# Spellings



## Parla

Mike, I've just realized that the site has an apparent case of multiple personality disorder.

It underlines misspellings according to American English standards, so that "favourite", for example, has just acquired a squiggly red underscore on my screen, since the proper US spelling is _favorite_.

But a fellow forum member has just called my attention to the fact that the dictionary you've provided in the English Only forum is based on the concise OED—a very nice dictionary, and I've a copy on my own shelf, but its spellings are all British! 

We've told users that directions are not hyphenated, for example, and that Alaska's way up in the northwest of our country. Not according to the forum dictionary, where one must look to the "north-west"!

I don't know which kind of English most learners want to learn, but I do think that the forum ought to be consistent, don't you?


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## jann

Hi Parla,

Unless I've totally misunderstood, I think you're talking about the behavior of the spell-check feature that is built in to your web browser.  That spell-check isn't related to the WordReference site.  If you're running FireFox, Safari, or Chrome, you can enable different language options in spell-check.  Click the links for more information.


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## Parla

jann said:


> Hi Parla,
> 
> Unless I've totally misunderstood, I think you're talking about the behavior of the spell-check feature that is built in to your web browser.  That spell-check isn't related to the WordReference site.  If you're running FireFox or Safari, you can enable different language options in spell-check.  Click the links for more information.


I'm using Firefox 8.0.1, Jann, and I don't see any spellcheck on my toolbar. My e-mail client (Thunderbird) has such a feature, of course, but I don't see any such here in Firefox. Where is it??


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## jann

In Firefox: 

"Tools" menu > Options > "General" tab > place a check in the box next to "check my spelling as I type."

Spell-check is only active for text entry zones.  You can disable (or re-enable) it for a given text entry area (e.g., the QuickReply box here on WR) by right-clicking within the text entry area and selecting "check spelling" in the right-click menu.  This will toggle spell-check on and off.  When it's on, there's a check mark next to "check spelling" visible in the right click menu.  

Once you have spell-check enabled, FireFox will automatically detect the language you are typing in from among the language packs you have installed.  If you downloaded and installed FireFox on your US computer here in the States, then by default you will have the American English language pack.  Unless you have installed additional FireFox language packs, all foreign words and British spellings will be underlined.  Even if you do have other language packs installed, you may occasionally need to help FireFox identify the language (by right-clicking on an underlined word, and selecting the appropriate language from the list in the "languages" category of the right-click menu). Again, in order to access spell-check in other languages, you must first install the appropriate language pack.  They are available at the link in my previous post.


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## Parla

> In Firefox:
> 
> "Tools" menu > Options > "General" tab > place a check in the box next to "check my spelling as I type."


No such thing in my Firefox, Jann.

But never mind that (and if I could turn it off, I certainly would; I don't like it). 

To return to the other part of my original question: How come the site has a UK dictionary? Is that what most of the learners want?


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## mkellogg

Parla said:


> How come the site has a UK dictionary? Is that what most of the learners want?


Hi Parla,

The English dictionary should work well for both American and British meanings.  I can search for "favorite" and it gives me the right dictionary entry. A search for "trunk" gives me the North American definition.  I'm not sure about this dictionary, but many UK dictionary publishers set up their dictionaries to be easily configurable for whichever market.

As for underlining your words when you type, that is Firefox's doing, not mine.   You will see the same words underlined in Gmail and other places on the web.


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## jann

Parla said:


> No such thing in my Firefox, Jann.
> 
> But never mind that (and if I could turn it off, I certainly would; I don't like it).


My apologies.  The "Tools" menu has been re-baptized as the "Firefox" button.  The rest of the instructions should still apply.  If you need more assistance or information about disabling spell-check or installing other language support, please see FireFox's nice help article, "Using the spell checker."


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## sdgraham

jann said:


> Unless I've totally misunderstood, I think you're talking about the behavior of the spell-check feature that is built in to your web browser. That spell-check isn't related to the WordReference site.



Unfortunately, yes, you totally misunderstood and this thread is drifting of into an off-topic abyss.

I was the one who pointed out to Parla the hyphenation problem with the WR dictionary in that it militantly insists on hyphenating northwest without pointing out that the hyphen is _*totally*_ out of place in American usage - thus misleading learners.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
*north-west*﻿ 
▶_noun_(usu. *the north-west*)

1 the point of the horizon midway between north and west.

2 the north-western part of a country, region, or town.
Greetings from the great Pacific *Northwest*.


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## Parla

Thanks for clarifying, SD! 

Exactly: Unless the vast majority of members want to learn 2008 OED hyphenation (which I think, from my correspondence with folks in the UK, may be outdated even there), the insistence of the dictionary on the likes of north-west/north-western misleads learners who want contemporary usage. 

For contemporary US usage, I suggest American Heritage (freedictionary.com) or Random House (dictionary.com).


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## parieur

Parla said:


> Thanks for clarifying, SD!
> 
> Exactly: Unless the vast majority of members want to learn 2008 OED hyphenation (which I think, from my correspondence with folks in the UK, may be outdated even there), the insistence of the dictionary on the likes of north-west/north-western misleads learners who want contemporary usage.
> 
> For contemporary US usage, I suggest American Heritage (freedictionary.com) or Random House (dictionary.com).



A lot of French people object to the anglicisation of the French language.
A lot of British people object to the Americanisation of the English language!

le P


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