blamebrampton | A case in point ...

A case in point ...

So, there we were, having a chat on a friend's LJ about the differences between the US and the UK for purposes of a self-Britpicking list, with participants from both sides of the pond and beyond and frequent diversions into baiting and comedy from all sides, and apparently it has become a source of Flocked Drama.

Consider the argument very carefully: At least one American is very upset that British people prefer to be depicted in accurate ways.

And if you can't see why that's a bit dodgy, replace the word British with any other nationality.

I don't want to overstate the case, because really, it doesn't culturally oppress us the way that some other cultures have been oppressed by this sort of thing, since we don't deeply care and we had an Empire first. And while the original source of the complaint is a preference, it's certainly not a sine qua non, and we read heaps of stuff that gets us wrong, and some of it is good and some is crap, and really, at the end of the day we still pronounce and spell aluminium in ways that are scientifically logical, which in itself is enough. But, honestly ...

Interestingly, one of my points of difference was a tendency to soap-opera-like over-reactions in fiction. Clearly I drew the line too narrowly.

AND I left off the fact that it the entire United States has been the subject of mass-brainwashing to accept caffeinated flavoured beverages as coffee. Though I see Starbucks has dropped the word from their logo, truth in advertising at last!

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I saw all the posts and had good fun reading through all of them—figuring out the differences, laughing at all the crazy, nonsensical little things that set the once colony apart from its mothership :D... I intend to return to those posts whenever I forget the details and would like to learn them again.

More for RL as a kind of cultural trivia (some more trivial than others) than for the sake of fiction writing though, I confess. What I'd like to say is this: I actually find it very... error-prone to give general cultural statetments about one place, even if that place is where one calls home for his whole life. It is suspiciously likely that several doors down there would be someone whose views of what is the social-political norm and history of ... not even their country, which is much wider than the place they conduct their life, but just the neighbourhood, even—is entirely different. I used to live in a very dense, very tiny city with a highly homogeneous culture, but even there, there're still so many people who'd describe our common streets and speak and act in slangs and manners I can't completely comprehend. And back to the US vs UK thing, generalizations about the US as depicted are not necessarily fair—the East and West Coast have their own differences, mid-America, likely even more its own world (I know little about it, other than reading the news—which isn't the same as being there); so if one really wants to be picky, even an American writing for an American-based fandom can commit serious cultural faux-pas and I'm sure there's some wank somewhere happening at this moment on that topic :D. I'm sure different parts of the UK have their own culture as well.

I hesitate to generalize for that reason, and I really hesitate to call others out on those things. I am also not very keen on strict Britpick for fanfic writing if I'm time tight (which I am almost all the time) for that reason— Britpick, to me, is not so objective that it can make or break a fic—and writing about the wizarding world is not strictly the UK, so, who knows, maybe wizards DO put cream in tea, triple layers and all, which would explain the very effective lubrication spells :D. Really I find it less critical for a beginning writer like myself to get the Brit thing perfect, compared to spending the time to figure out how to tell a good story. The latter is neverending task. If I do have the time and patience, I, of course, would love to try to weed out Americanisms (and for me, a healthy mix of Asianism likely—just that tea thing the variations between the US and the UK would not be all that eye-catching at all if I start to go into the Asian tea habits :D ); but I wouldn't not publish a story if I don't get there; nor would I claim any story is unreadable because the authors didn't get it right. There are many more worse ways to ruin a fic than having—OMGod and Hay-soos and every haloed dude shopping guns at Walmart—muffin and coffee on the breakfast table. :)

And since I'm rambling off anyways, being someone who is not an English native speaker, slangs are kinda ... so far beyond me they're like Snitches and me, Mr Longbottom. What I have done to minimize the damage is to avoid having the characters swear as much as I can—and basicially not let Ron talk :). And if someone comes to me and announced well, your slang choice is American, I'd change it, of course, and thank her, but then if the outraged face persists, I'd grin and ask "Cut me some slack, will ya?" (which is probably American???)

*Huggles you *

Huggles you back!

And yes, you are very right about proscription and prescription being inherently problematic, as the Great Sleepy Underpants Debate of 2011 shows. I think that a Britpick is a good idea, but I don't think it is the essential requirement for a good Potter fic, as history and my reading preferences show! And slack-cutting (another great phrase ;-)) should be essential!

As always, I remain unfussed about American spellings and the like, and although I will sometimes find myself unconvinced by things in stories -- going on a date, for example -- it's very easy to read past that for a good story. But I do find it outrageous that a discussion of difference is read as ghastly mean Brits. That's my line and I am drawing it!

The Great Sleepy Underpants Debate is one that should go down in history *nods solemnly*

I'm never quite warm to the dating concept myself too, and I am American! :P—though, strictly speaking, I carried a British passport for 2/3 of my life :D.

