British English editing for Yanks

[thaddeus6th]

I use 'gotten' as well.

The interweb is wrong!

 

[Vertigo]

I've heard "gotten" over here, but only as a result of... um... *hastily rethinks using the word "contamination" * ... influence from American TV and films. It might well have lingered in dialect, though.

Interesting TJ, I'm pretty sure I didn't used to use it in the past but I'm also pretty sure I do occasionally use it now. Is that American 'contamination'? I'm not sure I find that sometimes it seems to flow better as in 'I've gotten over that now' rather than 'I've got over that now.' For me the gotten version has better rhythm.

 

[Mouse]

Nope, didn't get 'gotten' from the US. My grandparents say it more often than I do. After being told it was American (I think by TJ!) in one of my crits here, I stopped using it in writing. However, my editor (American) edited one back in to Shuttered.

I've just come back from seeing my grandparents actually. Heard my granddad use a great word: cass'n. He was talking about my dog's fur and said, "'e cass'n see, can 'e?"

(Also about the dog: "He's proper comical." Which I think is particularly Somerset!)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Somehow I feel I ought to be offended at the idea that we need our books to be Americanized in order to understand what's going on.

And I just had a friend here poking at me over the use of "got", as in "I got my..." and it wasn't even "gotten"! (It was correct, too, I swear!) But I say gotten, too.

But I'm afraid I don't know what an upside-down umbrella whatsit thingie is, Mouse. Or a rotary line, if it's not the kind of telephone I grew up with.

 

[Vertigo]

One of these sort of thingies :

 

[Wiglaf]

So it's a historical artifact?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I don't think we have a word in American for that thing. Technically, I suppose, it's a clothesline, but that implies the kind that runs between two poles.

 

[Vertigo]

Very common over here in the UK

 

[HareBrain]

I'll say it's common! Those with more class get the staff to run the washing up the flagpole.

 

[Venusian Broon]

B&Q just call them washing lines - and it also calls the one that you string up between two poles slightly confusingly, a washing line.

But if you look very closely the 'reverse-umbrella', 'funnel' or 'intergalactic radio antenna' that we Brits have, it is just a single washing line spiralling out. So technically you can call both washing lines. We have to think about conserving space in our tiny little gardens.

 

[ratsy]

I had one of those growing up...we called it a clothesline too. I now have an actual clothesline now with a cool pully thingy at my new house but I have yet to use it!

 

[Lenny]

That's a whirligig!

Though I think the 'proper name' is rotary airer.

 

[Wiglaf]

I don't think we have a word in American for that thing. Technically, I suppose, it's a clothesline, but that implies the kind that runs between two poles.

It is a rotationally adjustable solar clothes dryer, not to be confused with a DIY solar clothes dryer, plans available on the internet for $50 sans string.

 

[Wiglaf]

B&Q just call them washing lines - and it also calls the one that you string up between two poles slightly confusingly, a washing line.

But if you look very closely the 'reverse-umbrella', 'funnel' or 'intergalactic radio antenna' that we Brits have, it is just a single washing line spiralling out. So technically you can call both washing lines. We have to think about conserving space in our tiny little gardens.

Don't most people have clothes dryer's that don't require any yard? My tiny apartment even has one above the washing machine (to save space).

 

[thaddeus6th]

Yes. However, lots of British houses have relatively small gardens, which is why the rotary washing line is quite popular.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Don't most people have clothes dryer's that don't require any yard? My tiny apartment even has one above the washing machine (to save space).

eeh by gum, to have the luxury of space to have a clothes dryer near my washing machine. Even a tiny one *

I can't even have a 'modern' big freezer/fridge - there is only space for a standalone basic fridge in the kitchen and that's about it along with the cooker, washing machine and a few units.

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* Actually come to think of it I do - I have a device a bit like a hand dryer screwed into my bathroom wall that just generates hot air - I'm on the 2nd floor of a block of flats so drying washing is done for me in my bathroom...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Irish Editing for Americans
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056772029

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Actually I heard that an American visiting here was amazed how fresh everything smelled and asked which product was used in the Dryer. She was shown the rotary line. She thought that outdoor drying (in a better climate) wasn't allowed where she lived.

 

[Juliana]

She thought that outdoor drying (in a better climate) wasn't allowed where she lived.

When I was doing research for our move to the USA I noticed that some communities do in fact have housing associations that ban outdoor clothes lines! Lowers the tone, or some such nonsense. In my town it's fine, though most people just use a clothes dryer - very few outdoor lines.

Personally I like to use those standing clothes airers - a throwback to all my years in Brazil where it's easier that way to whisk clothes indoors when it rains.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Some communities have housing associations that ban everything.