Parla Inglese?

[blamebrampton]

frantic_mice  pushed me in the direction of fanficrants  (which I can see lasting another week on my watch list, if that). One of the more interesting of the many rants was from someone who, in essence, said 'Look, we live in a globalised age, is it really the case that reading American spellings in a fic set in the UK and vice-versa is worth making that much of a fuss about?'

And I have to agree. I can easily overlook gotten and alright if  no one over the age of 20 cries and if people only talk about their deepest feelings when they are in extremis. But for some, including a long list of commenters, there are certain Americanisms that are like a dictionary to the 43rd President of the USA and have them running at first sight.

I can somewhat sympathise, because I can find it very hard to read when characters start acting American, talking at great length about their emotions and so on. While I adore my American friends, my closest ones know that they will receive one brief hug on meeting and departure, and I will probably never tell them any of my deepest feelings. Which is not because I don't love them, but because deepest feelings are only for personal perusal so that no innocent souls will become aware of the full extent of my inner lunacy.

But for spelling and so on ... well, I regularly read books and magazines published in America and sometimes set in the UK or elsewhere in the English speaking world, and I cope with them. In fact, the YA novel I just finished changed spellings depending on whether scenes were set in New York or Sydney and it read as very very odd indeed (though it's a good novel). Dealing with such spelling anomalies is commonplace: most of you do the same.

I do like a good Britpick for things like truck/lorry, stall/cubicle, Christmas eggnog/three bottles of decent whisky and hiding in the stables, and were I writing fic set in the US, I would make certain that my characters said Dude and asked for the check. However, my authorial voice would still sound like me, which I believe is appropriate. Wodehouse and Conan Doyle both have long sections of novels (Psmith, Journalist and The Valley of Fear respectively) set in the US where they follow this rule, and these were great successes on both sides of the Atlantic.

All of which is my lengthy way of saying, I can cope perfectly well if you're an American and you write alright, color and aluminum. But if you could hold off on having the lads say 'I love you so much, sweetie, that sometimes I just want to cry'*, I would take it as a personal favour.
 

Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY suonguyen !


*If you have actually written a fic that contains this line, obviously it worked well in the incredibly clever context you created for it.

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Is Ei egg? Dammit, I can barely remember English these days ...

I think I have seen this; horrible yellow stuff, yes?

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

That's what I keep telling Georg about the consequences of forbidding things. He does not want to celebrate secular Christmas, as both of us did with our families, and I have told him that if we ban Christmas, we will end up with a disturbed adult who wears those gaudy reindeer and jingle bell sweaters throughout December. (Which is how my mother ended up when her family wouldn't allow a Christmas tree, so I have proof).

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

I find it depends quite a lot on the specific example. (It always does, with me. It's like I'm allergic to absolutism.)

'Color' is fine. I can deal with that. However, 'Mom' makes me twitch violently, which tends to ruin my enjoyment of a story. I think that's the only actual Americanism that I can't recover from. I can forgive the rest as long as, as you say, they are behaving in a suitably British manner.

I may possibly have written a post about incorrect usages that bug me horribly, but it's locked down on account of probably being appallingly passive-aggressive. But I add things to it from time to time, and it makes me feel better, so I try not feel like too much of a pedant.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. I slept with a Conservative to annoy my mother.

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

I bet it worked, too! :)

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

Ei is egg, yes. But "ei, ei, ei" is also baby talk like "ey, lookie, it's so sweet and cute and adorable."

Horrible yellow stuff, yes!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Good point, Mom is one of those words that, to me, isn't on the color/colour spectrum, it's on the aubergine/eggplant spectrum. Because it's not just a spelling difference, it's a different pronunciation entirely, and is culturally significant enough to make it worth considering as a watchword.

Go ranting!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

HOW CAN GHASTLY LIQUOR BE CUTE? Strange drinks, public nudity, you Germans can be so odd ... ;-)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Certainly did! Erk, bedtime. Nighty night!

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

It's a complete culture difference. The thing is, apparently the US editions of HP all had the word 'Mum' changed to 'Mom', so there are probably some poor, misinformed American fic writers out there who are completely unaware that 'Mom' is unique to America.

