Thunderbird, spell checker is in GB English, not US

[Qqmike]

T-Bird 24.1.0 (Obtained through Muon)

Spell checking is in British English (colour); I can't get it into US English (color).
Have tried Preferences > Composition > United States English. Still doesn't work in US English.
Any ideas?

[GreyGeek]

Yes. If that selection is like the one in FireFox then the dropdown combobox that displays the GB and US language choices sets the choice by highlighting the language you want and then on the right side of the dialog box useing the "Move Up" button to make the language of your choice the top listing.

[Qqmike]

It's just not working ... and I don't know why!

[NickStone]

Have you tried to un-install the GB language pack?

[Qqmike]

To remove
thunderbird-locale-en
requires removal also of
thunderbird-locale-en-us

which doesn't sound like something I'd want to do ... ?

[Qqmike]

I tried disabling
English (GB) Language Pack 24.1.0
in the Tools > Add-ons Manager > Languages
but that didn't solve the problem.

And I do have the United States English Spellchecker dictionary 7.0.1 installed.

This is a recent issue, it worked correctly about a week ago. Recently, there WAS a Thunderbird update (through Muon) that I accepted. Maybe that screwed things up somehow. The color vs colour are easy to edit mentally; it is the civilised vs civilized that requires my reading glasses to spot carefully.

[Qqmike]

I might have it working. I started an email, and in the body of the email, typed the word "color." It came up red-underlined (=> misspelled). Right-clicked on "color," got the menu, selected Languages, and English-United Kingdom was checked! Then selected English-United States (and so de-selected United Kingdom), and now it seems to work OK, spell checking in en-us. So, it seems that using Preferences (or Account Settings, Tools, adding dictionaries, etc.) is not enough to activate the right dictionary. It takes the right-click trick. We'll see ... Maybe this is solved.

[Qqmike]

Well, heck. When in doubt, read the book.

Installing and Using another Language Dictionary
How to install a new language dictionary? How to set the dictionary? How to switch the dictionary between different languages?

https://support.mozillamessaging.com...age-dictionary

Of course, this makes sense, allowing use of different dictionaries in different contexts; perhaps even changing in midstream for a section of an email. And so on.

=> Rt-click (on a word) context menu > Languages

[jglen490]

Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Content button -> Languages box -> Choose button and then move English/United States [en-us] to the top or select the "Select a language to add ..." button.

'Posed to work!!

[Qqmike]

I tried all those settings. But, curious now,
Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Content button -> Languages box

I'm following you literally now. What is the "Content button"?
I have:
Edit -> Preferences -> {General, Display, Composition, Chat, Security, Attachments, Advanced}
Under Composition, I have 3 tabs:
General, Addressing, Spelling
Under Spelling, I do have a language drop-down list, but no buttons, nothing is movable to the top of any list (there are several English versions listed, and I have chosen English-US, which, as I've indicated, did not solve the problem).

Thanks.

[Qqmike]

jglen490, we are solving 2 different problems! We are both right. You are right for Firefox; I am right for Thunderbird! :-)
(Unless I'm wrong here ...)

[jglen490]

Oops! Sorry about that, punched up the wrong application. It is Edit -> Preferences -> Composition button ->Spelling tab -> Language drop-down. Time to re-calibrate the eyes, and re-train the fingers

[perspectoff]

<soapbox>

I wish there were a "Scientific English" dictionary. Due to fewer and fewer well-educated people going into journalism, language standards are degenerating rapidly. Current British English is almost unrecognizable compared to 20 years ago, and fad-oriented journalists in America are also abandoning their marginally more precision-oriented grammar and spelling standards.

The standard style manuals are ignored and rigorous scientific language standards appears to have disappeared from many published forums (especially newspapers). What I wouldn't give for a science journal-compatible dictionary / spell-checker / grammar-checker!

</soapbox>