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BritCSS: Fixes CSS to use non-American English
- zombot 2y agoWhat a shock to suddenly have proper English where up to now only the slang parody reigned supreme.
- earthtograndma 2y ago"Fixes"
- bradrn 2y agoYes, fixes.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoNo, it sorts it.
- EdwardDiego 2y agoSorts it, right proper.
- Doctor_Fegg 2y agoCSS it, say it, sorted.
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoDoes it support 'grey'
- jsheard 2y agoNo need, vanilla CSS already accepts either spelling.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kibwen 2y agoObliged to point out that "color" is how it's spelled in Latin, Old French, and therefore post-Norman English, that the superfluous "u" was added later by the English aristocracy because they were jealous of how fancy the newly-respelled French looked.
- troad 2y agoObliged to point out that spelling is always an entirely cultural artefact, and that before colour was spelt color, it was spelt colos. There's nothing more correct about older forms, or newer forms, or any other forms. What matters is what is going to be clearest to your speech community and audience.
- FlamingMoe 2y agoHowever, that is not the perspective of the creator of BritCSS, who refers to current CSS property names as "bastardised" spellings.
- troad 2y agoS/he's wrong, simple as that. "The particular spatio-temporal version of speech that I grew up with is correct, and all others are bastardised" is not a defensible or - frankly - interesting position. Chaucer would find virtually all modern English to be debased; Bede would wince at Chaucer's English; and so on, forever. Nothing fruitful comes from cultivating arrogance towards the language of others. It is just as much a cherished part of their cultural inheritance as yours is to you.
- DrammBA 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
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- hsbauauvhabzb 2y agoThis creates a second language where two dialects that have minor differences meaning stackoverflow code won’t always work, nor will code you extract from other websites. This creates a mess, all while adding a JavaScript pre-processor that is prone to have errors, vulnerabilities and other flaws from the NPM hellscape. No thanks.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mattl 2y agoI mean, yes but this is also a joke.
- jsheard 2y agoHTTP had the right idea, just get the spelling completely wrong so everyone gets equally pissed off. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referer https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...
- sebmellen 2y agoHilarious. I feel like referer looks correct now, having seen it so often.
- jsheard 2y agoExcept now there's also the "Referrer-Policy" header, which is spelled correctly. I wonder if the spec committee debated calling it Referer-Policy for consistency.
- k1t 2y agoPersonally, I would have, since it refers to the Referer header it seems like it should follow the same spelling. It would be like CSS having a "color" attribute, but then doing something like "default-colour".
- makeworld 2y agoCanadian friendly!
- h4ny 2y ago> Fixes CSS to use non-bastardised spellings The last thing I need a tool to do is to spread divisiveness.
- _ZeD_ 2y agoThen learn tò speak proper English!
- kennysoona 2y agoWe prefer 'Free' English over your King's English, thank you very much.
- Doctor_Fegg 2y agoNot the best day for Americans to chide others about having a king.
- kennysoona 2y agoOuch! Only because the truth hurts :(
- Lammy 2y agoWhere's the LOICENCE.md? Is it MIT? If only there were an Oxford License. e: speling correction ;)
- brudgers 2y agoThere is BSD and Berkley was an English philosopher…but ironically only if the external world exists.
- Doctor_Fegg 2y agoIt’s “licence” with a C in British English.
- Lammy 2y agoFixed, thanks!
- ChrisRR 2y agoAnd then a LAHHSUNSE.md for US readers.
- lenerdenator 2y ago1. All of this could have been avoided but for the want of some MPs for some colonies. But no. 2. "License: Not Specified" instead of "Licence: Not Specified"
- int_19h 2y agoSpeaking as a non-native English speaker, I'm not sure how I feel about American imperialism replacing British imperialism in general, but as far as English spelling and phonology goes, god bless America.
- yourpants 2y agoSpeaking as a non-native English speaker, I'm not sure how I feel about American imperialism replacing British imperialism in general, but as far as English spelling and phonology goes, umm… God save the king? Oh dear no… What am I saying!?
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoBoth British and American English spellings are objectively incorrect. The only reason anyone believes them to be correct is that teachers in both countries have joined a cabal to play a mass prank on their pupils. Any second now, they will reveal that it was all just a big joke.
- int_19h 2y agoThere's no such thing as "objectively correct" when it comes to this matter. Now, I'll agree wholeheartedly that English orthography is atrocious in general, regardless of which flavor you pick. American one is a tad simpler, though, and that's all I meant by my comment. Ditto phonology - English in general is phonologically rather complicated for non-native speakers, especially due to its many vowels that often don't map neatly to the more conventional vowel systems. But, again, GA vowel setup is slightly less complicated.
- theandrewbailey 2y agoAre you trying to tell me that the British gentleman Sir Tim Berners-Lee misspelled all these things when they went into the spec that CSS was based from? \s (sort of)
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoTim? CSS was created by Håkon Wium Lie (norwegian) and Bert Bos (dutch).
