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Level 1

59 points

British English and Snow Leopard

Hitherto I've never had any difficulty in getting my Mac to recognise British spelling. However, that seems to have changed with Snow Leopard. I keep the check language and grammar settings switched on and every time I type text using an English spelling (like "recognise" above), it indicates it is wrong with the red underlining.

I have used the Language and Text preferences to show British English as my only choice in both the Language and Text sections. My region is set to UK and the Input section has only the British keyboard switched on. Additionally, if I call up the "Show Spelling and Grammar" box, it shows British English as the chosen option. I'm therefore baffled as to why my system marks British spellings as wrong.

I had thought of trashing the relevant preference file and starting again. However, I can't find a .plist file that holds the relevant settings.

Has anyone any ideas as to how I can resolve this? Any help will be gratefully received.

iMac 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo 17 inch, Mac OS X (10.6.1), Boot Camp 3.0. Windows XP Pro SP3

Posted on Sep 16, 2009 11:00 AM

35 replies

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Sep 17, 2009 4:28 AM in response to Kris Jones

PS Here is something to try if you want. Go to this site:

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries#English_.28AU.2CCA.2CGB.2C NZ.2CUS.2CZA.29

and download the English (United Kingdom) item. Put the en_GB.dic and en_GB.aff files in Library/Spelling. Restart and hopefully this new dictionary will be added to the list in Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar. See if selecting that works.

Kris Jones Author

Level 1

59 points

Sep 17, 2009 4:49 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks for your continuing interest Tom. I can confirm that under Language and Text I have British English set under both the language and text tabs. I did try adding plain old English, but that made no difference. Similarly under Show Spelling and Grammar I have it set to British English. I did try Automatic by Language but that too, made no difference.

I did try deleting the contents of Home/Library/Spelling but that made no difference. I've now tried your suggestion of downloading and installing the dictionary suggested in your last post but that too, has had no effect. I've also cleared caches to no effect.

I think I'm running out of ideas.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Sep 17, 2009 4:58 AM in response to Kris Jones

I've now tried your suggestion of downloading and installing the dictionary suggested in your last post but that too, has had no effect.

So you are able to select that downloaded dictionary in TextEdit spelling and grammar, but Text Edit still thinks it is checking US English?

Suppose you set TextEdit spelling and grammar to French. Does Text Edit still think it is checking US English? For instance, "house" should get a red line, but " maison" not, if French is working.

Kris Jones Author

Level 1

59 points

Sep 17, 2009 5:09 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Oh sorry Tom, yes it does work if I change to British English (Library) in Show Spelling and Grammar. I'd misunderstood. I was looking for a new entry under System Preferences (silly me). I can now use "u" as in "colour", "neighbour", etc and "s" as in "recognise", etc, with alacrity. One oddity is that I have to change the entry in Show Spelling for each application. I've therefore had to reset it for Mail, Safari and TextEdit.

Thanks for your help.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Sep 17, 2009 6:04 AM in response to Kris Jones

yes it does work if I change to British English (Library) in Show Spelling and Grammar.

Great! I guess that for some reason the Apple British English spellcheck dictionary on your system has either gone missing or become inaccessible (permissions problem?).

Kris Jones Author

Level 1

59 points

Sep 17, 2009 6:40 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Well if it is a permissions problem it isn't repairable by resetting them to default using Disk Utility as that's one of the earliest things I tried.

I haven't yet checked to see what Snow Leopard does on reinstall (whether it has the equivalent of "archive and install"). I may give that a go when I've got time to see if that provides a more satisfactory solution. It's not a priority however, now that I can type "colourise" happily.

Once again Tom, thanks for your continuing interest. I do recall a good few years that someone from the US commented on MacUser.co.uk that, "you guys should spell things the way we do", which went down like a lead balloon.

Sep 22, 2009 1:26 PM in response to Kris Jones

Spelling works perfectly for me as British English in Snow Leopard Mail, Text Edit but not in Pages for me, hmmmm.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Sep 22, 2009 1:51 PM in response to Derek Watson

but not in Pages for me, hmmmm.

In Pages it is set in Inspector > Text > More > Language. Check to see whether it is correct.

Bronnagh

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2009 4:53 AM in response to Kris Jones

This is really driving me nuts too. No Apple application that has text input (such as Mail, Safari, TextEdit etc) will remember to use British English as the default language. I've tried everything to get this to work. In Language & Text preferences, I've set the region to United Kingdom. I've arranged the language preferences correctly with British English first followed by English, I've done a repair permissions and nada. It simply defaults back to American English the next time I open mail.

It's very, very annoying and I wish I could figure out what the heck has gone wrong.

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Sep 25, 2009 5:15 AM in response to Bronnagh

I've tried everything

How about system preferences/language & text/text/spelling ?

Region is irrelevant.

Kris Jones Author

Level 1

59 points

Sep 25, 2009 6:00 AM in response to Bronnagh

When I had the spare time I did a reinstallation of Snow Leopard, which did resolve the issue. Obviously there must have been a corrupted file somewhere that was replaced by the reinstall.

Unlike previous iterations of OSX, there are no "archive and install" options with reinstalling Snow Leopard. It simply does an upgrade, replacing system files and updating applications as necessary.

Sep 25, 2009 6:10 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

doh! that fixed it!

Bronnagh

Level 1

0 points

Sep 26, 2009 5:42 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom Gewecke wrote:

How about system preferences/language & text/text/spelling ?

Region is irrelevant.

Thanks for that. Boy, do I feel more than a bit stupid right now. Never spotted that text/text/spelling thing. Anyway, so far so good. That's sorted the problem out. Thanks again.

ZenKalar

Level 1

0 points

Oct 2, 2009 4:11 PM in response to Kris Jones

(Argh. My second attempt at this message. My first attempt was interrupted by my 5th kernel panic of the day. I can say with no doubt, that in 17 years as a software developer, Snow Leopard is the most unstable OS I have ever used.)

I, too, am suffering under the onus of incurable Webster spellings. This issue is most decided not answers, as the green light at the top of the thread would like to indicate. Re-instalilng the OS is not an acceptable solution.

Apple, we need a fix on this one. This is insufferable.

Ashka

Level 4

3,885 points

Oct 2, 2009 5:08 PM in response to ZenKalar

OK, it's frustrating.
System Prefs > Language & Text > Language > Put British English at the top of the list.
System Prefs > Language & Text > Text > Spelling on the right > Drop down > British English.

Mail > Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar > Bottom of the window Drop down > British English.
You could check in TextEdit too.

iWork Pages > Inspector > Text > More > Language drop down > British English.

ps Have a look through the SL incompatible list for Apps that may be causing your Panics. Remove or update..
http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/
S.

British English and Snow Leopard