No “honor” killings here

I just discovered a blog by three al-Jazeera workers (courtesy of [Dunner](http://dunner99.blogspot.com/2005/12/honor-vs-honour.html)) and an entry on it about a simple misunderstanding of language. Someone searched on the al-Jazeera site for stories on “honor killings”, and couldn’t find any, and came to the conclusion that al-Jazeera didn’t care about the issue. The real reason was that the website used UK spellings, and spelled it “honour”.

Is this really a case of stupid cultural insensitivity towards something as well-known as different spellings of English words, or is it a fault with the technology? Perhaps search tools could be developed which, by default, search for *both* versions of words with different spellings? Not everyone knows that Arabs, while a lot of them speak English with an American accent, may not use every American usage. (Bear in mind, the British had a presence in the Gulf region until fairly recently.)

Don’t Bomb Us – A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers: Lost in Translation