XPost: comp.lang.c++   
   From: david.brown@hesbynett.no   
      
   On 02/02/2026 01:11, James Kuyper wrote:   
   > On 2026-02-01 17:01, David Brown wrote:   
   > ...   
   >> But when people in other countries want to choose an English language   
   >> environment (because English has a lot of influence on the world - for   
   >> good reasons and bad reasons), why pick an environment that has more   
   >> incompatibilities and baggage than necessary? I expect it is mostly a   
   >> matter of sticking to default choices unless you know you need   
   >> something different, and simply not thinking about the alternatives.   
   >   
   > The US has three times as many native speakers of English than the   
   > entire rest of the world combined, including the entire British   
   > Commonwealth.   
      
   There are about 400 million native English speakers around the world, of   
   which about 230 are in the USA.  Of course any such numbers will be   
   estimates, with surveys being from different years, but it certainly   
   looks like you overestimate the numerical ratios.   
      
   Still, the native speaker numbers are not the relevant numbers here - it   
   is primarily the second language users that matter.  That is, of course,   
   even more difficult to judge well - there is no consensus on how well a   
   second language must be understood to count as an English speaker.  Best   
   guesses, as far as I can see, are about 1.1 billion.   
      
   > When someone from a non-English speaking country sets up   
   > an English compatible environment, there's a pretty good chance he's   
   > doing so to communicate with people in the US, rather than other parts   
   > of English-speaking world.   
   >   
      
   No, by far the most likely reason for a non-native English speaker to   
   speak English is to communicate with another non-native English speaker.   
     English is the lingua franca of the world.   
      
   But my point was more about the factors /other/ than the language.  The   
   whole world, other than the USA, uses metric for everything technical.   
   The whole world, other than the USA, Canada and Mexico uses A4 and   
   related paper sizes.  The whole world, other than the USA, uses either   
   little-endian or big-endian dates.   
      
   Thus for perhaps 80% of people in the world using a computer and   
   communicating in English, UK locale settings are a better fit than US   
   locale settings.  (For many, perhaps most, other English variants - like   
   Indian English locale, would be even better.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)