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Automatic translation/version between American and English

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by wyndham 1 view

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Does anyone know of an add-on to MS Word that can do an automatic translation or conversion from American to English or vice versa? - ie English (UK) to English (USA)

Most of us know how to set the language to English (UK) and then run the spell checker, but surely someone has come up with a bit of software to do this in a more automated way.

I imagine a list of word pairs (e.g. color-colour, instill-instil, etc) that can be customised (customized...) as desired and then set to run automatically through a document in one go.

Any ideas?

6 replies

by oh smeg

Between your ears is Hardware Not Software. ;)

Now lets think on this a Language Converter from English to English .

No I don't think anyone has bothered.

Col

by oldbaritone

Hmmm... unless it's a bone-head, I don't think it would be Hardware...
and of course "soft in the head" would make Software a poor choice...

So maybe it's Firmware????

Happy Friday - and silliness!

;-)

by oldbaritone

I believe the default English dictionary contains both US and UK spellings for most words, so it might be difficult.

And then when you add common idiom to the process, it rapidly becomes a nightmare. That's why translation software is dangerous unless it is reviewed by a native linguist after translation. Idiomatic usage creates caveats for literal translation, and is VERY difficult to identify with software.

For example, a "rubber" in the UK should be translated to "eraser" in the US, but if you try a simple direct-replacement, you might end up with an "eraser tire" which would make no sense.

It's not easy! Which is why George Bernard Shaw said "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

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