictionary to British English when that keyboard layout is selected in System Preferences > International > Input Menu?
Andrew Rowland | 12-Jul-06 at 11:46 pm | Permalink
Wow, the link for this just went round our Australian company and I think you have just made a lot of people very happy :) How strange this feature isn’t more widely published?
climbingtractor | 13-Jul-06 at 7:55 am | Permalink
There’s no need to change the language on an app to app basis. Go to System Preferences > International > Languages and click the ‘Edit List…’ button, select British English and click ‘OK’. Now drag it to the top of the list and everything should be in British English.
Rob Scriva | 13-Jul-06 at 8:47 am | Permalink
Genius :) I love it…
If i have a bunch of languages there, does that mean i have them installed? I thought when i fresh installed OSX i made sure they weren’t to be installed…
alister | 20-Jul-06 at 12:20 pm | Permalink
thanks for the good info people! i hate americanisation with a passion - despite our bush-admiring PM, australia is not the 53rd state :P
Splee | 20-Jul-06 at 1:53 pm | Permalink
Thanks for all the input everyone. I’ve found codeman’s tip to be handy for spell checking in almost everything that doesn’t have it built in too… and I prefer it to GMail’s build in Javascript spell checking.
rabbashanks | 21-Nov-06 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
“the error of it’s ways”? Doesn’t sound like proper English to me - or American for that matter. “Its ways” surely?
Another random apostrophe in “Google’ing” too…
Great tip though. Sorry to be picky - but if you go on about proper English you are asking for it a bit imho.
Splee | 21-Nov-06 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
@rabbashanks: Touché, I’ll take the hit on “Google’ing” - a hyphen would have probably been the correct choice here, but since “Google” isn’t really a proper verb I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
I was going to say you were wrong about the apostrophe after “it” as well, since it was denoting possesion of “ways” to “it”. However, it seems that you’re correct. Personal pronouns don’t rate high enough to get their own apostrophe it seems. My mistake.
I’m going to leave the post as it is though. I did think about editing the contents and then claiming ignorance. ;)
bloodnok | 14-Dec-06 at 6:53 pm | Permalink
yes it’s possible to make your mac british, but the default oxford dictionary is american. there doesn’t appear to be an alternative available, either. the electronic version of the oed2 is windows only (and it’s got a crappy, drm’d ui to boot). where’s a proper dictionary for non-american osx users?
Ben | 13-Jan-07 at 6:59 am | Permalink
I have read through the comments here and have set my language preference list to Australian English -> British English -> English (Geez that annoys me, that American English is “English”) but still when I run my Pages wordprocessor I have spelling errors from familiarise, colour, etc. Driving me mad. What can I do?
Sponge | 15-Jan-07 at 4:26 am | Permalink
I am having the same problem but am unable to resolve it. I do not have the option of selecting a british dictionary in the dictionary preferences pane. Inspection of the /Library/Dictionaries folder/ reveals that only the american versions seem to be installed despite having bought the machine in England. Any help is much appreciated…? (running Mac OS 10.4.8)
Splee | 23-Jan-07 at 5:32 pm | Permalink
@Sponge (and possibly Ben too)
Open your system preferences and select “International”. You should then have an “Edit List…” button and you can then select British English from the options and put it to the top of the list.
maverik | 21-Feb-07 at 12:58 am | Permalink
I think we have to applaud Apple for putting the languages in at all bearing in mind a recent survey in Las Vegas when the first 10 Americans chosen at random could not indentify the capital of France…. I guess the journalist got the message after the first 10 and let it go at that. I’m not saying Americans are thick, I have several friends who live in the States, but they do have this annoying mentality that nothing exists East or West of their own coast.
An intelligent (Financial Director of a major corporate) American tried to tell (preach to) me recently that California was the centre of world design in all seriousness - that’s all design - technology, graphics, fashion……..
What about Brody, Javier Mariscal, Armani and of course Jonathon Ives who designed the iMac and iPod and is erm British.
So maybe we should just be glad that there are language options at all on the Mac - albeit a little buried.
maverik | 21-Feb-07 at 1:22 am | Permalink
Just found this link for all you guys still hoping for an alternate dictionery. As of Oct 02 2006 there was NO sign of Apple creating any alternate language additions for Dictionery…. from a guy who worked on the original American version (for Apple through a company called OUP).
I appreciate the comments here re the International panel and the menu bar within apps for selecting British English but it kind of defeats the object of having a ‘DICTIONARY IN THE DOCK’
Apparently its even worse if you buy your Mac in France - your choice is American English or well nothing…. I guess that will be the same for the Krauts and everyone else then. Here’s the link if you want more.
http://ask.metafilter.com/47736/Mac-OS-X-only-knows-English
tristram0 | 24-Mar-07 at 9:40 pm | Permalink
For those struggling to set the language dictionary in later version…
Apple have put Language selection in the inspector…
open the Inspector, select Text then More and select your language :)
mho | 28-Mar-07 at 4:23 pm | Permalink
thanks for that tristramo, was a great help. Was getting really sick of clicking learn spelling and seeing red dotted lines under correctly spelt words.