- theandrewbailey 2y agoBefore CSS, HTML tags had color attributes, not colour attributes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoSorry, I guess i cant understand sarcasm
- pvdebbe 2y agoWhy does the author use `initialize` for a function name in the source code? I question their purity of intentions!
- com 2y agoFilthy non-OED user. The author is probably a Cambridge dictionary person! Seriously, -ize endings in the Cambridge spelling tradition relies on you knowing the etymology of the word, and if it’s from the Ancient Greek, that’s the one you use. Otherwise -ise for French or Latin words.
- globular-toast 2y agoIsn't this the Oxford way? I'm not sure what Cambridge does.
- defrost 2y agoIt is indeed the Oxford way to be unsure what Cambridge does.
- yujzgzc 2y agoI believe that some people's actual full-time job is to translate software from US English to British English. I wonder what that job feels like after the thousandth time you've replaced color with colour and neighbor with neighbour
- _blk 2y agoThe AI revolution will take care of that job
- yourpants 2y agoWill it? Even when told to specifically use correct British English, LLMs make occasional mistakes and also get too eager and use it in code like CSS. With careful prompting, you can probably get pretty decent results with Claude or ChatGPT but it isn't perfect yet. I'm afraid that America has won another battle in this war.
- skipnup 2y agoCorrecting the number/date formatting will probably be the more challenging, yet still boring, Job, I guess.
- drwoland 2y agoAs a programmer working in the UK I've never been asked to rewrite something into British English. I have been instructed to convert some old codebase to American spellings to "avoid confusion". Probably about 6 times in 20 years of professional programming and usually by some product manager based in San José following an acquisition. This is why the library exists I expect.
- drwoland 2y agoTo be clear, I don't think the library would actually be used to accomplish this task. Rather I suspect a tounge in cheek reaction to years of tedious spelling adjustment disguised as urgent feature requests.
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- yieldcrv 2y agobit mental that they didnt release this on chewsday
- ChrisRR 2y agoOr toosday for the US
- kennysoona 2y agoKind of funny the animus the author has against US spellings. It's nothing but shade to refer to US spellings as 'simplified' and UK spellings as 'traditional', regardless of the merit of the argument for doing so. I can't imagine anyone will really need to use this, but it seems to have let the author work out some issues.
- _nivlac_ 2y agoI think it's a play on the Chinese language having Traditional/ Simplified versions. I'm choosing to take this repo as tongue-in-cheek, which is hard to really determine online...
- kennysoona 2y agoI want to see it as tongue-in-cheek as well, but, I feel like that's a stretch...what would be the humor in that? But even if it doesn't make sense to me, I prefer your interpretation of motive.
- ccppurcell 2y agoLook as a Brit let me reassure that it is a joke. No one thinks American English is simpler than British English.
- _blk 2y agoArr, only pirrates have trru spellingg LC_ALL=en_PR
- kennysoona 2y agoI guess ninjas also since they use pirate spelling as well.
- pwdisswordfishz 2y agoPuerto Rican English? Does it differ that much from mainland US variety?
- brigandish 2y agoReading the comments makes me realise that a library for fixing the ability (or non-ability, I should say) to recognise (British) humour should be next on the list.
- ccppurcell 2y agoAmericans really don't get irony do they.
- zero_shift 2y agoNo, but they do get mad
- rob 2y agoOnly if we're served tuna and beans on a "jacket potato."
- zero_shift 2y agoTuna or beans. Not both, you madman
- LoganDark 2y agoSocks in sandals my guy.
- rad_gruchalski 2y agoAre you talking about Germany? Poland?
- DeathArrow 2y agoAt this point it seems we have two separate languages American and English and I say it as a non native speaker. Wach an US movie, then watch a British movie. Compare TV shows, compare news articles.
- nprateem 2y agoThen drop the words fanny and rubber into conversations with each for some puzzled expressions. Ironically, you'd use an American rubber with a British fanny.
- rocky_raccoon 2y agoTechnically, you could use an American rubber with an American fanny too.
- voidUpdate 2y agoI'd say its more of a cultural thing than a language thing
- d1sxeyes 2y agoI came to highlight the similarities to Spiffing (https://github.com/visualidiot/Spiffing https://github.com/visualidiot/Spiffing) but I note that the author already did that. Always funny to poke a little fun at ourselves.
- ttepasse 2y agoI do like Spiffing's !please keyword.
- nrvn 2y agoThe man who got really pissed off by complete disconnection between spelling and pronunciation of words in English was George Bernard Shaw. Throughout his life he was an avid critic of the latin alphabet that was (and still is) used to represent spoken words. He was so frustrated that shortly before his death in 1950 Shaw put the creation of a new alphabet in his will backed by grant in aid. And thus the Shavian alphabet was born. Enjoy: - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet - https://youtu.be/D66LrlotvCA https://youtu.be/D66LrlotvCA
- Rendello 2y agoI bought the Shavian Alphabet version of Pride And Prejudice. I've never gotten around to reading it but my partner managed to get through chapter 1.
