British English editing for Yanks

[HareBrain]

I read Bored of the Rings at a callow 18, and way before the internet. For those not familiar, much of the humour relies on knowledge of American brand-names and personalities, often from the 1960s, knowledge I lacked when I first read it. For example, I had no idea that "Goodgulf" (the book's name for the parodied Gandalf) was an obscure petroleum company until I happened to see it on a petrol pump in a film. But I survived. In fact, it made an interesting pastime to spot the references over the years -- each time I read the book I get more of the jokes. Phyrebrat is right -- reading should teach one something about the world. I'd hate for reading to become a completely passive process that demanded no more effort than my taking in the words. And what an opportunity to learn about another (albeit closely related) culture would be lost if everything we read was supplied already converted to our own ...

I'm sorry, what was the question again?

 

[Ursa major]

Regarding the Aga (or any brand that isn't necessarily known everywhere)...

Why is the brand mentioned?

• If it's just to use brand name that's become attached to a specific item, why use it at all? There's no down side to using, say, vacuum cleaner instead of Hoover.
• But if it's a bit of colour, it's unlikely to be mentioned in a... er... vacuum (unless someone is meant to, say, see it or trip over it**). If you need to use the hoover, just say why, thus letting the reader know what the hoover's purpose is.
• If, however, it's important to the character, like Springs's dream Aga, there's the perfect opening for explaining what it is:
  • Why is it important to Springs?
  • What does it do that an ordinary cooker doesn't?
  • Why an Aga, not a Rayburn?

And if it isn't important to the story (or for revealing something about the character), why is the item (identified by its generic name or its brand name) mentioned at all?


** - And even here, you could say something like, 'Tom should have put it away after he'd finished vacuuming.'

 

[Toby Frost]

I've just had a review on Amazon stating that British people don't say "pants" so I've got it wrong. Cue nationalist fury.

 

[Ursa major]

That review is, obviously, pants.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Of course British people say pants. It just doesn't usually mean what it means in USA. For any of the common three British meanings.

 

[HareBrain]

In the UK you can wear pants under your shorts; in the US you wear shorts under your pants.

Is it any wonder we had a war??

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm not even sure that they had pants back then - either kind. What were those things: long shorts with big socks?

 

[HareBrain]

Knickerbockers and stockings. They probably decided a big war was the only way to recover their masculinity.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Why an Aga, not a Rayburn

Often Aga is used to refer to any large stove/range (especially cream enamel) with oven, hot plates and often solid fuel (coke*, anthracite, regular coal, sometimes wood), though some may use oil. It would often only be called a stove if it was a black cast iron room heater (possibly heating radiators or just tap water).
This is irrespective of any branding. I actually don't remember in over 50 years any enamelled stove with hotplates and oven being referred to other than an Aga even it wasn't. Most were. Many houses had a tea pot constantly stewing on it requiring about 4 or 5 sugars (normally I never took sugar in tea). At least they called it tea.

*Coke was a cheap stove fuel in days when each town/city had a coal fed gasworks. The Coke was a the waste product of making town gas.

 

[Ursa major]

...the only way to recover their masculinity

not to mention Glory, as celebrated with these.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

In the UK you can wear pants under your shorts

I thought though only girls had pants under shorts, boys had Y fronts. Only less refined people called them knickers.

 

[HareBrain]

Often Aga is used to refer to any large stove/range (especially cream enamel) with oven, hot plates and often solid fuel (coke*, anthracite, regular coal, sometimes wood), though some may use oil.

I think most solid-fuel Agas have now been converted to oil. Except my Mum's, which we can't get anyone to service, is now as temperamental as a dragon with gastroenteritis and which I'd much rather convert to scrap iron.

I thought though only girls had pants under shorts, boys had Y fronts.

In my culture, pants is a shorthand for underpants of any kind, male or female.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Here of course most are used (inc new models from Waterford) with wood. Up north I never saw them running on wood.
Any competent Boiler engineer should be able to service it.
Admittedly boys usually underpants, briefs, boxers and the girls usually panties, slips or briefs. Pants rather than panties would be old fashioned usage.

 

[Wiglaf]

Notwithstanding my claim of being grumpy on the subject, I'm not clear on what you mean when you say I come across as harsh: if you mean I am inflexible when it comes to changing my MS to make it easier to read for lazy readers, then I'd accept that. On the other hand, if you're using the word "harsh" as a way to describe me as a person I'd say that's dangerous territory to get into on a public forum.

pH

I made no comment about you personally.

It is just that I can see circumstances where the reader can have some difficulty and not be lazy. They could even the book. I thought that your post could be interpreted by some as implying that all readers that had a problem were lazy.

