I'm running Debian 12 on my laptop, when I installed it I had UK
English but now it has somehow disappeared and, for example, my
browser claims that 'colour' is spelt wrong.

How did that happen? I'm sure I used to have the UK English
dictionaries installed. More to the point what do I need to do to get
UK English back? :-)

--
Chris Green

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On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 02:25:06PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:

I'm running Debian 12 on my laptop, when I installed it I had UK
English but now it has somehow disappeared and, for example, my
browser claims that 'colour' is spelt wrong.

So it disappeared from your browser, not from the world.

Phew.

Browsers sometimes want you to think they're the world, but this is
a sleazy trick by the ad industry. Don't believe them.

How did that happen? I'm sure I used to have the UK English
dictionaries installed. More to the point what do I need to do to get
UK English back? :-)

Perhaps this is a dark plot between Elon M and Nigel F :-)

On a more serious note: browsers bring their own internationalisation
packages. For the Debian Firefox ESR, they look somewhat like

firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb

(Google's abomination is left as an exercise for the reader).

Cheers
--
t

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[email protected] wrote:

[-- text/plain, encoding quoted-printable, charset: utf-8, 29 lines --]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 02:25:06PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:

I'm running Debian 12 on my laptop, when I installed it I had UK
English but now it has somehow disappeared and, for example, my
browser claims that 'colour' is spelt wrong.

So it disappeared from your browser, not from the world.

Phew.

Browsers sometimes want you to think they're the world, but this is
a sleazy trick by the ad industry. Don't believe them.

How did that happen? I'm sure I used to have the UK English
dictionaries installed. More to the point what do I need to do to get
UK English back? :-)

Perhaps this is a dark plot between Elon M and Nigel F :-)

On a more serious note: browsers bring their own internationalisation packages. For the Debian Firefox ESR, they look somewhat like

firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb

(Google's abomination is left as an exercise for the reader).

I don't think that's my problem for two reasons: 1 - I don't use
Firefox and 2 - The British English dictionary is missing from
/usr/share/dict, all I have is usr/share/dict/american-english.

--
Chris Green
·

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On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:28:51 +0000
Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote:

The British English dictionary is missing from
/usr/share/dict, all I have is usr/share/dict/american-english.

I'm no expert here, but that suggests that you should have at least one
of several /usr/share/dict/british-english* files. Are any of the
following packages (column 1) installed?

charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish: /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish-huge: /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge
wbritish-insane: /usr/share/dict/british-english-insane
wbritish-large: /usr/share/dict/british-english-large
wbritish-small: /usr/share/dict/british-english-small
charles@hawk:~$


--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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Charles Curley <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:28:51 +0000
Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote:

The British English dictionary is missing from
/usr/share/dict, all I have is usr/share/dict/american-english.

I'm no expert here, but that suggests that you should have at least one
of several /usr/share/dict/british-english* files. Are any of the
following packages (column 1) installed?

charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish: /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish-huge: /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge
wbritish-insane: /usr/share/dict/british-english-insane
wbritish-large: /usr/share/dict/british-english-large
wbritish-small: /usr/share/dict/british-english-small
charles@hawk:~$

Yes, I do have one of them installed:-

chris@q957$ dpkg -l | grep british
ii ibritish 3.4.05-1 all British English dictionary for ispell (standard version)
chris@q957$

But reinstalling doesn't get the file back:-

root@t470# apt reinstall ibritish
Reading package lists... 0%
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not
upgraded.
Need to get 194 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main amd64 ibritish all
3.4.05-1 [194 kB]
Fetched 194 kB in 0s (2,206 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 180073 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ibritish_3.4.05-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking ibritish (3.4.05-1) over (3.4.05-1) ...
Setting up ibritish (3.4.05-1) ...
Processing triggers for dictionaries-common (1.29.5) ...
ispell-autobuildhash: Processing 'british' dict.
root@t470# cd /usr/share/dict
root@t470# ls -l
total 1452
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 199 Mar 14 2023 README.select-wordlist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 985084 Jan 20 2022 american-english
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 492822 Jan 31 2023 cracklib-small
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Oct 25 15:02 words ->
/etc/dictionaries-common/words
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Jan 20 2022
words.pre-dictionaries-common -> american-english

I think something really is broken somewhere.

