Comments on: Why is Country-Specific Words Important to Bloggers?

By: Guy Rintoul

Guy Rintoul — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:18:13 +0000

Yeah, favourite was a bad example… I couldn’t think of a noun as an example, but maybe that just goes to prove your point

I found your post especially interesting because despite being British, I almost don’t notice whether something is written in American or British English now because I’m so used to reading both on the web – it’s only when a word is spelt very differently that I notice. Thought it was interesting to set people thinking about that.

As for Google, yeah it seems to automatically check all the different versions of English. I know that in the past I’ve searched for key words with British spellings and the same key words appear in the top few hits, but spelt the American way.

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:14:39 +0000

I don’t know of any plugins that will enhance the language differences, but a word like “favourite” isn’t as important for searching as nouns. Most of the nouns tend to be spelled the same.

And I believe that since I wrote this, Google has changed their search parameters to cover the broad spectrum of language difference. The point of this article is not being found by search engines but relating your origin and personality with your audience. I hope it helped in that regard.

By: www.guyrintoul.com - Similar but different

www.guyrintoul.com - Similar but different — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 04:45:46 +0000

[...] This is important for bloggers as results returned from searches, both external and internal, are affected by this. It’s an issue with different spellings (e.g. American: “favorite”, British: “favourite”), different preferences (e.g. “oriented” is acceptable in British English, but “orientated” is much more commonly used) and the use of accents on words (e.g. “Guantánamo” as opposed to “Guantanamo”). From Lorelle on WordPress, here. [...]

By: Guy Rintoul

Guy Rintoul — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 04:26:40 +0000

I write my blog in British English but it would be good if, for example, a search for “favorite” (American spelling) would return any posts in which I’d used the word “favourite” (British spelling).

Do you know of any plugins which can help with this, probably by converting all American-spelling words into British English before the actual search is performed?

By: One Year Anniversary Review: Blog Writing « Lorelle on WordPress

One Year Anniversary Review: Blog Writing « Lorelle on WordPress — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:55:44 +0000

[...] I covered similar international language and writing issues in “British Versus American”, “Global Awareness May Change The Way You Communicate on the Web”, “Why Are Country-Specific Words Important to Bloggers?”, “Cultural Colloquiums and Blog Writing”, which struck a nerve with many: Have you ever tried to explain American baseball to a Russian? Or anyone who has no familiarity with baseball? I did and it was a nightmare. Americans, even those who don’t understand the game at all, use baseball terminology as part of our daily dialog. [...]