I don't see any ghastly mean Brits anywhere on my flist either; as I said, I enjoyed it and had a good time following the post :D. But yeah, I can understand why some people may be upset....generalizing yet again, I confess, but it's not common for Americans to bring up a discussion of this nature without at least a few "I don't intend this to be personal or an attack on one's intelligence / skills" and "I still love you all the same!" disclaimers and assurances tagged in place; this, I suspect, is part of the US vs UK cultural package as well. :)

I am not British, but was raised on British customs and traditions via books; I also came to the Mainland (which was definitely a foreign culture to me; you probably call it "America") on an Australian boat. I first learned to prefer tea on that ship, and drank it as the (mostly British/Australian/NZers) drank it -- with cream. (Later, I learned to drink coffee that way, for much the same reasons; I was very young.)

However, this was a loooong time ago, and it may well be that tea customs have changed. I suspect there are both class and age differences concerning preferred foods and drinks, as well as politics, etc. All I formally know about the British beyond the reading education relates to undergraduate and graduate school history and rhetoric; a rather abstruse knowledge for most people. I overwork Britglish a lot when I have a fic due, and I think it improves my fic to learn, for example, that "Oxfam," not "thrift shop" is where you get used clothing.

Nonetheless, I'm feeling a little defensive because technically I am American, but moving first to Seattle and later to Iowa were horrible culture shocks for me and at first I got everything wrong. Just when I'd adjusted to Seattle, I was off to Iowa and an entirely different set of cultural customs. (For example, you don't discuss your feelings and needs in Iowa, but you do discuss your neighbors' business. And weather is a serious topic of conversation, not just small talk. And the Humane Society is a far left Animal Rights organization. Really.) So when I hear people generalizing an entire country, it raises my hackles. Whether it's England, or Haiti, or yes, the United States.

But then, I didn't see the earlier post and if it was as hostile as you say -- arguing that a desire for accuracy is anti-American, forsooth! -- I'd probably start talking about Americans and their idiotic willful ignorance. (Whom'm I kidding? I already do, every time I read the blogs!)

And I really, really want to hear about the Great Sleepy Underpants Debate!

tee hee... well your interjection gave me a smile, because (to generalise ) I very much doubt there is a single English, Australian or New Zealander who would ever describe what they put in their tea as "cream". This particular term is of great curiosity to me... if Americans call what we call milk, cream... what do Americans call what we call cream? Americans must get a real shock when they visit our neck of the woods and ask for cream in their coffee and not only get actual coffee, but actual cream in it!

I want to know, too! I can never order anything dairy in the US because I am so hopelessly confused. The girl at the Starbucks in LAX told me that she thought half-and-half was the closest thing to normal milk, but another American friend recently told me that she thought it was closer to single cream.

1/2-1/2 tastes more similar to cream than US milk, I think :). Milk in the US is this really, really strange tasting liquid that gave me a bit of a shock the first time I downed it—and not necessarily in a good way; I was a brave and polite little trooper though and finished it!!!!! :D I still miss my imported Australian milk from the days when I was little—that milk, I personally think, tastes more like cream here :DDDDD.

OK, what we need to do is all go to the shops and write down the fat content of each dairy product and then compare and contrast. I feel certain we can come up with useful data!

That's a good idea. I'd be curious as well. Words like half-and-half thoroughly mystify me because last time I was in a foreign country and had to learn that term, it referred to ground meat that had been mixed together from pork and beef.

I will launch the great dairy decoder as soon as I have a bit of time!

:) Just for the record then, in this country, we have the product called 'milk' that has a 2.8% fat content, 'fatty milk' which is of 3.6% fat content, and um... dunno what to translate it to, perhaps 'lean milk' that has a 1-1.5% fat content. There is the apocryphal 0%-milk but I don't think anyone sane buys that. These names are mainly just for labelling purposes. We usually just call all of these 'milk' and refer to them by the fat content when differentiating is required. We have whipping cream (20% fat and all sorts of additives) and coffee cream (about 10% fat).

No one here would ever think of putting any of these into tea.

Now I'm just very curious about what you call milk! I mean, I'm not a milk drinker, but when I put it in things (my chai from Starbucks, for one, heh) it's always 1% or Fat Free, which is the closest you can get to water and still be white. From reading your comment I'm assuming I would get a very rude awakening asking for milk in your neck of the woods and ending up with your version of buttermilk, which is so very milk it would probably make me gag. :p

Normal Australian milk is about 4% fat, British milk is very slightly less, often about 3.6%. Wikipedia tells me that raw milk is just under 4% naturally, which could be true, from memory of milking, pouring into a bottle, sticking in the stream and drinking later. 1% is most of the way to skimmed for me!

