[texhax] do British LaTeX macros exist?

[Sam Halliday]

Pavel Minev Penev wrote:
> > Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> > >   \let\centre\center
> > >   \let\endcentre\endcenter
> The "\let" primitive was the first I thought of, as well. But then,
> what if someone wanted to write a package that tweaks the "center"
> enrironment/command somehow? This person would simply want to redefine
> "center" and if you executed your "\let\centre=\center" beforehand,
> the changes would be lost.
well, i just make sure i call "\let\centre=\center" after i load all the
required packages. this answers another question i had, thank you for
being preemptive

> Besides there are some scripts and programs that parse (La)TeX code
> (`rubber` for example). They expect to find some macro names and
> *especially package names* in the "standard" American English.
yes, i realise that american english is the (La)TeX standard, and if i
wrote an adon package for either, i would most certainly use the
standard. (somebody pointed out that `color' was actually written by a
brit!). actual package names i would not be concerned about. i am fine
calling the `color' package once, but in my document i would like to be
able to refer to \textcolour. \let seems to let (excuse the pun) me do
that.

> And what happens if you have a friend in Japan who has written a great
> long new macro using a Japanese TeX context and you need the macro?
i am not trying to change the standard, that would be a massive task to
undergo! (however, in the long term, maybe it needs to happen. even GNU
are becoming localised-minded!) but it would be nice if such a macro
when written in american, also had a japanese wrapper. (i am not sure
about how different charsets work under TeX, so please excuse my
ignorance if such a thing already exists)

> I myself live in Bulgaria and like my native tongue. However, I don't
> think it's worth to put the world into such a trouble as a Bulgarian
> *TeX context.
well, that would certainly be a much larger task to take upon yourself.
but british from american english is really only a few redefinitions. i
only wanted to know how to make the macros so that in my own stuff i
would not have to correct my spelling all the time. as far as i can
tell, in my own stuff; i think i really only need to redefine color,
center and itemize. i wasn't really aiming for anything big enough to
warrant a .sty file, i was thinking on a more local "few lines at the
top of the main.tex file" kinda thing :-/

thanks for everyones help on the matter!
Sam

England and America are two countries separated by the same language
- George Bernard Shaw

England and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean
- Eddie Izzard