- bmn__ 2y agoNot enjoyable to me. It elevates the pronunciation that Shaw used into the status of the one true English and marginalises any other spoken variants, dialects all over the globe. This is presumptuous and unfair. How about this (equally unworkable) idea to achieve the goal of fixing the disconnect: instead of reforming the spelling, reform the pronunciation. Keep the writing as it is, but pronounce it to the rules (mostly: the letter/multigraph to phoneme map) which you find naturally in the majority of the other languages that use the Latin script. One can argue over the precise details and exceptions. The good: it makes English much more regular and amenable to learners, all English speakers more or less affected in the same way The bad: the change is drastic so that movies from the time before reform need subtitles, pronunciation will start drifting apart soon and undo the reform efforts quickly
- andy_ppp 2y agoAbsolutely terrible. You should spell everything in American English when programming as like it or not the standard in every codebase and programming language going to be this. I am British but coding is not language, and trying to be clever like this is incredibly counterproductive especially in a diverse team. If you want British English to be used why shouldn’t the German on your team be able to use their language for example. If everyone was just aiming for consistency we would be better off than following developer whims. We should aim to get over our personal preferences and try to be consistent and that means not having an ego about American vs British English.
- jasoncartwright 2y agoHN. Never change!
- Doctor_Fegg 2y agoNot every codebase. OpenStreetMap uses British English, for example.
- ChrisRR 2y agoI'm english, my team is english. We use english spelling throughout. I'm not switching to american spelling to appease americans who aren't reading my code, in the same way as I'm not programming in french either
- andy_ppp 2y agoSo you’d advocate that codebases should be written in the locale of the people writing them? What about open source projects, should they be dictated by the first language of the creator in most cases? You presumably can’t use British English for the standard library calls so now you have a mixture of languages which to me is pointless and more about the ego of the people writing things. I’m just in favour of consistency which unfortunately you cannot achieve unless you’re wrapping americanised standard library calls with true English equivalents. If you were coming to a codebase that defined American English as the standard I’m certain you wouldn’t change it. Why then when the underlying language makes that choice for you do you feel good about ignoring that?
- PetitPrince 2y agoThis should be paired with British PHP ( https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were-british/ https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were-british/ )
- DaveChild 2y agoI have nothing but good things to say about the author of that piece.
- penguin_booze 2y agoCalling British English (also known as just English) 'non-American English' is like calling an original a 'non-duplicate'. American is basically English with typos, bad grammar, and bad style.
- GJim 2y agoSomebody must be remarkably thin skinned and with a poor sense of humour (the kind spelt with a 'U') to have downvoted you!
- card_zero 2y agoI like and endorse Webster's reforms (-or, -er, -ize). Why write the French way? What have the Normans ever done for us? Apart from the legal system, chivalry, heraldry, and centuries of low-key class warfare.
- graemep 2y ago> What have the Normans ever done for us? Apart from the legal system, chivalry, heraldry, and centuries of low-key class warfare. And the abolition of slavery in England - not of great benefit to the rest of the world I suppose. Some of the evolution of parliamentary democracy? Low key class warfare is better than the high key version - look at the French revolution and the like!
- cr125rider 2y agoWell if the British invented something for once they can spell that thing with extra letters.
- jampekka 2y agoEnglish is basically a random mix of half a dozen languages with typos, bad grammar and bad style. All of its dialects have ridiculous spelling.
- bdhcuidbebe 2y ago> American is basically English with typos, bad grammar, and bad style. In that sense, english is basically bastardized old norse.
- randlet 2y agowx got it right: https://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.2/classwx_colour.html https://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.2/classwx_colour.html
- hk1337 2y agoThe British Empire ruined the English language.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoRight, so this is a way to bend the world to your will. The reason css properties have a standardized spelling is not to make fun of british spelling, but to have a standard that everyone could follow for interopabilitys sake. If youre such a british language purist that you go this route, you will need to port/retrofit this hack to your future projects or you will once more have to debug why ”colour” doesnt do anything in your css declaration. This is anti progression and a non-solution. In addition, running this hack on the client side (really, why??) has additional downsides as color wont render right until after page load. A solution for this non-issue would be scss preprocessor variable, something like this: $colour = ”color” table { $colour: red; } TLDR: css is a standard, so learn it and work with it, not against it.
- NicuCalcea 2y agoIt's just a bit of fun, it's not meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, R supports both British and American spellings, and I've never seen anyone confused by it. https://bookdown.org/yih_huynh/Guide-to-R-Book/trouble.html#common-mistakes https://bookdown.org/yih_huynh/Guide-to-R-Book/trouble.html#...
- dkkergoog 2y ago[dead]
- gxonatano 2y agoNext we need JS and CSS keywords in Esperanto, so that we're not privileging English-speaking regions over others.