For my writing, I would prefer that any native English speaker could understand what I was saying by using context, common knowledge, and in rare instances a dictionary, but without extensive Google-fu. Obviously, it is a judgement call, but I would not want to blame laziness on the part of the reader without first trying to put myself in the reader's place and evaluating the level of difficulty to see if I felt it was reasonable or not. I would not be keen to completely de-Americanize my work, but I would be very interested in using Ursa's techniques to make certain that all reasonably educated, literate, native English speakers could understand with less effort than required for a differential equations course at a university. To me, it is about the amount of work.

Lastly, to put my feelings in context...The Americanisation of our day to day life grates on me (and I'm fully aware that this is something we ourselves are responsible for). I say that as someone who has been to America many times and love the outlook that you often have - and gods, look at the formidably pleasant people on this site from the US! However, I hate being asked for my name in Starbucks, or the disingenuous enquiry as to how my day is by a cashier who really doesn't care, but has been 'trained' in customer service because apparently that's what the customer likes. And now I have to re-educate kids I teach when they say 'can I get' instead of 'may I have.' The list goes on.

I'm a grumpy Brit. I can live with it.

pH

I've heard these complaints before from numerous sources.

Out of curiosity, how do they make sure that you get the right order in the UK? In the US, they use numbers or, less commonly, your name.

Additionally, I work in customer service. Below is my explanation of the "Have a nice day" thing, if anyone cares.
Typically, I don't ask how your day is (unless I'm curious). I do tell people to, "Have a good day," "Enjoy your morning," etc. I might not be as invested as I would be in my own day. However, I do hope that they have a good day, or at least, I do not wish them a bad one. I usually can't tell someone to go to hell, so I use deathly silence and not telling to have a good day to convey the message. I like decent paying customers who do not make intentional messes, insult me, or threaten to beat me up; they are told to enjoy their day. Jerks and people on cell phones get silence. Those who urinate on the floor, start fires, steal, or threaten me are told to F themselves (Yes, I have dealt with all of these, frequently).
It may be annoying, but it does mean that I am not actively wishing you harm. Not being wished a good day is actually worse. The manager won't let me say what I really mean, "Thank you for not being a piece of excrement." You would be amazed at the number of turds I have to deal with.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Customer service in the UK is traditionally very different (but changing.) It's not that someone wouldn't check you have the right order but that they will be more casual about it.

the have a nice day thing does grate in the UK because there is a feeling it is delivered by rote, rather than in sincerity. this may be because it's not the sort of colloquial saying we might use, so sounds false.

eg, someone saying to me in my local shop

"Take care, now, bye..." is natural, in my lingo, and sounds genuine. but no UK colloquial accent - that I know of - would use the term 'have a nice day'. It's an American saying and, in America, I'd take it the way you intend, Wiglaf. But in the UK it comes across as a statement trained into the adviser, which is not part of normal speech, and therefore sounds by rote and insincere...

 

[TheDustyZebra]

in the UK it comes across as a statement trained into the adviser, which is not part of normal speech, and therefore sounds by rote and insincere...

Oh, it sounds that way in the US, too.

I fully sympathize with you, Phyrebrat. I feel insulted, myself, at the notion that everything UK has to be sanitized for US readers who can't be bothered to try and understand something from the context or, failing that (though it's the writer's fault if that fails), to look something up if it really bothers them that much. We should learn new things and expand our horizons from reading, not expect that everything be below our own levels of competence. And the notion that US readers are so stupid that they can't handle a few UK words in a book is quite insulting.

As an American writer, I would expect that a few things in my writing might need a bit more context to be fully accessible in the UK, but I wouldn't like the idea that all of those things ought to be left out entirely. It's possible to add a few words that would make the meaning clear, in both directions.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Thanks for the reply @Wiglaf; appreciated, and your opinion/working practice is noted. To a degree I agree with making our MS more accessible, just not about bringing them to the lowest common denominator. To me dangerously near to dumbing down - and besides isn't it rather insulting, too? As you rightly say, readers are not all lazy, so such changes would actively deny them that learning.

I think we're agreeing, and whilst I wouldn't grumble at the replacement of 'z' with 's', I think I may become emotionally dishevelled at the changing of word choice.

I've heard these complaints before from numerous sources.

Out of curiosity, how do they make sure that you get the right order in the UK? In the US, they use numbers or, less commonly, your name.

Additionally, I work in customer service. Below is my explanation of the "Have a nice day" thing, if anyone cares.
Typically, I don't ask how your day is (unless I'm curious). I do tell people to, "Have a good day," "Enjoy your morning," etc. I might not be as invested as I would be in my own day. However, I do hope that they have a good day, or at least, I do not wish them a bad one. I usually can't tell someone to go to hell, so I use deathly silence and not telling to have a good day to convey the message. I like decent paying customers who do not make intentional messes, insult me, or threaten to beat me up; they are told to enjoy their day. Jerks and people on cell phones get silence. Those who urinate on the floor, start fires, steal, or threaten me are told to F themselves (Yes, I have dealt with all of these, frequently).
It may be annoying, but it does mean that I am not actively wishing you harm. Not being wished a good day is actually worse. The manager won't let me say what I really mean, "Thank you for not being a piece of excrement." You would be amazed at the number of turds I have to deal with.