--
Chris Green
·

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On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 19:48:47 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

Charles Curley <[email protected]> wrote:

charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish: /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish-huge: /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge
wbritish-insane: /usr/share/dict/british-english-insane
wbritish-large: /usr/share/dict/british-english-large
wbritish-small: /usr/share/dict/british-english-small

Please note the package names here: "wbritish".

Yes, I do have one of them installed:-

chris@q957$ dpkg -l | grep british
ii ibritish 3.4.05-1 all British English dictionary for ispell (standard version)

That one says "ibritish". It's a different package.

But reinstalling doesn't get the file back:-

root@t470# apt reinstall ibritish

That's because it's not a file provided by that package.
The file list for ibritish is at <https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/all/ibritish/filelist>
and if you read it, you'll see that it doesn't put any files in the /usr/share/dict directory.

The wbritish package, on the other hand, does, as you can see by
reading <https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/all/wbritish/filelist>.

Also, *neither* of these packages has anything to do with Firefox, which
I thought was the original complaint in this thread.

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Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 19:48:47 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

Charles Curley <[email protected]> wrote:

charles@hawk:~$ apt-file search /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish: /usr/share/dict/british-english
wbritish-huge: /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge
wbritish-insane: /usr/share/dict/british-english-insane
wbritish-large: /usr/share/dict/british-english-large
wbritish-small: /usr/share/dict/british-english-small

Please note the package names here: "wbritish".

Yes, I do have one of them installed:-

chris@q957$ dpkg -l | grep british
ii ibritish 3.4.05-1 all British English dictionary for ispell (standard

version)

That one says "ibritish". It's a different package.

But reinstalling doesn't get the file back:-

root@t470# apt reinstall ibritish

That's because it's not a file provided by that package.
The file list for ibritish is at <https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/all/ibritish/filelist>
and if you read it, you'll see that it doesn't put any files in the /usr/share/dict directory.

The wbritish package, on the other hand, does, as you can see by
reading <https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/all/wbritish/filelist>.

Also, *neither* of these packages has anything to do with Firefox, which
I thought was the original complaint in this thread.

No, OP here, nothing to do with Firefox (maybe I said 'browser' but I
don't use Firefox).

I just seemed to have lost British English fairly recently having been
running Debian 12 for quite a while.

Yes, installing wbritish has brought the file back OK (I'd got there
via using 'apt-file search') but I'm not clear how I lost it. It
*might* be just that it's never been there since I moved from Ubuntu
to Debian but I thought it was there after I made the move.

Anyway I have it back now. :-)

--
Chris Green
·

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On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:55:05 +0000
Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote:

Anyway I have it back now. :-)

Glad to hear it.

For the benefit of future readers, please mark the thread as solved.

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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On 14/1/25 07:28, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 6:13 PM Charles Curley <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:55:05 +0000
Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote:

Anyway I have it back now. :-)

Glad to hear it.

For the benefit of future readers, please mark the thread as solved.

This is not a forum. Please do not change the title. It creates a new
thread with no context disjoint from thread where the problem was
solved..

Also, the use of prepending, involving the "square brackets", generally indicates the name of a mailing list, for example, [GNC] for GNUcash.

If the objective is to cause gratuitous confusion, then, go ahead and
use the prepending [SOLVED]. It is as beneficial as using a blank
Subject line, or starting a new thread, with the Subject line being only
the word "Help". Help what? "Help me find my lost dog"? "Help me
overthrow the government"? Help me tie my shoelaces"?

If a person interested in the thread, from the wording of the Subject
field, reads the messages in the thread, then, the person will see the
message where the original poster advises that the problem is solved.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............

