Bot Text Chronicles

Language differences matter.

They reflect our cultures, our personalities and our standards.

This post is about different types of English and generative AI.

English is spoken in many countries across the world as a first language: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Jamaica, the Philippines, India, Pakistan Singapore and Hong Kong. (Thanks, Wikipedia).

They all use it slightly differently in terms of word combinations, sentence constructions and unique words and dialects that reflect their population’s history and culture. And that’s what makes things special.

Individuality counts

Problem is, generative AI thinks we are all American. Oh yeah, you can ask it to write in another kind of English, but the results aren’t reliable.

In itself, that’s not a biggie; we can edit it.

What’s dismaying me though, right now, with what I’m seeing in the UK, is that people aren’t bothering.

Don’t give me newsletters stuffed with ‘-ize’ endings, dates the wrong way round and Oxford commas! And don’t get me started on the propensity to Capitalise Every Word In A Title or sub-heading.

UK folks, you should know better. This is not how we write.

If you work in Marketing, you’ll know how important being ‘frictionless’ is.

Using US gen-AI text is not it.

Surely I can’t be the only one to be dismayed by this? What about you, friends who speak other versions of English?

#NotUSAEnglish #FightForYourEnglish #ReadItNowEdit