British Steam Installer
I can’t be the only person who’s bugged by the fact that when you install Steam (which is an awesome service), and select “English” in the installer – it displays a picture of the american flag. The language is not american, its english – this is silly. It’s bugged me time and time again, and so today, I decided to do something about it. I’ll spare people the technical details, but I’ve produced my own modified version of the steam installer. The ONLY difference between the official version, and my version, is that my version displays the correct flag next to “English”… it displays the Union Flag! Here’s how it looks:
The installer can be downloaded from my skydrive here. I hope in time, Valve will see their mistake and make this change in their official version.
Yeah, even though I’m American, I agree with this completely. Companies shouldn’t use the American flag as a symbol for the english language in installers, after all, we did get the language from Britain. They should use the actual *name* of the language… english… as in… England. One time I was talking to this really ditzy girl, and she was talking about how she wanted to go to britain, but she said she couldn’t find a language guide for english to british translations…. I was like…. omfg
Haha wow… english to british translation… thats insane :O
stay on your own damn side of the ocean :p
In all seriousness, it’s your own fault. You kicked us out, then bitch at us when your language is more easily represented by our flag? Sorry we did something better than you.
But yeah, Steam does pretty much kick ass. And Impulse. Can’t wait to see what they drive each other to do.
Sorry, old chap, but the Union Jack is the flag of the UK, not of England. If you really feel the need to be so particular about it, then you’d best use the Saint George Cross. Otherwise, I want a plugin for Gaelic and Welsh as well.
Yes, England was where English came from, but America has more people then Great Britain all together. Why should we conform to the minority. It makes no sense. More people would be upset if we had to use the Union Jack instead of the American Flag.
Why don’t they use the flag of The Democratic Republic of the Congo for French then?
There are more English speakers in India than any other country in the world.
American English is different.
If it says color then it is American English, and should have an American flag.
If it says colour, then you can distinguish the mistake by using a different flag.
One should be careful to not take undeserved credit for correcting/ fixing the broken language.
FNsuinag, would you prefer if he changed the Spanish flag for a Mexican flag too?
BTW, Europe would think Britain before America when it comes to the English language, and the EU has 600 million people to Americas 300 million people. You are right it makes no sense to conform to the minority!
Flags represent countries, not languages.
The country that the language originated in surely should be there. I hate reading Americanised English, it makes me illiterate.
The St Georges Cross would be super though I’d feel that thing yanks always go on about patriotism.
Also you were never kicked out of England you wanted to practice religion, and paganism freely without law so they set off for the New World, then when the English government wanted some tax money (which was unfairly high) you kicked off dressed up as Indians and threw tea in the sea!
I love US history it starts 1620 with the “We LAnded at Plymouth Rock” “there was nothing before this point” lol
Any, well thats exactly what this is all about – this is the steam language selection in the installer – if the language is English, surely it should be a UK flag? It’s OUR language. If the language said “American” then by all means use the american flag. It’s about whats logical, I’m not gonna expect the Korean flag to appear next to Japanese
What everyone isn’t considering is that the language they use on Steam isn’t British English, it’s American English. American English uses z’s in words like civilization (Britain spells it civilisation) and has other various spelling rules (color instead of colour, etc). If Steam spelled words like that then they could use the British flag. Americans don’t speak English. We speak American.
In which case the language should be listed as “American” or “English (US)” which is the convention in software these days.
Ah, but English (US) or American isn’t really a language. We all speak ordinary English, just with an American *dialect*. So in a way, the flag is representing a dialect. The word “English” shows that the basic language is English, whereas the American flag shows that the particular dialect it is specifically written in is the American dialect of English.
Meh, it’s worth a shot, anyway.
Sorry to say but your wrong. When these installers refer to English as American English. When you say English it refers to American English because most of these companies are located in the U.S. If these companies were located in England then it would be European English. So in fact there is nothing wrong with the U.S. flag by the English selection for Steam. I think you just have a problem with the U.S. and need to get over it.
American English? no such thing there is English and slang that is it.
Well yeah there’s nothing technically wrong with the US flag next to the English selection, but it’s kind of weird as an Englishman to see your language represented by someone elses flag. There should be a choice and Calamari has given that choice right here.
As I recall, Daniel Ross, choice and freedom are some very American principles. So why the heck do you have a problem with them?
