Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls English-American poll

This poll is for everyone, but especially for native English speakers.

You often see non-native English speakers mixing up English English with American English.
-->Example: She didn't realize she hurt him with her behaviour.
My question is, does seeing that annoy you?

I know I mix up my English very often... In most cases I know which one is English and which one is American, but some words have stuck in my head one way, and some the other, and I'm just not willing to force myself have them all one way. So I don't get annoyed seeing it, either.

What do you think?
Thanks for taking the poll.
AnnaBtG.

I'm an American and not only doesn't it bother me, I probably don't even notice that you do it. <g>

Kathy

short version: ditto kathy.

long version: i'm american, but i also process language poorly. i'm somewhat dyslexic, and the part of my brain that translates words to concepts (or something like that) works very slowly. so, i tend to compensate by skimming over words as i read them, and assuming i have the right one. i do have to reread things sometimes, but it works 99% of the time. besides that, i've also learned from my years on the net to ignore typeos in general.

for the record, i have even more trouble processing speech. i can usually compesate, but it does cause problems sometimes.

Paul

I'm with Kathy and Paul. I almost always notice when there's a mix between American and English English, but don't mind very much. If it did, I'd lose out on a lot of very good stories.

A mixture of American English and British English spellings doesn't bother me any more than British English spellings do. I do tend to notice -- but I'm a grammar geek. If I tried to write a story in another language, trust me, the spelling would be the least of my worries.

I'm sure by this point I must do this too, without realising it most of the time. Actually, I know I do, because now and then, I see something I've written and think...tsk.

I've been using US English and spelling when writing for so long now, mostly because it's usually been US shows I've written fanfic for, that it tends to all blend together by this stage in the game.

LabRat (who was brought up short the other day when she used the US pronounciation for garage while talking to Stuart "The car's in the garage. Garage?!? Huh? What? Eeesh.")

Most of the time, I don't even realize the difference when I'm reading. In the beginning, when I read novels published in Britain, I did notice the extra u's and s's that aren't present in American english. Then I got online, and started talking to people everywhere in the world, and the different spellings became common place. I haven't started using the extra u's in my own typing yet, but I've switched from "theater" to "theatre" because it looks more sophisticated to me.

I'm Canadian. That means I'm supposed to use the English spelling. However, I tend to use mostly American spelling. There are some words, however, that the American's just spell wrong (cheque v. check) so for those words, I use the English spelling.

My main reason for using the American spelling is a practical one. For some reason, my spell checker doesn't want to work for English English. And since I can't spell without it... <sigh>

ML

I'm Canadian too, but I've been living in the States for 10 years, so my own spelling at times can be a mishmash of both UK and American English. (eg. Did you give the cheque to your neighbor?) Being a bit of a grammar geek like Rivka, I always notice, but it doesn't bother me to have a mixture of spellings, or all UK, or all American...

Kathy

The only time I would pay any attention to a mix of UK and US English spellings is when GEing: I might point it out to the author and ask whether s/he wishes to standardise on one or the other. Other than that, no, it would barely register on my radar.

I should probably point out that -ize spellings are an accepted alternative in UK English; in fact, if you look at the Oxford English Dictionary, -ize is the spelling it prefers, though other dictionaries give equal validity to -ise. Oxford University Press (OUP; a publishing house) insists on -ize, as do some academic journals. I was very surprised to discover, a year or so ago, that OUP also insists on the serial comma, which is most definitely not part of UK grammar rules. Aiming at US sales, possibly? Anyway, -ize is certainly accepted over here, and is even preferred by some grammarians - but most Brits/Irish/etc favour -ise.

Incidentally, learning to recognise UK/US variations is a very necessary skill for GEs, and certainly not one most of us assumed would be important when we took on the role! I've pretty much learned most of the spelling and grammar variations now, and if there's something new to me I'll look it up on Marriam-Webster or a US grammar site before flagging it with the author. I do feel sorry for new US GEs who continually find themselves flagging a spelling or a grammatical convention in my stories and suggest what, to them, is the correct format, only to have me come back at them with 'That's the UK English rule!'. Mind you, another helpful trick is to switch your Word spellchecker to the 'language' of the writer - I frequently do this when GEing US-English stories.


Wendy (who is amused to see differences right down to the trivial matter of whether full stops/periods are used after initials and forms of address: Mr. or Mr? )

Life is just too short to get exercised by 'color' vs 'colour' or 'theater' vs 'theatre'.

I would point out that Mr vs Mr. isn't so much a British/American thing as a style preference thing. I was taught two styles of punctuation and layout when typing - 'open' punctuation, which tends to go with a modern, blocked, layout, and 'closed' punctuation, which tends to go with the more traditional indented style.

'open', btw, is where you omit the full stops for abbreviations (ie, Mr, etc and so on).

'closed' is where you include them (i.e. Mr. etc.).

I think you'll find people in both camps in the UK (not sure about the US ).

Yvonne

Am I the only one who had to banish an instant image on reading this line of a little stick comma with legs running after all the other punctuation with a fireaxe?

Yeah, thought so. /me begins to worry about herself...


LabRat

What bugs me more is having American characters use or think in British expressions. If they were British characters, it wouldn't bug me, but, as we all know, some expressions are dependent on culture. Americans don't use expressions like "mind the gap" or "doorstepping" and most of us don't know what the hell that means. Though, the whole 's' instead of 'z' thing just looks *wrong* to my American eyes. The others don't bug me as much--probably all that time spent reading Brit Lit and studying other foriegn languages.