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On Tue, 14 Jan 2025 07:47:04 +0800
Bret Busby <[email protected]> wrote:

Also, the use of prepending, involving the "square brackets",
generally indicates the name of a mailing list, for example, [GNC]
for GNUcash.

OK, then how would you do it?

"Re: British English has disappeared: SOLVED"?

If a person interested in the thread, from the wording of the Subject
field, reads the messages in the thread, then, the person will see
the message where the original poster advises that the problem is
solved.

Many list servers serve up their archives with subject line and other information but not the body. By modifying the subject appropriately one
makes it possible for a reader to quickly scan the subject, making
reading the entire thread unnecessary, thereby improving usability of
the archive.

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 05:30:19PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote:

Many list servers serve up their archives with subject line and other information but not the body. By modifying the subject appropriately one makes it possible for a reader to quickly scan the subject, making
reading the entire thread unnecessary, thereby improving usability of
the archive.

It is not just the Subject: but also the In-Reply-To: and References: headers. A good MUA (mail reader) will use these to deduce what is in reply to what and have the ability to show an email 'thread'. I use mutt which does this.

For instance the email that I am replying to has the following headers:

In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <Z4UiQnQqvtWHX5pZ@q957>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]omain>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]omain>
<CAH8yC8kAVpKExODdRhSMb9CBPMeufPk7XQgwWTfyT+GB3VUuSw@mail.gmail.com>
<[email protected]>

Does anybody read signatures any more?

Yes!

--
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256 https://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers. Registration Information: https://www.phcomp.co.uk/Contact.html
#include <std_disclaimer.h>

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On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:28:55 -0500
Jeffrey Walton <[email protected]> wrote:

For the benefit of future readers, please mark the thread as
solved.

This is not a forum. Please do not change the title. It creates a new
thread with no context disjoint from thread where the problem was
solved..

That depends on one's mail reader. Emails often have information in
their headers which a mail reader can and do use to handle threading
even with changes of subject. Odd, I thought gmail was capable of doing
so.

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 06:28:55PM -0500, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

[...]

This is not a forum. Please do not change the title. It creates a new
thread with no context disjoint from thread where the problem was
solved..

It only creates a new thread if you have an inferior MUA. Those respecting In-Reply-To headers work fine.

Cheers
--
t

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Bret Busby wrote:

This is not a forum. Please do not change the title. It creates a new thread with no context disjoint from thread where the problem was
solved..

...

If a person interested in the thread, from the wording of the Subject field, reads the messages in the thread, then, the person will see the message
where the original poster advises that the problem is solved.

All modern email software -- say, since 1987 or so -- uses
Message-ID headers and References headers to track threads, not
Subject lines.

For example:

References: <Z4UiQnQqvtWHX5pZ@q957> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]omain>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]omain>
<CAH8yC8kAVpKExODdRhSMb9CBPMeufPk7XQgwWTfyT+GB3VUuSw@mail.gmail.com>

is in the message I am currently replying to. Each of those is a
Message-ID which should be universally unique, and can be used
by a message reading program to deduce where this message should
be displayed in a thread.

-dsr-

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Charles Curley <[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:55:05 +0000
Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote:

Anyway I have it back now. :-)

Glad to hear it.

For the benefit of future readers, please mark the thread as solved.

How do I do that via the Gmane/Usenet gateway?

--
Chris Green
·

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I thought they were coming closer after Brexit and all. They are going to
start importing all that chlorinated beef and chicken the EU wouldn't
allow. This will be cheaper in the stores than English beef. (it's an old story) Maybe they will want to vote next to becoming part of the USA. I
doubt Canada and Greenland would be that stupid. (some intervention of a military nature, may be required to bring them along) Americans and Britain, they have that special relationship. How about Northern Ireland melding
into just Ireland, and Scotland becoming independent and going back into
the EU, they didn't vote to leave anyway. Wales and England can become
states instead of nations. (Wales, they're already there)

La Le Loo,

--
C.

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