center/centre - Solved

[geezer]

Just noticed something very strange, at least to my eyes born and raised in the United States and which have lived therein for many decades.

Was running Firefox to make a post to another forum and had the occasion to use "center" and had the word immediately flagged by the spell checker as incorrect. Right clicked and got the list of "correct" spellings and right at the top of the list is "centre".

Thought I must have initialised the system with "English - United Kingdom" and opened the system settings window and navigated to the appropriate dialogue to set the spell check and to my amazement found that "English - United States" was listed as the appropriate checker source.

Now, I'm 70 and even I cannot remember that last time ANY natural born United States citizen, schooled in the United States has spelled "center" as "centre".

I'm thinking that whoever is responsible for making up the spell checker lists, got lazy or confused and just copied over the listing from "English - United Kingdom" to "English - United States". Or maybe it very late at night and they didn't read the last word in the title and got the wrong list for "English - United States" and confused "English - United Kingdom" for "English - United States".

I have noticed before that I was getting some rather strange flags for mis-spellings when I was totally sure that I had the word spelled correctly, but this is the first time I got curious and checked out what the spell checker thought was the correct spelling.

Is there anyway to tell the powers that be that they have the "English - United Kingdom" for the "English - United States" checker and should correct their erroneous ways forthwith?

[woodsmoke]

Re: center/centre

Hi geezer

I don't know about being able to contact the power's that be but in my humble opinion your epistle embodies especially excellent English!

wdsmk

[claydoh]

Re: center/centre

Did you check Firefox's own language settings? right-click in a text input area and look at the language settings to see what it has. Maybe it thinks you are Canadian My browser shows the choices of US by default, but also offers Canada and Australian english as possible alternative choices

FF I believe should get its language settings from the system-wide settings , but it could have read things wrong, as it can have its own separate configuration. I doubt it is a laziness thing, as if this was a common problem, there would be many, many more complaints.

[Detonate]

Re: center/centre

I think it was Winston Churchill that said, "The greatest difference between our two countries is our common language".

[geezer]

Re: center/centre

Did you check Firefox's own language settings? right-click in a text input area and look at the language settings to see what it has. Maybe it thinks you are Canadian My browser shows the choices of US by default, but also offers Canada and Australian english as possible alternative choices

FF I believe should get its language settings from the system-wide settings , but it could have read things wrong, as it can have its own separate configuration. I doubt it is a laziness thing, as if this was a common problem, there would be many, many more complaints.

center centre - first now okay, second now flagged.

That was the problem. When I followed your directions, it listed English - Australia as the default language. Now how it got to that conclusion I have no means of knowing. Seems that it should have followed the system settings.

[claydoh]

Re: center/centre

cosmic rays, probably I bet it happens more often than we think, actually. there is so much data on such microscopically small places on a hard drive i am surprised they can function as we expect them to

[geezer]

Re: center/centre - Solved

Hi geezer

I don't know about being able to contact the power's that be but in my humble opinion your epistle embodies especially excellent English!

wdsmk

Thank You.

[geezer]

Re: center/centre - Solved

I think it was Winston Churchill that said, "The greatest difference between our two countries is our common language".

Yes - my wife and I always watch the British comedies on PBS, especially "The Last of the Summer Wine" - LOVE that program. Have watched every episode the local PBS has and even have several of the DVDs received for donation gifts.

The one that always breaks us up is hearing schedule pronounced. Totally different.

Also, names are a source of amusement for us, especially ones like Amos (amus in US and amos - long 'o' - as they pronounce in the series). Had a neighbor from Great Britain or was that England - never have gotten that straight. His middle name was Bernard. After 10 years I never could keep straight what he and his wife said was the correct pronunciation. Not only were the letters pronounced differently, but the emphasis was on a different syllable.

An American is visiting London and his host offers to drive him around and show him the country side. He accepts. His host keeps referring to the car's "bonnet". The American finally understands that he is referring to the 'hood". He explains to his host that that is really the hood of the car. They discuss this for a few minutes and the American says that "hood" is the correct name since the Americans invented the automobile. His Londoner host replies that "Yes that is true, but the English invented the language."

[leadwt]

Re: center/centre - Solved

Had a neighbor from Great Britain or was that England - never have gotten that straight.

That is interesting and reminds me of a tale:

An 'Englishman' was on a flight into the US of A and filled out his immigration card with the words 'Great Britain' where it asked for country of origin or whatever. Just about everyone puts 'UK'. He was not happy when delayed for hours by officials who did not seem to know that Great Britain is the UK (sort of). England of course is part of GB along with Wales and Scotland while the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland includes (yes - you've guessed) Northen Ireland too. Does not include however the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man although it does include the Shetlands and . . . . ugh - hey I'm getting confused good job we didn't become the 51st state (or commonwealth in our case!).