The editors of Bergensavisen had a problem. The readers of their newspaper — published in Bergen, Norway’s second largest city — spell and use some Norwegian words and expressions in a way that is unique from other areas of the country. This is a source of pride that, in some way, makes the residents of this city on the North Sea culturally distinct.
In the land of the fjords, words matter. “It’s not only the dialect that is different, but also the way we write words,” said Tor Christian Larsen, graphic designer and creative leader at Bergensavisen. For example, the standard spelling of the word “tjuagutt” (which loosely translates into the English word “rascal”) is changed in Bergen, where they spell it “kjuagutt”. This might seem like a fairly small, insignificant detail, but to the people of western Norway, it matters. “The local spelling is very, very important to us,” said Håvard Myklebust, journalist and night editor.
So much so, that the newspaper published opposing viewpoint columns on the merits of the two different spellings of the word, as well as a Short Message Service (SMS) reader poll to decide, once and for all, which spelling they should use. “It was one of the best polls we’ve had,” said Myklebust. And the results of the poll? The majority of readers preferred the non-standard, local spelling.
All of this means that the newspaper must work hard to ensure that the text they publish conforms to their region’s special style. That includes articles written by young journalists trained in other parts of the country, as well as stories received from wire services and contributing journalists. Because of this, “standard spelling checkers would never work for us,” said Larsen, since they would continually try to “correct” the local dialect, and would probably introduce errors, instead of eliminate them. But, luckily, the editors at Bergensavisen have some help from a special kind of spell checking technology called the Tansa Text Proofing System.
