Is my computer a horse?
I am alluding here to a famous remark made by the Duke of Wellington. He was born in Ireland, to English parents. He hated people calling him Irish. Sometimes they would say, “But you were born in Ireland.” He would reply, “If a man is born in a stable, does that make him a horse?”
A couple of days ago I found myself on the main page of a famous search engine (not Google). It was all in Spanish. I know enough to recognise the word Preferencias, so I clicked on it, expecting it would allow me to switch to English. No such luck. I could set all sorts of preferences, but not change the language. My computer was in Spain (they could tell from its Internet Protocol address) so I must want to talk to it in Spanish.
I talk to Spaniards in Spanish, and I am very happy to do so. But my computer is not a person (or a horse). I prefer to talk to it in English.
Google of course allows you to switch to a fantastic array of languages. I haven’t looked recently, but it used to include Klingon. I always fancied surfing the Web in Klingon—but do I know enough Klingon to change Google back to English afterwards? That has always deterred me.
To come back to my serious point: it may be a kindness to offer languages based on the IP address of the given computer. It is also essential, in 2007, to offer alternatives.