Office 07 Goes Ocker

November 14th, 2006: Microsoft Office 2007 may be trying to push the boundaries of productivity, but the one improvement to the upcoming suite that has caught attention in Australia, is not the ribbon interface, but its inclusion of popular Aussie colloquialisms in its dictionary.

The company conducted an online poll to see what colloquialisms Australians think should be on the top 20 inclusion list. After over 24,000 responses, words such as ute, sheila, bogan, trackies and sickie (particularly helpful for those working in call centres) have all made the top 20.

Speaking to computerworld.com.au Microsoft Australia information group director Tony Wilkinson said that Microsoft teamed up with Australian language experts to flush out exactly which parts of our vernacular should be included.

“We knew that some quintessential Aussie vernacular was missing, so in order to make our next software release more user-friendly for Australians, we thought it would be a great idea to have our most popular Aussie words included in the 2007 Microsoft Office system,” he said. “We saw the release of the Office system as the ideal opportunity to make sure the Aussie classics weren't forgotten and new Aussie words were added.”

Perhaps MS Word will now also auto correct American spelling when using the Australian dictionary. After all, leaving the ‘z’ in organization is a trifle unfair when G’day gets assaulted by the red wavy line.

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