English Language and Locale Protocols for Business
Information compiled by Mithun Dutt, Solution Developper, Calgary, Alberta
Knowing how to speak English alone is not enough to save you from language and protocol issues when you move from one English speaking country to another. What is the difference between British English and Canadian English words and phrases when doing business? What spellings do you use in thank you cards or on websites? Is it Favour or Favor? Colour or Color?
Most people use MS Word for their word processing documents. You can change language and locale when creating or editing a document in MS Word. (In computing, locale is a set of parameters that defines the user’s language, country and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their user interface. Usually a locale identifier consists of at least a language identifier and a region identifier. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale)
If you are interested in the locales, here is a link to all the standard locales: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964664
If you want to change the default language in Word 2003 here is the link http://www.lizjamieson.co.uk/32/how-to-set-the-uk-dictionary-as-default-spellchecker-in-microsoft-word-2003/.
For Word 2007: http://www.lizjamieson.co.uk/45/how-to-set-the-default-language-dictionary-on-microsoft-word-2007/
For Word 2010: http://smalltech-tips.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-change-default-dictionary-in.html
Globalization and localization of websites is another story. If you want to read more you can Google “Globalization and localization of websites”.
