Letter from the UK: Locali(s/z)ing for English

There was a lively discussion recently in LinkedIn's Documentation and Technical Writing Management group over whether to use English, American English, or a hybrid that would satisfy everyone.

In making such a decision, it's important to be aware of the differences between English and American English that:

  • Could affect the user's performance
  • Might annoy a non-American audience
  • Aren't worth worrying about

Americanisms that could affect the user's performance

The biggest issues to consider relate to postal addresses, telephone numbers, and units of measure.

The strict “Street, City, State, Zip code” format doesn't always translate well overseas. In the UK, we have a unique postcode for roughly every 20 houses, so you only need a customer's postcode and house number to be able to pinpoint their location. We don't have States and not everyone lives in a city. This means the format of people's addresses can vary, but not cause problems for the postman. If you force the user to follow the US format, or use the US format in your examples, they might struggle to know what to enter.

The format of telephone numbers is also less strict than in the USA. A phone number for London would look like 020 7100 4513, but many people actually write it as 0207 100 4513. What's more, a number outside of the biggest cities would normally look like (01784) 123456. Again, If you force the user to follow the US format, or use the US format in your examples, they might struggle to know what to enter.

The USA and Myanmar are pretty much the only countries left using non-metric measurements. The UK is metric, apart from, I think, our beer, milk, clothing sizes, and road signs. Where this might affect you as a writer is over the size of paper. If you are writing for American Standard size paper, you may need to adjust your margins so it can also print correctly on the slightly narrower A4 size paper.

Americanisms that might annoy an international audience

There are a few things that can rub an international audience up the wrong way.

Some words are spelt differently in English and American English. Examples include: colour, programme, flavour, favourite, aluminium, sulphur, cheque (in a financial sense), and grey. These are fairly easy for the writer to adjust to suit the audience.

The greater challenge is being aware of words that are not used commonly outside of America, or which have different meanings. The main ones are:

  • Hash/Pound (#) sign. The pound sign in English is £ or, for imperial weights, lb. Instead, number is written as No. (or Nr. in mainland Europe). Many phones around the world don't have the # sign on the keypad. This means, overseas, the # symbol is mostly used on Twitter.
  • Period. A “.” is called a “full stop” in English. A period is used to mean a break or pause.
  • Check a box. British people tick or mark a checkbox.
  • Should. Outside of the USA, English writers use “must” if it is mandatory, and “should” if it is advisory (best practice).
  • “To table” means to bring forward for discussion, not to postpone.
  • Program and dialog. In the UK, program means a software program, and we only use dialog to describe software dialog boxes. In other situations, we use programme and dialogue.
  • Counterclockwise. In the UK, we use anticlockwise.

Americanisms that aren't worth worrying about

There are some differences that really aren't worth worrying that much about:

  • -ize words (eg. “realize”). Most Britons think the -ize ending is American, but Oxford English Dictionary states it's perfectly valid in British English.
  • Punctuation in quotations. There's a difference as to whether the “.” is placed inside or outside the quotation marks. However, the reader is unlikely to notice.
  • Tone and voice. You don't need to worry about being more formal when addressing a more Anglo-centric audience.

Britishisms creeping into American English

I find it interesting that there are a number of websites tracking the number of “Britishisms” creeping into American English (for example, Not One off BritishismsSeparated by a Common Language). I didn't realise words like brilliant, ginger, fortnight, shop, and expiry date were uncommon in the USA. The popularity of Harry Potter and British televisions programmes, I suspect, are the main reason for this increase.

See also: Letter from the UK: Two Nations Divided by an Uncommon Language?

Ellis Pratt is director at Cherryleaf, a UK technical writing services company. Ranked the most influential blogger on technical communication in Europe, Ellis is a specialist in the field of creating clear and simple information users will love.

4 Replies to “Letter from the UK: Locali(s/z)ing for English”

  1. Not only is this important for documentation, but also for websites and GUIs. If you work for an international company, you might want to consider having a local office proofread the text and GUI.

  2. Good article, as usual, Ellis.

    Until I saw the screen shot at the top of this article, I’d never seen UK English referred to as “Traditional” and US English as “Simplified.” Is that really a common designation? I’ve heard many, more colo(u)rful adjectives applied to US English — but it never would occur to me to use “simplified.” 😉

  3. Most of these comments also apply to Australia; we are completely metric, in fact anyone born after around 1970 will probably have no idea what you are talking about if you use inches, miles or pints.

    Australia has states (and territories), which are mandatory in addresses; I have had problems with US-designed forms which assume that only US addresses have states, and all post/zip codes are five digit; I’ve had to type my state in the same field as my town, and add a dot or zero to my postcode just so I could save the form.

    Things improved after the Australian dollar increased in value 🙂

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