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Comment by smcleod | Hacker News Reader

Well, only Americans use it. There's no point in arguing about it your version of a language is better or worse but for the rest of the world it's incredibly annoying having to correct Zs with Ss when using LLMs or American only software.

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I'm actually Russian. The whole world uses American English, by virtue of US dominance in all important technical and cultural spheres.

"The only whole world uses American English" ... I think you might be living in a bubble. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

He is actually correct. I am neither American nor English.

Commonwealth nations tend to not use American English. They form a fairly major part of the world.

That's certainly not the case in the majority of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, East Africa, West Africa, South Africa, PNG, Fiji, Philippines, South Asia and South East Asia. Really it's mostly just America and Canada that use American.

I could cite many sources but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_s... provides a simple view.

American forms are definitely dominant in the Philippines, even in an official capacity. I can't comment on Africa, but I would also characterize SEA as American-leaning in the wild; en-gb dominates in education but largely illusory. Elsethread the same claim is made of the "majority of Europe".

We don't use American English in Canada either.

Oh! I'm sorry, I must have misread!

I honestly don't think this is true. In many places outside the US our devices will default to US spelling, making it appear as if the language spoken by the locals is US English.

But when you look at things like the type of English being taught in school, or the language used by the government, it'll be UK/International English.

I regularly correspond to people from all over the world, India, China, Brazil, France, and they all tend to use US English, thus the suggestion.

Commonwealth countries are relatively minor in population compared to the USA and the rest of the world.

And yes, default US spelling in devices does play a role. See prev. point about technological and cultural dominance.

> Commonwealth countries are relatively minor in population compared to the USA and the rest of the world.

Given India's presence in the Commonwealth, this seems an odd assertion. 2.6 billion people live in the Commonwealth[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Commonwea...

Kinda forgot India is still part of the Commonwealth. Maybe because all Indians I ever corresponded with uniformly used US spelling, likely because they work a lot with the USA. YMMV.

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