[calanthe-fics.livejournal.com]

If I wrote SPN fanfic I'd use Americanisms and spell words the American way. It's not exactly hard to make the effort is it?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I have been hearing things about the US editions of late, enough to make me deeply worried. Mom is probably the most pervasive in its awfulness. It makes you wonder how they cope with Ransome and Blyton ...

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

With our fractured national identity, how can we not be odd. But we are cute in the nude, on occasion. ;-)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you're you ;-P

Someone who is skilled and a good editor can do that, but given the average writer, would you prefer something that is scrupulous in its spellings and sloppy in its word choices and attitudes to the reverse?

Since most people can only manage one set of culture shifts perfectly, I choose to be relaxed on spelling, it hurts less. Besides, I can't remember how to spell cooled these days, so who am I to judge? I just keep putting another l in and out and stick with whatever is there when I grow bored ;-)

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

Lashings of ginger ale! Buckets of root beer!

[absynthedrinker.livejournal.com]

LOL! I think this will say it best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XPHL4Q86t4

Peace,
Bubba

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Well, that's true ;-)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

So much kinder than Mad Dogs and Englishmen ...

[absynthedrinker.livejournal.com]

We may be thought of as a bit dim and completely brash, but seldom are we thought of as unkind.

Peace,
Bubba

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

SNORT! Genius.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

It's true, you are a kind people. And I have met few actually dim Americans, some poorly educated, yes, but they were always with a passion for learning. Most are bright and questing!

[absynthedrinker.livejournal.com]

I would say you've had a rather fortunate sampling. And I will leave it at that.

Peace,
Bubba

[potteresque_ire]

I was a faithful watcher of fanficrants in the earlier days of fandom. Generally I'm as uncomfortable with the ranting as with the offense (it's the attitude), but it does tell me a lot about what to look out for - in fandom etiqutte more than in writing :).

Ah. Britpick. The spelling rarely bothers at all (I learned English as British English and then switched over to American), but I smile when I encounter vocabularies that are distinctly British (like lorry , lifts). If the author uses truck and elevator, however, I would have not noticed them. The slangs though ... that's what can raise flags in my head. If they're too casual American (such as Dude), I would go O_o, but at the same time, if they're too British, I, well, I'd probably have trouble understanding them, authentic as they are ...

So, does it mean I should become very familiar about the UK culture? As a reader and someone who casually calls on her 12 typing monkeys? To an extent, yes, but since I am a very casual fandomer, have no professional writing / editing responsibilities and have things much more immediate on my to-learn list, chances are I will never go deep enough to hide the American in me (I would have missed the eggnog vs whiskey).

When it comes to writing, Britpick also ranks relatively low on the list of my concerns *ducks sheepishly from calanthe_fics* – there are many areas in the art of storytelling that I must struggle with and I see getting through those as much more important; by the time I'm done with those, chances are I'm too tired of the fic to have the drive to request extensive Britpicking.

I am totally guilty of make the men cry - though it usually calls for rather dire circumstances :). As for the "I love you" and sharing the deepest feeling part - I don't think I have committed them in a fic yet, not because I know for sure that's how the Brits behave but because my own culture makes it difficult for me to find a right place to put them on paper - stereotypically speaking, Chinese are a stoic bunch :D.

[alicambs.livejournal.com]

Ditto! 'Mom' makes me want to run around the house screaming. It's 'mum' damn it! :-)

[angela-snape.livejournal.com]

Being Canadian, I have a weird hybrid perspective on it - I have the u's in words like colour, but am bombarded with American culture in movies and television. When I beta for Americans, I do tend to change spellings to UK versions (mostly because I use the UK dictionary on my word processor because there isn't a Canadian one) and for the most part, they seem to be okay with it.

When I write anything of length, I do get a Brit-picking so my 'vacations' can get turned into 'holidays', and the like.

I agree with you that it is good to have British characters acting, well, British, and that to have spellings change based on location in the same book would likely throw me off, too.