Microsoft Word thinks Anglophones are dumb
It's been a slow slog of late for me here in London: my thesis for the Univerity of Paris is going slowly, as I've been bogged down in the ins and outs of nationalist theory. Writing it in French doesn't make it any easier. In fact, I am facing something of a quandary, as I cannot tell if it is faster for me to actually write the damn thing in English and then translate it (which takes ages, at least for me) or struggle along in the old Français at a extremely reduced clip. I've stuck to principle, writing in French because I think that it will be useful for the defense in September, but it's quite a pain in the ass.
Anyway, as I was toodling away in Word, writing an extended footnote about the noted nationalism theorist Anthony D. Smith, I realised that as I typed in the name "Eric Hobsbawm" the French dictionary didn't pick up on 'Eric' but recognised the much more obscure surname, 'Hobsbawm.' This was something of a surprise: among the generally well-rounded and well-read, Eric Hobsbawm is known as one of the more mainstream Marxist historians, but he's by no means a bolshevik Bill Bryson: in essence, he is known by Marxists and people who have to endure with Marxist critiques of social phenomena. So, as I surprisedly fixed my gaze at the red squiggly line that failed to appear, I began to wonder if this, like the classic "I'd like to see Bill Gates dead" thesaurus trick, was some sort of Easter Egg-like goodie inputted by some proto-Communist Microsoft programmer with a predilection for proletarianism. I immediately set off to work, testing my theory with increasingly obscure names.
My first tries all passed the test: apparently Hobsbawm, Almodovar, Menger, Mishima, Mick Jagger and Boutros Boutros Ghali were important enough to include in the dictionary. The left-wing theory didn't really seem to hold: Himmler, Spengler and Maistre all went through, though surprisingly 'Hyde' did not. Then I began to wonder, looking down at the input language indicator, if the dictionary entries differed according to country. Now, a bit of differentiation might make sense: Chrétien, Camus, and others are common enough in French and relatively rare in English, so some simple differences there would be expected. However, my inquiry went deeper, to see if there was some underlying assumption made about each country and its MS Word users, to be found in the collection of recognised proper nouns. Indeed, there are some disturbing trends to be found. For want of time to elaborate this further, I will include a list of names that are recognised in certain languages, to show the massive difference.
Names recognised in French but not English (US or UK):
Almodovar, Hobsbawm (and he's English!), Engels, Mishima, Himmler, Maistre, Menger, Mises, Spengler, Hesse, Camus, Durkheim, Gramsci, Hallyday, and, oddly enough, Jagger.
Thus, it would seem that the French dictionary has a wider range of social thinkers (and a wider range of socialists) and authors, which would correspond to the general stereotype that the French are more cultured than their Anglophone counterparts. The sad thing is that they're not even just European social thinkers on their list: Yukio Mishima is there in French but not in Engligh. As for the names that only existed in English, it's a pretty sad lot, with only three examples:
1. Stallone
2. Cobain,
3. Some bonus points here: Koizumi (though the French are notorious for being arsey and spelling names their own way, i.e. Poutine)
I didn't really want to go any further to see if names like Paltrow and Affleck were the only distinctive features of the English dictionary (though I did, and Affleck is recognised though Paltrow is not.) Now, you could argue that this doesn't necessarily reflect any dispartiy in inquitisiveness or intelligence between the two nations, and I would agree with you, and this could very well be the doing of some uppity French programmer who thought a bit of culture was needed to differentiate from les cochons anglophones impéralistes de culture inepte basée sur les hamburgers et la mcdonaldisation des blah blah blah, but regardless, I'm still a bit startled. Anyway, a fun and fleeting thought, but it's back to Smith and the Ethnic Origins of Nations for me.
Anyway, as I was toodling away in Word, writing an extended footnote about the noted nationalism theorist Anthony D. Smith, I realised that as I typed in the name "Eric Hobsbawm" the French dictionary didn't pick up on 'Eric' but recognised the much more obscure surname, 'Hobsbawm.' This was something of a surprise: among the generally well-rounded and well-read, Eric Hobsbawm is known as one of the more mainstream Marxist historians, but he's by no means a bolshevik Bill Bryson: in essence, he is known by Marxists and people who have to endure with Marxist critiques of social phenomena. So, as I surprisedly fixed my gaze at the red squiggly line that failed to appear, I began to wonder if this, like the classic "I'd like to see Bill Gates dead" thesaurus trick, was some sort of Easter Egg-like goodie inputted by some proto-Communist Microsoft programmer with a predilection for proletarianism. I immediately set off to work, testing my theory with increasingly obscure names.
My first tries all passed the test: apparently Hobsbawm, Almodovar, Menger, Mishima, Mick Jagger and Boutros Boutros Ghali were important enough to include in the dictionary. The left-wing theory didn't really seem to hold: Himmler, Spengler and Maistre all went through, though surprisingly 'Hyde' did not. Then I began to wonder, looking down at the input language indicator, if the dictionary entries differed according to country. Now, a bit of differentiation might make sense: Chrétien, Camus, and others are common enough in French and relatively rare in English, so some simple differences there would be expected. However, my inquiry went deeper, to see if there was some underlying assumption made about each country and its MS Word users, to be found in the collection of recognised proper nouns. Indeed, there are some disturbing trends to be found. For want of time to elaborate this further, I will include a list of names that are recognised in certain languages, to show the massive difference.
Names recognised in French but not English (US or UK):
Almodovar, Hobsbawm (and he's English!), Engels, Mishima, Himmler, Maistre, Menger, Mises, Spengler, Hesse, Camus, Durkheim, Gramsci, Hallyday, and, oddly enough, Jagger.
Thus, it would seem that the French dictionary has a wider range of social thinkers (and a wider range of socialists) and authors, which would correspond to the general stereotype that the French are more cultured than their Anglophone counterparts. The sad thing is that they're not even just European social thinkers on their list: Yukio Mishima is there in French but not in Engligh. As for the names that only existed in English, it's a pretty sad lot, with only three examples:
1. Stallone
2. Cobain,
3. Some bonus points here: Koizumi (though the French are notorious for being arsey and spelling names their own way, i.e. Poutine)
I didn't really want to go any further to see if names like Paltrow and Affleck were the only distinctive features of the English dictionary (though I did, and Affleck is recognised though Paltrow is not.) Now, you could argue that this doesn't necessarily reflect any dispartiy in inquitisiveness or intelligence between the two nations, and I would agree with you, and this could very well be the doing of some uppity French programmer who thought a bit of culture was needed to differentiate from les cochons anglophones impéralistes de culture inepte basée sur les hamburgers et la mcdonaldisation des blah blah blah, but regardless, I'm still a bit startled. Anyway, a fun and fleeting thought, but it's back to Smith and the Ethnic Origins of Nations for me.
posted by Det. John Kimble at 13:32
4 comments