I really like the idea of numbers (especially now that the UK is so hysterical about privacy laws), but here, they ask for your name and write it on the cup. Actually, here is a copypaste from one of my Facebook statuses in July:

Starbucks: can I help you?
Me: flat white please
Starbucks: can you remind me of your name please?
Me: I've never told you my name.
Starbucks: oh, but you've been here before, I recognise you...
Me: no I haven't, and do you also recognise that woman before me who you said the same thing to?
Starbucks: er.....
Me: My name's pryzwaskywaty
Starbucks: shall I just put a smiley?
Me: yes, I think you better had.

I feel sorry for the staff having to a) deal with curmudgeons like me, and b) learn this rubbish filtered down from management. I frequently tell people to have a nice day because I genuinely feel that way, whether I know them or not, and when it comes to service staff in restaurants I marvel at their ability to juggle orders, information and small-talk. In the US your customer service is excellent, and I have felt humiliated in the past when my friends from ATL or HOU have stayed with me and we've gone to restaurants where the staff have been barely able to look the customer in the eye!

Anyway, I fear I am in danger of drifting off topic here, so...

Do we still say aeroplane for BE? I have heard a BBC journalist at Heathrow talking about the new runway and referring to 'airplanes'.

As a Brit, if you want to have a confusing conversation with an American, refer to your 'Bank Holiday'

Aubergine - eggplant just popped into my mind, too.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Airplanes is wrong. Fair enough if you're American, but wrong if you're British.

 

[Kylara]

I confused an American yesterday by saying "pantaloons".

Also all underwear pants are pants, except when they belong to 5 year old boys, in which case they are "man pants"

Oh and Agas are fabulous. However "hoover" annoys the hell out of me - I am forever correcting people to say "vacuum cleaner"

Also random fact Jumbotron - a name created by Sony - so officially a 'Sony Jumbotron' - even more fun fact, they haven't made any in years but people still call all of the big screens Jumbotrons

Oh and chips are not crisps, they are made of chunky potato. Fries are thin greasy versions of chips. Crisps are crunchy salted snacks. And biscuits and cookies are similar but not the same and scones are scones, not biscuits.

 

[Mouse]

My publishers and my editors are American. My main audience is going to be North American. So yes, I want my novels to be easily understandable to them, but I want them to be easily understandable to everyone. I write very British stories with very British characters (erm, apart from Jim in Otherworld, who is Irish but my co-author wrote him...) and I've even had it mentioned in a review that my story was very British. So, obviously I don't want to lose any of that. I'm not Americanising my books. I'm just making them understandable. If you guys buy Shuttered when it comes out (end December ) then you won't find any Americanisms in it.

Everything (regarding the Britishisms) my editors have said to me have been suggestions. Like 'Biro' for example, it doesn't make my work American, or British, to just change it to 'ink.' My 'rotary line' that I mentioned in this thread - I offered 'rotary washing line' and my editor said she understood that and was happy with it. Still British, only now more understandable. I've been allowed to keep 'jumper' and my third editor made the comment that the word is also used in Australia, so she was happy with it (I'm not sure if she's Australian, British, or American). 'Taking the Mick' wasn't understood, so I changed it to 'taking the piss.' Not Americanised. I had the term 'holiday lets' - editor suggested 'holiday rentals' and I counter-suggested 'holiday homes,' which is what we settled on.

The only thing that I don't get a choice in, is house-style. So, as my publishers are American, the house-style is American-English grammar and punctuation. I have no towards/forwards/backwards, and I have 'gotten.' These things are so minor that, while they made me wince initially, on my subsequent readings and editings, I've not even noticed them.

What is annoying, (and is poss some of what Phyrebrat was saying) is that an American writer, published by a US press, wouldn't be asked to change anything to make it more understandable, because it would be presumed that it would be understood - or they wouldn't be aware of what we wouldn't understand (just as I'm not always aware of things people in other countries don't understand, because they're natural to me).

Interestingly (or not, I've waffled on about myself for quite a while now), my R&R for Otherworld was for a British publisher. My lovely co-author is a lot younger than me and tends more towards Americanisms than I do. She'd used the term 'bartender' (which, to be fair, I hadn't even noticed) and as part of the R&R, we were asked to change it to the more British 'barman'. It stayed barman when Torquere (US) accepted it for publication, and it's still barman now. Not because it's American or British, but because it's understood.

Please note, none of this is to do with anything anybody's said, in particular, it's just because I now have insider knowledge, if you like, of a US press as an English person.