Ah. Okay, in looking at the chart American whole milk is about 3.25% fat, which would be a little less than British milk, but definitely noticeable next to Australian milk. American Half and Half looks to be 10 - 18% though, which would probably be strange for just drinking to any of the people who drank the classes of milk mentioned above.

I must be alive, I learned something today. ♥

Putting in my $0.02's worth, here in Germany we have something called "coffee cream" that has anything between 8 and 16% fat content. Full milk has 3.5/3.8%, full cream 28 - 32% fat content.

At a restaurant, you'd get this "coffee cream" for both tea and coffee; Starbucks here uses either full or semi-skim (1.5%) milk, IIRC. (Nobody would even THINK of offering or asking for anything below that; skim milk (usually 0.3%) has become even rare in the shops.) In private homes, it varies -- pretty much anything goes from milk over condensed milk to full cream.

In Switzerland Milk is 3.5% fat, normal runny cream is 35%. Gruyere cream is the "creme de la creme" and I think is about 40%.

Well, you can get "crème double" here (ca. 40% fat, very custard-like consistency, but not quite as firm as the French product of the same name) -- and it's COMPLETELY different from the UK's double cream.

I think you can make a few generalisations about the way a country works as a whole, but they can only be general. Too much religion in America, too much sport in Australia, too much rain in the UK ... You can point to some things as being disproportionately influential in a country, which I would say those three all are.

I think it is also valid to complain about specific things in a specific way. I complained that American writing at the moment is overly influenced by soap opera (I should confess that I was actually thinking of film and television writing there rather than fandom, in actual fact, hp fandom at least is better than the average). This doesn't mean that every piece of American writing is, but that I see it as being a trope that is too powerful, to the detriment of the whole, at this time. It's exactly as I see the fact of bad sportsmanship on the part of many leading Australian cricketers as damaging cricket here, it doesn't make all Australians bad sports.

All I ask is accurate reading. I am more than happy to have to defend things I have actually said.

As to the underpants -- opinion is divided! Does wearing undies to bed mark you out as unlikely to be British? Or of a certain class/place/age? Or at a certain time in the month? Or with a cold and breezy bedroom or nastily seamed pyjama bottoms? Like the toast on one side debate, further investigation is required!

LOL! And yes, I screwed up and responded to what one makes the tea (ie "white") as opposed to the substance. momeble's comparison of fat content fascinates me... I think I need to find out what "heavy" cream is (I doubt it's 100% fat, but I could be wrong.) I am not fond of cream in tea so much as half and half. When I was little, my mom referred to "coffee cream" and "whipping cream." One more abhorrent practice by factory-farmed US dairies, btw, is to put carrageenan (seaweed derivative) into the "whipping cream" to make sure it whips. Adds a slightly off flavour to good milk...

Oooh, bedtime. Good confusion -- and research could be fun. I always assumed that where there's a word, there's a phenomenon -- and my beta keeps reminding me to spell it "pyjamas." (She's Hungarian, btw, and absolutely committed to pure Brit... and spelling the words in HP right, including capitals, which is so not my thing. OTOH, as you can tell from my icon, I REALLY care about spelling, punctuation, and verb tense.) (Would be curious where you are with "might." The most American thing I notice is that no one uses subjunctive form any more...)

I think I got distracted by the undies from properly replying to your post. I think you're right -- I actually am able to generalize more about the U.S. than other places, although my weather class in college taught me that England and Seattle have precisely the same climate (continental marine) and I suspect that I would really like England for climate. As to sport... I must confess that your posting on cricket excitement just sails over my head. I've wanted to understand cricket since Lord Peter Wimsey did so well with it in Murder Must Advertise. I don't suppose you know a site the equivalent of "Cricket for Dummies"?

I'm fascinated by your "soap opera" claim. I'm ready to believe it, but would add that it actually came about by the first nighttime soap (which I think was Dallas) which became a mad hit. The corporate machine saw gold -- and an acquisition of a larger female audience -- and deliberately set out to make the television equivalent of "date movies." Some of the best (like Numb3rs) take the good from soaps, which is relationship-building, seldom seen in nighttime tv till then except for male bonding (and yay for Strk and Starsky and Hutch, and so on, premium slash material).

The bad... well, I think the soaps led to reality tv, which is truly the worst thing ever to hit the airwaves. Have your read Eng's "Watching Dallas" or Jane Feuer's work? Or your "empire's" best export imnsho, British Cultural Studies (starting in the Birmingham school)? I think you'd enjoy them...Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams are the originating names, and now there are lots of people who spend their lives watching horrific tv and talking about its social consequences.

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