Hi, Can anyone offer any advice as to how I would best have a single website with both UK and US English. The site is currently hard-coded and is setup for the Queen's English, so colour not color, etc. What I am thinking is, because the site itself is quite small, is to simply have database table with all the paragraphs of text and if I detect that the person browsing is in the UK then offer Queen's English, if not, the offer US English. Does anyone have a better idea as to how to manage this? Also, would there be any impact on SEO, or would Google not really care about the subtle language differences on the same domain name. All constructive input greatly appreciated.
If you are using a content management system then you should already have "internationalisation" built in (probably spelt with a z though). If it's a custom cms then I think they normally use text files but if you google you should be able to find some articles about best practice. If not, download WP and Joomla and check out how they do it.
Why would anyone care? If your US customers is giving you grief for "wrongly spelled words" (because they're idiots), just change the language to US English - the brits are well versed in reading gibberish English, they won't care
This reminds me of an old joke... The Americans and the British; two people's divided by a common language. ... and since I'm a Yank and I spell it colour, I gotta go with PoPSiCLe on this, the differences are so minor that anyone who complains on either side either way you set it? Screw 'em. They're probably too stupid to be online in the first place. I mean, unless your website's language texts includes meatballs, cigarettes, hazing of underclassmen, keeping a upbeat attitude, the flavor of wine aged in an oak cask, or the eraser at the end of a pencil. faggot, fag, to fag, pecker, woody and rubber respectively. I'll still never forget my first drip to England driving up the A1 toward Huntingdon and seeing this giant billboard that read "Your faggots deserve Maggie's sauce". I was having enough trouble staying on the wrong side of the road driving without a license in the US much less the UK to begin with, BEFORE I had the hysterical laughing fit. Hell, just try explaining to people on this side of the pond here in the colonies what the heir to the New York Herald has to do with anything; Christmas on a cracker the blighters end up gormless over something as simple as Gordon freaking Bennet. I even get shit here in the states because I say "bonnet" instead of "hood" referring to an automobile. Much less the dazed stares you get outside New England for using the word "lorry". But then America is so large, spread out and of differing regionalism even inside the continental states it's banjaxed. See how people fight over soda vs. pop vs. coke, or sub vs. hero vs. gyro vs. hoagie. With sub-sections arguing over how gyro is PRONOUNCED. I remember being in one of the southern states and asking for a Coke.... I suddenly felt like I was in a Dennis Leary sketch when the waitress said "What kind?" COKE flavored COKE! Though that was over 30 years ago when coke came in one type. Laughably I had the same situation just recently, went to Dunkins and asked for a dozen, and the little slacker hipster chick wearing the massive horn-rim glasses two sizes too large for her head (what we called "sterility glasses" when I was a yungun) behind the counter goes "A dozen what?" AND GET OFF MY FREAKING LAWN YA DAMNED KIDS!
I'd give you a weird look for using the word automobile, I know what you mean when you say pop the bonnet lol.
You know they have an American edition of Harry Potter, right? Seems the American kids couldn't handle things like rubbish bins - and didn't have enough imagination to work it out. I've just watched "Making a Murderer", it all becomes clear. How in a country with such a huge population do you still have inbred communities? It should be compulsory to "marry out".
New Englanders use the terms rubbish, garbage, trash, waste, and occasionally even dross interchangeably; the farther from New England you get, the more likely at least half of those will confuse or draw a blank stare. This is made worse in certain parts as you'll also have drek, chazerei and kitsche. You haven't laughed until you've reacted to a Portuguese Catholic immigrant 1st generation "off the boat" saying things in Yiddish. Kind of like when Infocom made a "interactive fiction" computer game out of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and I had to keep explaining to my countrymen what a frelling perambulator was. Even the term "pram" garners that deer in the headlights look. (It's a baby carriage!) Oy poylishe the shmucks and shmendriks gets me verschimmelt. Oh no, I think I'm getting verklempt... Oh yeah, definitely getting verklempt... -- edit -- side note, some of my friends are Facebook game addicts, there's one "criminal case" they keep coming to me too asking what a word means. Doesn't help they often use similar words few people in the US would know... like Balalaika -- a Russian musical instrument banned by Harry Truman in the states; laughably the Dick Dale classic "Misirlou" is Balalaika style playing on an electric guitar. They come back, "Ok, found that, but can't find a second one... Is there a difference between Balalaika and a Balakava?" -- the latter being a ski mask with no mouth opening. Needless to say they don't know that Baklava is a pastry either. Or even simple words like louvered.... that I know means made up of overlapping slats at an angle -- like a heating vent or Venetian blinds. Again, I cry over some peoples lack of vocabulary... and why I have little if any stomach for dealing with the TLDR twitter generation mouth-breathers. "So avoid using the word 'very' because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason boys; to woo women! ...and in that endeavor, laziness will not do." - N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society
I was out with friends yesterday and used a descriptive word, can't remember which. My Argentinian friend asked me to explain and I heard sniggering behind me and I turned to scold only to find that one of the guys had appreciated the explanation because he hadn't known either! I'd never considered louvers, what do Americans call louvered doors then? Back in December 2000 I flew with my husband and 2 small children from NZ to Boston - it's quite a way. We arrived late at night and caught a cab to our Comm. Ave apartment, exhausted and ready for bed. Wasn't pretty when we discovered the "cot" we'd requested was a fold out bed! The agent we'd dealt with knew the ages of our kids but must have just trusted that I knew what I was talking about. I don't think she appreciated having to supply a crib at 11pm or whatever ungodly hour it was.
@sarahk the other day I was watching something on PBS and then this lady came on: http://createtv.com/HostInfo/Annabel Langbein I was like what is this strange English she is using???! I obviously knew she was an English woman, but I had no idea what that accent was. Then she said something about NZ and I was like oh now I know how sarahk on DP sounds.
I'm thinking that NOT being a native English language speaker is a good thing. It means I've gotten all the different dialects and versions (taught British English in school, have been watching Hollywood movies forever, and there's quite a lot of Aussie shows on the telly). My problem with English lies nowhere near the western world - it's more about those trying desperately to use English, and failing spectacularly, which makes me wonder why they don't just make something in their own language. (However, visiting Britain and being accosted by slang-speaking tweeners IS a bit daunting - you feel you're maybe getting half of what they're talking about).
It's like me watching Keeping Up Appearances. Half of the time I have NO clue what is being said. Funny.
I use the term "pop the hood". I didn't know that was an American colloquialism. I thought it was just because I was common. And I did find out a few months ago that you can choose between US English and UK English in Wordpress. Nothing against those that use the term, but I so much prefer 'bin' to 'trash'
Seriously? Keeping up Appearances? There aren't anything overly complicated with the dialects there? Nor the use of slang. Granted, a few of them have a bit of a drawl when they speak, but... nah, that's not even close to what I mean Regardless, UK English or US English should be perfectly understandable no matter what country the reader is from, and even if you use specific words that might not be common in the other language, it should be easy enough to understand based on context. Or one can use a frickin dictionary.