Joachim | 01-May-07 at 1:49 pm | Permalink
Hmmm. I have a Kraut mashine and I can choose between Austraulian, Britsh and canadian english…
Personally I prefer the setting “multilingual” as you then get all
of the above + of course any other language you might use.
I use swedish, german, english and french - often within one and the same dokument - and it creates no problems.
Joachim
Rob | 30-May-07 at 4:55 am | Permalink
Great tip guys.
Thought you might also like to know that there’s an Australian English dictionary available for OpenOffice and Firefox/Thunderbird from http://www.justlocal.com.au
It also works with NeoOffice (I’ve just sent the author instructions, so hopefully the details should be up there soon).
Babs | 18-Jun-07 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
Thanks so much for all of this info. It has been a major annoyance to me for a long time. :O)
Padmavyuha | 23-Jul-07 at 2:48 pm | Permalink
Does anyone know where in the OSX system to look to see whether dictionaries for a particular language have actually been installed? That is, at time of OS installation you have the option to select which languages are included, but is there a quick way to review that, i.e. by looking in specific system folders?
Chris | 23-Jul-07 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
I agree but when you refer to “the error of it’s ways” (sic) in your third paragraph, the word you needed was “its” rather then “it’s”.
Gideon | 04-Sep-07 at 6:24 pm | Permalink
Damn right!
What Americans think is “English” is just some stupid bastardisation of the language, and it’s a damn good language at that.
I’m fed up of Pages telling me to use a “z” or to drop the “u” from several words, I vote we tell Apple (and Microsoft) that there is NO SUCH THING as US English and force them to write properly.
Jasper | 14-Sep-07 at 12:32 am | Permalink
thanks so much for these tips guys - sick of my macbook pro telling me that I’m spelling ‘behaviour’ incorrectly!
Peter | 24-Sep-07 at 8:42 am | Permalink
You may not want to use American English, my friend, but PLEASE use English English correctly!
To spell the possessive form of its as it’s is inexcusable!
Viz “…I’ve started teaching that little dotted red line the error of it’s ways…”
Splee | 29-Sep-07 at 1:26 pm | Permalink
@Peter: the fact that it was wrong doesn’t mean that it’s inexcusable. I never professed to be a perfect user of the language, merely that I didn’t want OS X to spell things in American :)
Thanks to both you and Chris for pointing out the error though, the post has been updated.
HappyGoogle | 29-Oct-07 at 3:24 pm | Permalink
Codeman - you are a god sir. A mactastically super-powered god. I thank you and offer a figurative beer.
David | 01-Dec-07 at 10:51 am | Permalink
This is all well and good.
But what REALLY annoys me is the Dictionary App that comes with Leopard.
It seems that this App uses the New Oxford American Dictionary, and no option to choose the (proper) Oxford English Dictionary.
I can search ‘digitise’, and Dictionary will find the correct word. However, I am told that it is spelt ‘digitize’.
: /
Warren | 01-Dec-07 at 1:34 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the tips! this was starting to drive me mad. It’s a real shame that the dictionary can’t be updated, but at least I can write in peace from the red-line!
William Ager | 16-Dec-07 at 1:34 pm | Permalink
Even if such a wonderful option were to become available, David, I fear that you might find it disappointing. According to the proper OED, the correct spelling of the word in question is in fact ‘digitize’, and if you were to search through Fowler, you would find much the same guideline. You may wish to examine the entry for ‘-ize’, or read this website. While the government and media might have made unfortunate choices in the matter, I am rather saddened that others have followed followed them rather than respectable institutions. It is with some amusement, however, that I have read through these comments containing so much lambasting as improper and Americanistic what the very bastions of propriety in the English language justifiably deem correct.
Of course, this puts one who seeks to write properly in an unfortunate situation for spell-checking: one may choose the American dictionary, and be told that ‘analyse’ is incorrect, or may choose the British dictionary, and be told that ‘antagonize’ is incorrect. I fear I shall find no respite from the red line, unless I disable checking altogether and rely entirely on careful typing.
Andrew Sheers | 17-Jan-08 at 11:53 am | Permalink
Mr. Ager,
The reason your language is becoming ever more “stars and stripey” is probably due to Australian regional government departments, like the [Government of Western Australia] (http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/learningareas/learn3.htm) promoting the use of American English dictionaries in the classroom, not British ones (on the linked page, note the presence of the respected US English dictionary Mirriam-Webster dictionary, not Oxford University Press). Maybe other regional governments are doing it as well. Being from the United Kingdom, I can only sympathise with your current distress :-) Somebody ought to say something…