MapMyGlobe

Geolocalization, Geolocalisation, Geolocation?

For a while I’ve been wondering which one (if any) of these terms is proper english. The first two ones appeal to French speakers like I am (the French word being “Géolocalisation”), but it turns out they’re as far from Shakespeare’s language as it could get. On the other hand, the third one, Geolocation, is designated by Google, and therefore by the Wisdom of the Crowds, as the proper one :)

Here at MapMyGlobe, we use a tiny bit of IP geolocation (or more accurately, we’ll use it in the next release) to position a pin for the user when he creates his own profile page.

IP Geolocation is also a very important piece of my other project, MapMySearch, a mashup that enables you to locate on a map, the servers hosting the top results of your search in Google.

5 Responses to “Geolocalization, Geolocalisation, Geolocation?”

  1. Nick Says:

    Thanks for clearing this up. I think with a quick glance in the translation dictionary, it’s easy to think that the words are the same since they resemble each other so closely.

  2. Richard Says:

    Yes, a common mistake (even among native English speakers!).

    Localize/localise means “to assign or limit to a place” (e.g. localized pain = douleur localisée), whereas
    Locate means “to situate, to find the position of, to find or pinpoint” when transitive (e.g. My SatNav located the shop quickly),
    and “to establish oneself in residence or business in an area” when intransitive (e.g. he located to LA, increasingly “relocated” nowadays).
    As for “-ize”/”-ise”, the rule is as follows:
    “-ize” is mandatory in American spelling, and optional in British spelling (most British publishers prefer “-ise”, Oxford University Press and a few other leading publishers prefer “-ize”, for perfectly valid etymological reasons I won’t go into here but am happy to expand on if you wish).

  3. Julien Says:

    Wow! Thanks for the very thorough explanation, Richard!

  4. bondage Says:

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  5. girls in bondage Says:

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