Self-publishing: American English & British English editions

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay, now I'm intrigued. Anyone care to interpret "todgers" for me?

Penises.

Well, you asked.

 

[Montero]

Okay, now I'm intrigued. Anyone care to interpret "todgers" for me?

In thaddeus's context, I took it as yet another euphemism for a certain part of the male anatomy - and google agrees.

Puts me in mind of a US centric Terry Prachett joke (that I didn't immediately get) that the organ at the Unseen University was a Johnson.

Edited to add - there I was, indulging in polite circumlocution and Jo didn't bother. Makes what I said look a bit pompous.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

And note how quick we are angered by what we believe are typos: How much do tpyos bother the average reader?

But that's a different argument entirely. If you disclaim it's in UK English then you cover that one.

 

[Cathbad]

Penises.

Well, you asked.

~face palm~

 

[VinceK]

I struggled with this. With an American POV, I did occasionally describe items as they would, 'trash can' instead of 'rubbish bin' etc. But in the end I decided to stick primariliy with British English, lest I confuse everybody.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

There are several categories of differences, which have been touched upon above by various people.

There are spellings, and I think punctuation falls into the same category, though it could be considered a separate thing as well.

There are words that are different between the two sides, such as lift/elevator and so on.

And there are phrasings and sentence structure, which opens up a whole different can of worms. There's the difference between "We took the M5" or whatever road it may be, and "We took 85 north" or "We took I-40". That can vary across America, as well, so it's not just a UK/US thing -- depends on where your character may be from. There's the difference between (I'm looking at you, Jo) "He knocked the door" and "He knocked on the door." That sort of thing. And then there are more complex differences in sentence structure, the way that words are said in different order in UK English and US English. I won't call anybody out on that, mainly because I can't bring any specific ones to mind at the moment. And the whole thing depends very much on what sort of book you're writing, where it's set, and from whose POV. If the setting and the characters are not American, why would you want them to sound like it? I'm still miffed at the fact that I didn't get to read the UK version of Harry Potter -- especially since enough of its UK flavor and phrasings were left that it appeared that it was UK to us, until we found out there were REAL UK ones. That's just annoying. Truly, we aren't that stupid. Well, I'm not, anyway -- looking at current events, I must conclude that a great number of us are. But I digress.

If a book is SF, set far in the future, one should look long and hard at whether it makes sense for the characters to speak UK regional dialects. One could argue, as well, however, that it might not be reasonable to assume they would speak American, either. In truth, it's likely we'd have a really hard time understanding a word they said, if we dropped in on them 200 years in the future, so we should probably be making up a whole new patois.

If a story is set in America, in an American POV, it makes no sense at all for the whole thing to be UK English. If it's in the UK, in a UK POV, it would make no sense to Americanize it.

So, really, I'm sitting right where I usually am on everything -- firmly on the fence. I don't think it's necessary to Americanize things for the stupid people, but at the same time if someone wants to pay me twice, I'm happy to do it.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I struggled with this. With an American POV, I did occasionally describe items as they would, 'trash can' instead of 'rubbish bin' etc. But in the end I decided to stick primariliy with British English, lest I confuse everybody.

My character-voice style weeps at this. If you have an American POV in a British setting, let them be American.

 

[Phyrebrat]

@TheDustyZebra I'll gladly fence sit if I'm being paid, too. Although; 'puffa'...

pH

 

[Ursa major]

I'm still miffed at the fact that I didn't get to read the UK version of Harry Potter

Do you think that the publisher might have been concerned about this because the Potter books are YA and so thought the youngest amongst the potential readership might be less aware of UK idioms (assuming that this was the issue) and UK word use?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Do you think that the publisher might have been concerned about this because the Potter books are YA and so thought the youngest amongst the potential readership might be less aware of UK idioms (assuming that this was the issue) and UK word use?

Probably. But I learned Cockney rhyming slang from the Shoes books when I was younger than that.

 

[Wiglaf]

Does any US publisher of adult books Americanize British works? Scholastic* habitually Americanizes books, but their business model is to sell books through US elementary schools. I read dozens of books with British spellings in elementary school.
What I, as an American, find annoying is a gaggle of Briticisms in an American spelt** book; it throws me off.

* They published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the US.
** With the exception of my first grade teacher who claimed the spelt should only refer to wheat, my teachers said that spelt was valid spelling for class/homework, but we would use spelled on the spelling test. I always wondered why if it was pronounced spelt we couldn't use that spelling on the test. As an adult, I think Jonathan Swift's use of shipt was genius.

 

[VinceK]

My character-voice style weeps at this. If you have an American POV in a British setting, let them be American.

In my book there are characters from America, Asia, Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. I invested a lot of time in trying to make each of them sound authentic. Sometimes it worked, and maybe sometimes it didn't.

American Character (New York)
Jason squinted, ‘Can we switch to the viewer, you look like you’re in a closet.’
‘I’m in the passageway; and no, Penny’s here.’
‘Oh, Stevie, another sleepover with your janitress? When you gonna tell her you’re one of the bad guys?’

American Character (Louisiana)
She knocked the torn screen door three times and waited. No answer. Her head swivelled, her contemplation scraping over gnarled clapboards and peeling paint. History had a cruel habit of shackling itself to the present.
Kacee found her in the back yard.

Austrian Character (Lower Austria)
Her startled expression whirled to face Gerhard’s admonishment. ‘If Steve and Jason did not help us, I would be dead and you would be . . .’ Gerhard smiled, put his arm around her shoulder, and kissed her head. ‘Jetzt ins Bett. Ich liebe dich.’
...
Gerhard’s chin rose, his eyes defiant. ‘Hello, Steve. I am sorry that we meet like this, but I must fight now. SIS have killed Jannae.’ He glanced left. ‘Who is that person?’