Laura (who should be on her way to class)

I do have a question about UK vs US english that I've noticed elsewhere. I've seen people (not in this fandom, thankfully) that seem to use "loose" instead of "lose". "Loose the race" or "Loose the keys". I noticed that dictionary.com said it was an acceptable variation of "lose", but it still annoys the heck out of me. So, for those UK'ers, which one is more acceptable on your side of the pond?

Karen, that's just a mis-spelling! You lose keys, but you might loose the chains around yourself, if you get the difference. One is not an acceptable alternative for the other, no matter what dictionary.com might say - that appals me! I've certainly felt jerked out of stories when I've glanced at some for other UK programmes written by Americans.

But then, it sneaks into published fiction too - I find it amazing to believe that editors, if not writers, can't ensure that characters who are members of the English aristocracy in the early 1800s don't sound like contemporary Americans. I mean, young ladies talking about 'fixing' hair? Gentlemen saying they will 'write someone'? It's almost as bad as the American author who thought it would be possible for a carriage carrying a lady to get from London to Nottinghamshire and back within the space of an afternoon. That's not even possible now, with cars and decent motorways, let alone in 1800 with roads which were no more than dirt and horse-drawn carriages travelling at around 10-12 miles an hour!

And as for Alexandra Ripley's attempt, in her awful follow-up to Gone With The Wind, to write about nineteenth-century Ireland and reproduce speech patterns and dialogue... shudder. Just awful!

But then, of course, and quite rightly, Americans complain about Maeve Binchy's attempts to replicate American speech patterns and linguistic style in her novel Tara Road. Unless we start to say that authors should never write beyond their own linguistic setting, we are going to find that some things will look and sound wrong to native eyes. Personally, I am willing to overlook the occasional error if the story otherwise is worth reading - as an avid reader of English Regency fiction, I would be very short of reading matter if I didn't, since the majority of this, ironically, is written by Americans! <g>


Wendy

Actually, I don't think it's ironic -- we Americans are fascinated by aristocracy, probably because we've never really had any. So we think it's romantic. Those of you who've seen an aristocracy close up, OTOH, are probably a lot less enchanted by the concept!

To get back to the topic ... <g> I don't usually even notice spelling & comma-type differences. Changes of phrasing and sentence structure stand out more, to me -- "going to hospital" just sounds weird! But I can usually cruise right past that stuff without much trouble. I've been reading British fiction for a couple of decades now (Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, among others), so I think I'm pretty good at deciphering and ignoring those differences.

The only thing that would move me enough to comment is if an American character uses a distinctly non-American phrase (or term, more rarely). Lois wouldn't say, "I'll ring you up" and if Clark didn't like her apartment, he'd be too polite to "knock her flat" So that stuff pulls me out, a little, and if it's an author I know, or one who's specifically asking for help with that sort of thing, I might point it out privately, on the theory that we're all trying to improve our writing -- for this type of story, Americanisms are part of that.

But in general, my only impression of ESL/non-American writers is amazement that they can do as very well as they do!

PJ

I always notice, but almost never care. I notice simply because I'm trained to edit. I can't read ANYTHING without editing it. It's an annoying habit, but a common occupational hazard. <G> But while truly bad grammar does bother me, spelling differences that I recognize as UK English don't bother me at all. I'm of the opinion that neither is right or wrong - it just depends on the author/situation.

I have a much bigger problem with phrases slipping into dialogue. Clark would never take the lift to Lois' flat, he'd take the elevator to her apartment. That said, I'd say these sorts of examples in LnC fanfic are few and far between. I think the occassional slip is unavoidable and those slips are usually something far less blatant than "lift" or "flat". And I've yet to see an author who doesn't want to fix these slips once they've been alerted.


I see this all the time too in published fiction and in movies and it drives me batty. I think it's much worse to have gaffes like this in something that has been professionally edited and published. It's not restricted to time periods or different countries either. It drives me insane to see/watch characters from different regions of the US use slang they would never use. No native of the east coast would ever call soda "pop" and no one outside of L.A. puts "the" before names/numbers of freeways. When I'm in DC I drive on 495 NOT on "the 495". Yet things like this get messed up ALL THE TIME in published fiction and in television/movies. I try to overlook it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it jerks me out of the story immediately. I go from thinking about the main character's motivation to suddenly wondering where the author is from and why no one told him/her that his/her character would never speak that way.

Absolutely. That was actually my first reaction to this poll. I'm beyond impressed by the amount of talent we see in this fandom from authors writing outside their native languages. To me, just being able to communicate effectively in another language is something to be admired. The idea of using another language for creative writing astounds me. You all have my respect and admiration, and I promise not to care if you slip from US English to UK English and back again.

Annie

Sure I notice the difference but I don't read the stories to critique the grammar. Some of my favorite/favourite stories have been written in English.

The difference between American English and English doesn't annoy me so much as throw me off for a second or two. And even that is happening less and less often, now I read so much fanfic. I think I notice it more in published novels, than I do on the net, for the simple reason that I've become used to it on the net.

As other have mentioned, it's the wrong phrases that really annoy me, or things that are out of context. I'm Scottish, and in everyday life, I would never dream of someone having an 'appartment', however, if Lois went up to her 'flat', I'd think 'what?!'. It's all in the context. I don't notice the little details in L&C, like "the 495" or "495" but it really drives me up the wall when I see see it in Harry Potter fanfic, simply because HP is set in the UK and I know what's 'right' and 'wrong'. So it must be equally annoying for American readers to see American phases and slang 'butchered' like that.

Just went back to read the poll, and thought I'd beter add that American spelling and/or different phrases don't bother me at all in posts. The only thing may be if its colloquism that I don't quite 'get'. However, I can usually infer the meaning from the context.

Loriel