Blimey! It looks like Apple's declared war on the British or something. First there's the ongoing saga of Apple's extreme reluctance to show up at any Mac trade show held in the UK-- the company bailed out of the English Apple Expo last year, cancelled this year's show, and just recently pulled out of next year's show, originally slated to be the biggest UK expo ever, complete with one of Steve Jobs' famous keynotes. And if that wasn't enough to get UK Mac users and vendors to lose their cool, Apple's added insult to injury by also revealing that the Mac OS will no longer be available in a British-localized version. Instead, British Mac users will have to opt for the "International English" version. Say so long to the Rubbish Bin...

Yes, according to a Macworld UK article, Apple has eliminated the British version of the Mac OS from its development list, citing lower costs and quicker release times as reasons for the decision. So starting with Mac OS 9, UK Mac mavens will have to put up with all sorts of Americanizations from which Apple had once shielded them. In addition to seeing their "Rubbish" converted into "Trash," they'll also have to put up with spelling departures from the Mother Tongue: "color" instead of "colour," "favorites" instead of "favourites", etc. Sure, these may sound like pretty small issues to a lot of us, but wouldn't you find it a little jarring if Apple suddenly used British spellings in the U.S. release of Mac OS 9? (Personally, we think that'd be kinda cool, but that's just us.)

And really, we doubt that the anger felt by lots of British Macfolk is just due to a few spelling incongruities. More likely it's that sinking feeling that Apple no longer feels Great Britain is worthy of its attention; after all, it's not like Apple never made a British-localized Mac OS-- this is something they used to do, but now have decided is no longer worthwhile. You know, sort of like showing up for UK Mac trade shows. As Macworld UK notes in a collection of reader reactions, even Microsoft makes a British version of Windows. So does Steve Jobs have some sort of psychotic hatred for the English, à la Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda? Perhaps there was some childhood tragedy involving a steak and kidney pie of which we've never been made aware?