French Character (Seine et Marne)
Francois glared, ‘You are wrong Capitaine. It is I who fights the juste cause.’
...

Morton did not return the smile; his impenetrable dark eyes glinted under the chandelier’s éclat. ‘We cannot claim victory until I have terminated Arrowsbury.’
Francois lowered his cup. ‘I thank you for your fidélité, but I suggest you do not try. We need to find his girlfriend, she has the key.’

 

[The Judge]

Francois glared, ‘You are wrong Capitaine. It is I who fights the juste cause.’
...

Morton did not return the smile; his impenetrable dark eyes glinted under the chandelier’s éclat. ‘We cannot claim victory until I have terminated Arrowsbury.’
Francois lowered his cup. ‘I thank you for your fidélité, but I suggest you do not try. We need to find his girlfriend, she has the key.’

I've always wondered about that. If a French (or German or whatever) person has such a command of English to be able to converse easily in it, why use odd French (or German or whatever) words for which the English is almost identical, and therefore obviously within that person's vocabulary? Dorothy L Sayers does this in a few of the Wimsey stories and it confuses me no end! Surely the way to show the foreign nature of the speaker would be to stumble only on less common English words, or to put them into the foreign word order -- as to which isn't it "the cause juste" with the adjective following the noun in French, not as we have it? (NB éclat has been brought into English in its own right, meaning "brilliance" as in success, so it's rather confusing to use it as "brilliance" as in the amount of light, and I have to confess to never having come across it to mean illumination in this way.)

 

[VinceK]

I've always wondered about that. If a French (or German or whatever) person has such a command of English to be able to converse easily in it, why use odd French (or German or whatever) words for which the English is almost identical, and therefore obviously within that person's vocabulary? Dorothy L Sayers does this in a few of the Wimsey stories and it confuses me no end! Surely the way to show the foreign nature of the speaker would be to stumble only on less common English words, or to put them into the foreign word order -- as to which isn't it "the cause juste" with the adjective following the noun in French, not as we have it? (NB éclat has been brought into English in its own right, meaning "brilliance" as in success, so it's rather confusing to use it as "brilliance" as in the amount of light, and I have to confess to never having come across it to mean illumination in this way.)

Francois is a nationalist and will, where and when he deems it appropriate, substitute English for French. Because:

"In 2082, the Council voted for a unified Continuity with English as its official and only language. National identities would not be transferred to Provenance. That was not acceptable to his father or the other industrialists who had joined him and transformed the Resistance from a disparate group of ill‑disciplined Drones to a global militarised organisation."

Gerhard speaks in German to his wife because that is appropriate in that setting.

I understand the word order in French, not least because I lived and worked there for three years. However, I decided for the sake of clarity to retain the English word order where reversing it might have been confusing. It obviously wasn't wholly successful.

éclat - intensité vive d'une lumière; sparkle (as in diamonds)

 

[CWScott]

I've thought about doing this and realized that anyone who complains is such a small portion of readers that I'd never make my money back on getting it edited.

I do get the occasional bad review about my grammar. I'm guessing it is a UK or maybe Australian reader, because most reviews say its been well written and edited. As a reader it doesn't bother me.

 

[HareBrain]

I've always wondered about that. If a French (or German or whatever) person has such a command of English to be able to converse easily in it, why use odd French (or German or whatever) words for which the English is almost identical, and therefore obviously within that person's vocabulary?

And characters like Hercule Poirot pretty much only use the French oui and non. Given their amazing English vocab otherwise, I guess they must have missed the first lesson.

 

[Cathbad]

And characters like Hercule Poirot pretty much only use the French oui and non. Given their amazing English vocab otherwise, I guess they must have missed the first lesson.

Wait... don't disparage my favorite literary character!!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Originally, I envisioned a UK edition for the UK, Ireland, Europe, and Commonwealth countries. However, when I went to select distribution options for the UK edition, there are no less than 245 territories listed.

Trying to identify every relevant country I realised could be quite trying. I would need to keep careful records. There remained the danger that I would accidentally miss territories because of this.

So I thought I'd better do some research on where British English is normally taught.

Surprisingly, it seems that British English is regarded as the International Standard - at least in written form - for most of the world.

The exception - where American English is taught by default - appears to be a far smaller list, and is primarily Central and South America, parts of the Caribbean, and some parts of south Asia, specifically the Philippines, and South Korea (and, of course, the USA).

Also, my research suggests that Canadians are perhaps more comfortable with British English than American English (any of our Canadian members used to adding the letter 'u' to American words? ).

So it looks as though the UK edition will be my default, except for the exceptions listed above. However, I'm happy to take advice from our international members!

 

[DrMclony]

In thaddeus's context, I took it as yet another euphemism for a certain part of the male anatomy - and google agrees.

Puts me in mind of a US centric Terry Prachett joke (that I didn't immediately get) that the organ at the Unseen University was a Johnson.

Edited to add - there I was, indulging in polite circumlocution and Jo didn't bother. Makes what I said look a bit pompous.

And rather British...

 

[DrMclony]

Honestly, I decided long ago, this was simply not worth the effort. My second novel, I did a dabble with it for an ABNA entry, and uploaded it as a US edition also. It was a huge amount of work, for very little pay off, and on top of that, it detracted from the work significantly, such that several US readers advised they preferred the original. So I never tried it again, and am one of those who places a statement to the effect of "written in British English" on the product page. Before I placed that message, I had a couple of complaints about the spellings, since placing it, not one, and no hit to sales at all. The US edition was scrapped thereafter.