Btw there’s no such thing as ‘European English’. In fact there’s no such thing as a European language, the EU parliament even has a massive team of translators to sort this. Things would be much easier with a European English. >_>
Do you really care so much that you would take the time to mod Steam just so you could satisfy your pompous British ego? Get a life, get off your limey duff, and go do something productive. Try contributing to society a little. The rest of us are.
Contributing to society? By berating someone who wants his language represented by his country’s flag. Oh how society would fall if it wasn’t for your awesome contribution.
The language may have originated in England but hearing English people use the language now is like watching an accident in slow motion. Horrible pronunciations, incorrect usage of words and the accent is appalling. You may have spoken it first but we have definitely perfected it. Plus Steam is an American product so what do you expect?
Common sense: English people have Horrible pronunciations LOL. Who is it that say rowt when they mean Route. When will Americans learn what the letter E on the end of a word does. Who is it that say Erb when they mean Herb. What the hell are vightamins? Oh do you mean Vitamins? Why is it so hard for Americans to read there is nothing in the spelling that makes it sound like Vightamins.
Jack, you don’t pronounce everything the way it’s spelled.
Phone……Fone
Car……Kar
Sausages….Sosajes
House…Howse
Island……Iland
Point made.
Joe: You got to be American Phone is pronouced how it is spelt. Do you not understand the PH sound? Car is pronouced how it is spelt as is Sausages and House.
The point you made is Americans do not understand the basics of English.
Seriously, get over it. Quit whining about every little mistake. It doesn’t even make any difference anyway.
English language is a collection of stolen words and grammar (and how arbitrary that is) from many languages, most notably Latin and German. The rules for pronunciation and spelling are both arbitrary and localized. There is no one version that is any more correct than another. English speaking colonist did not change their dialect and speaking while the usage in Brittan remained static, they both evolved in different directions. Very few if any people still speak Old English on a regular basis, which if you want to get technical about it is more proper than either of the dialects used in America or England. Very few languages are static, and that is a good thing. The french feel their localized abomination of Latin needs to be protected with an entire state sponsored department, but it still evolves regardless.
But kudos to you good sir for your mod.
@Tom
Where the hell is Brittan?
(more proper) LOL. I guess that you are American.
When you use terms like “more proper” you have shown that the flag should be British.
You’re all being over-analytical faggots.
Who cares about god damn flags anyway?
English is English. Valve is based in the US, so they’re going to use their native flag.
This is not what i was looking to read.
this is awesome i will be using this in future, i like how all the americans think its petty, americans go out of their way to change our language, but then again, at least i dont live in a gang ridden fat-arse peice of shit country, maybe the americans will realise that we as brits like being insulted, its how most of our humour is made up!
English may have originated in Britain, but America has 6 times the population. Therefore the majority of Steam users who speak English are likely to be from the US.
Just installed steam and noticed this. For some reason it really annoyed me! It should either say English (US) and have a picture of the US flag or say English and have a picture of the Union Jack. Sort it out Valve!
Unbelievable how you folks think that this is okay, it’s an outrage and it’s politically incorrect.
Just because there is more Americans does not make it okay, infact, any of you idiots that think that way are blatently wrong. It is English, not American. American does not exist, it shows how sheltered you are if you think that way. This shows American stupidity at it’s finest. I personally as a British citizen find this appauling to say the least.
I am from Northern Ireland and I still find this a disgrace. Anyone who argues against this, is either American, or very much biggoted by their own patriotic views.
I never would of imagined a forum on this subject, I was lead to a google search for this very reason. American English is acceptable but English with an American flag is derogatory. Steam is fantastic, I love it and yes devised and run from the states. I wonder how Sir Tim Berners-Lee would feel about this considering the comments regarding Steam’s ownership. It wouldn’t run particularly well without the World Wide Web now would it.
This argument is pretty stupid. But I do agree that there is a difference between American English and British English. However, even though there are differences between the two versions of English, there’s no point in making it a big deal. American English is not that different from British English. Sure the BE speakers say, “I’ve just had lunch” instead of “I just ate lunch”, or “I’ve just told you that” instead of “I just told you that”, or “I’ve drunk your water” instead of “I drank your water”. And sure you call gas “petrol” (whatever the weird reason for that might be). Why care about this stuff? We are not Americans and we are not the British. We are just people. If you can understand what Steam tells you, then there’s no point to freak out about it. I highly doubt that Steam’s AE really hinders a BE speaker’s ability to understand what it’s saying.
English is not my first language, but I’ve learned it at a young age (before the ‘critical period’ as Educators here in America call it). May be you have to be a native born citizen of America or England to understand your guys’ frustrations. Who knows.