The unnecessary "u"s haunt us
I woke up screaming last night because I dreamed I went to grab my colored pencils and they said “colour” on the box. Almost as bad as that time I dreamed I had to take a driving tests and all the speed signs were in KM.
When I was visiting Paris, a tour bus we got on had a audio guide, the languages were all labeled with national flags.
English -> UK flag French -> flag of France Spanish -> Flag of Spain Portuguese -> Flag of Brazil
Even in Europe Portugal plays second fiddle for it’s own language
Brazil became such a cultural powerhouse, almost anyone in the world would recognize its flag. So it makes sense. But it’s funny because only Portuguese speakers would need to recognize the flag on that tour.
Yes, but the guys who made the guide (I mean the developers who assigned each audio track a flag, not the ones recording the audio) might not. I guess that might not even been developed in France and nobody cared enough to fix the bug.
I wouldn’t call it a “bug”
I wish there were some internationally recognized symbols to represent languages as distinct entities from their countries of origin, but the idea of trying to make some seems really unpopular for some reason.
There’s other languages that have far more politically contentious flags representing them - at least all the English-speaking countries are broadly allies. Spare a thought for the Taiwanese who have to select a People’s Republic of China flag, even though the language is as much theirs as it is the PRC’s, or the large number of Russian-speaking native Ukrainians who have to select the flag of the country who’s bombing them and their families.
The notion of a country owning a language is fraught with toxicity (indeed, Russia’s claim to vast swathes of Ukraine leans heavily on it), and if languages had their own flags we could sidestep the whole issue.
French has the fleur De lies which, although it was a symbol of French royalty is still used on the flag of Quebec and some places in Canada identify the French language option with the flag of Quebec.
Realistically, the best option would just be a shorted abbreviation of the language in that language. Ex. Eng for English and deu for German
There is a set of ISO codes for each language, but it’s not catchy used as an icon, and are also implicitly Western-centric by virtue of using the Latin alphabet.
I replaced the US flag with a UK one on my website for this reason x)
Brit here it’s our laugauge don’t like it? Get your own instead of spelling ours wrong
Canadian here. Choosing between UK English and US English feels like choosing between an abusive father and abusive husband.
As an Aussie it really grinds my gears that office defaults to American spelling. And even after I change the dictionary to Australian or UK english it still continues to insert ‘z’ into words. It’s colonise, not colonize!
I thought in Aus and other international areas the Z was considered correct spelling, even though most of the rest follows British convention?
Languages and nationalities are not a one-to-one match anyway. What would you expect from a Canadian flag? French, or English? The USA has NO official language, so that makes even less sense.
I wish people would stop trying to replace words with cute little images.
As a Brit I feel like I’m going to have a cardiac arrest from cholesterol buildup every time I have to click the cheeseburger flag; so I can appreciate where they’re coming from.
it’s worse when it’s an American flag because I’m always looking for the British one
British English is the OG English. They should always use that flag.
Old English would like to have a word.
Old English, where is that from?
ingerland
America
yeah otherwise you might as well use the Australian flag or whatever
Or even the Canadian flag, to make it even more fun for the US people lol
ok that’s even better yeah
and also Canadian for french, because it’s never wrong to mess with the french
The way ‘herbs’ or ‘erbs’ (as some pronounce it) drives me absolutely nuts.
Also, ‘mirror’ where it sounds like ‘meer’ drives me nuts.
I definitely prefer British English. Love reading the old Agatha Christie books. E.g. “My word!” The colonel ejaculated, “I do believe that she’s dead!”
In the Black Panther they talk about the “heart-shaped 'erb,” and it sounds so strange to me, I always think it should then be “'art-shaped 'erb!”
Traditional English vs Simplified English. I won’t tell you which is which.
Ah, one more way in which post-colonial America and Mao’s China are similar.
Traditional English vs Yankee English.
As opposed to everyone else when they have to click the US flag to get English language options
There is no U in “Boston Tea Party” either.
Bouston Teua Puarty
Ok, it’s driving me crazy.
Who is that? The actor, not the character they’re playing.
Isnt that Lin-Manuel Miranda?
I thought so, thanks!
Lin-Manual Miranda
I thought so, thanks!
🇬🇧 English (Traditional)
🇺🇸 English (Simplified)🇮🇪 English (EU)
🇦🇺 ɥsᴉlƃuƎ
🇨🇦 English (Polite)
🏴 English (Unhinged)
I’d never know that’s English
i recently got the recommendation to switch locale to ireland in order to get normal date formatting. worked very well.
I usually use UK English to have a sane date formatting (the US format is completely retarded), but you have a good idea. I’ll use Ireland from now on.
I use Denmark English for sane date formatting.
Though I don’t know why that locale exists.
Shots fired.
I’m not quite sure if this is an intentional Hamilton reference or not, but I’m definitely not throwing away my chance to comment on it!
how is acknowledging an irish person making fun of brexit a reference to Hamilton?
Would you even say you’re not throwing away your shot?
The Troubles Part 2: It Came From The EU
🇨🇦 English (Celeste)
There are some English words and phrases that can’t be said in American English. Like the “I inherited this government position from my father”. Or, “Sure hope the King doesn’t veto this legislation”.
There are some English words and phrases that can’t be said in American English. Like the “I inherited this government position from my father”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Bush🤔
Also, as far as the “King Veto” part:
They’re not denying that happens in England, just pointing out that it functionally happens in the US too. So I’m not really sure what your point is.
Lol don’t watch the news
🇬🇧 English (Traditional)
🇺🇳 English (Simplified)
🇺🇲 English (Dumbified)*🏴- traditional
There’s no U in color. FIGHT ME!
We did. Famously we lost and you got to go your own way and stop paying us taxes.
There isn’t an I either.
There’s no I in denial
Yes there is. And American English had it too before it was removed because the population needed it simplifiying.
What flavour of English do you and your colourful neighbours prefer ?
The spicy kind.
now we have to add Mexican and Indian to the english language O.O
phonetically it should really be “colur”, so I think “colour” is a decent compromise
‘kulla’, or ‘kullar’ for the Americans
interesting
