The short answer
Your choice, in Settings. It applies to every app you dictate into: colour or color, organise or organize, travelled or traveled.
Setting it
- Click the Perfect Dictation icon in the tray and open Settings.
- Choose British or American spelling.
- Close Settings. Your next dictation uses it, and the choice follows you to your other PCs.
What changes
| British | American | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| colour, favour, behaviour | color, favor, behavior | -our and -or |
| organise, realise, apologise | organize, realize, apologize | -ise and -ize |
| centre, metre, theatre | center, meter, theater | -re and -er |
| travelled, cancelled, modelling | traveled, canceled, modeling | doubled l |
| defence, licence (noun) | defense, license | -ce and -se |
| catalogue, dialogue | catalog, dialog | -ogue and -og |
Speech sounds the same either way, so the spelling is decided entirely by this setting, not by your accent. An American accent with British spelling works perfectly well, and so does the reverse.
Words it leaves alone
Some words are never changed, whichever spelling you choose:
- Names of people, places, companies and products: "Pearl Harbor" stays as it is, and so does "Labour Party".
- Words in your dictionary, which are always spelt exactly the way you saved them.
- Code: in the Code style, identifiers such as color or initialize are kept exactly as you say them, because changing them would break the code.
- Snippets, which are typed exactly as you saved them.
Other English spelling choices
Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Irish and South African English mostly follow British spelling, with a few differences of their own. Pick British and add any local words you use often to your dictionary. If you write for an American publication or client, pick American for that work; you can switch at any time.
When one document needs the other spelling
If you usually write British English but one client wants American, you have two options:
- Switch the setting for the length of that job, then switch it back.
- Make your own style for that client's app with a line such as "use American spelling", and keep British everywhere else. See Can I make my own style?
Related questions
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