Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

Kris Jones Author

Level 1

59 points

Oct 3, 2009 1:53 AM in response to ZenKalar

As it was me that initiated this thread and the issue is resolved on my machine (initially through Tom Gewecke's suggestion and then by reinstallation), I naturally marked my topic as "answered".

I can't say I've seen any reports of constant kernel panics with Snow Leopard. Indeed I've seen less crashes with Safari since upgrading from Leopard. I suspect there is an underlying problem with your system that is causing crashes, rather than a problem with Leopard. I'd suggest you check the crash reports. In the meantime my suggestion would be to check the health of your disk with Disk Utility and then run the upgrade installation of Snow Leopard again (it acts similarly to the old "archive and install" in that all your user settings, applications and user files are preserved).

Oct 3, 2009 6:11 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

In British English, the convention is "-ise" whereas US English still uses the more archaic "-ize".

This happened after American English took its own path (sometime around 1776 ???) and evolved in its own way, differently from British English, which at that time did use "-ize".

Annoyingly, in MS Office, they think "-ize" is British English. I suppose they have Americans writing the code for the British English spellchecker !!

When working in MS Office I have to spend time going through the document, correcting all the instances of "-ize" and "-ization" etc.

In iWork, this doesn't happen; the "-ise" suffix is correctly used in the British English spellchecker. They're more intelligent at Apple 🙂

Oct 3, 2009 6:16 AM in response to Kris Jones

"As it was me that initiated this thread" should be "As it was I who initiated this thread"

Since we're on the subject of language and complaining about it 🙂

Stonker

Level 1

4 points

Nov 24, 2009 12:24 AM in response to Kris Jones

I'm sorry to pour more fuel on the fire, but this is definitely working differently in Snow Leopard from the previous Leopard version.

My default language is British English but I live in Belgium - so:

in Language & Text / Language / Order - I have British English / Francais / Deutsch ...
in Language & Text / Text / Spelling - I have British English

and then as this thread suggests, Mail, Text Edit etc. all work spelling English, but sometimes I have to write text in French, German or Dutch so I actually want to select Automatic by Language. That way as I start to type something like "Je suis..." it detects French and spell checks accordingly.

However, when you do that the British English no longer works in favour of American English.

I noticed when pressing the apple key and : in Mail for example, to bring up the Spelling & Grammar box , that when you click on the pull down it has American English, then Australian English and then British English so it doesn't appear to be honouring the system preferences list.
Chris

Feb 14, 2010 5:36 AM in response to Ashka

[quote]
System Prefs > Language & Text > Language > Put British English at the top of the list.
...<snip>

Thanks for that - my language list did not include "British English" and it never occurred to me that i had to manually add it, until i read ur post - it's all sorted now, thanks.

British English and Snow Leopard