American v English novels

[dml54]

I was reading a book by Dick Francis the other day. I noticed that there were a few 'Amercianisms' eg gasoline and sneakers instead of petrol and trainers which I thought was odd. When I looked, it had been published in USA (I'd bought it over there in an airport).

It is set in England, written in England by an English writer so why change the vocabulary?

I have read many Amercian novels which have been published over here in England and there has been no necessity to change anything. I am intelligent enough to understand the differences in the language, so why doesn't the same apply in USA?

[SaxyJag]

Because American readers can sometimes be a little dim when it comes to 'Englishisms' and have to have them changed (for all their myriad TV channels, there is surprisingly little English TV - they still think we all live in Scotland and wear kilts).

We, of course, have had them 'over here' for years and have got used to their little ways, hence we don't need the translation. ;-)

[LeMarchand]

US novels published over here will have had the spelling corrected (eg color/colour)...

[File Cutter]

I think this is just a symptom of the US being such a consumer society - if they dumb things down they'll appeal to a wider audience = more $$$.

I've heard it's the same with movies - Hollywood exerting pressure to include II, III, IV etc in titles for movie sequels due to the perception that people aren't clever enough to work out thats it's a sequel otherwise.

[SaxyJag]

LeMarchand, that's not always the case. I read a lot of kids' books by US authors (published in the UK) and the spelling and 'incorrect' grammar is left in place nine times out of ten.

[LeMarchand]

Maybe the standards are different in children's publishing - afaik all the children's books I have read of late have been by UK authors and published here. I'd say my non-children's reading is split 50/50 between the US and the UK, and I've never noticed the word (say) "color" in a UK edition of a book by a US author.

Kinda OT, but there is a/n hilarious bit in one of Dean Koontz's earlier books where the American hero meets his cockney contact in London, complete with "authentic" rhyming slang and "subtitles".

[sense4all]

When we lived in Kansas, Hubbie and I were rolling on the floor : when channel surfing there was Eastenders -with 'fixed' subtitles. The interpreter had obviously never been east of Topeka ... classic!

[SaxyJag]

The Americans seem to have three fixed ideas of what an English accent should be. It's either Dick Van Dyke cockney, faux Queen's English, or some strange version of pseudo Australian English (because, gee, I can never tell the difference between English and Australian. Say, can you speak Scotch?)

[LeMarchand]

I doubt anyone is likely to see this, but I found an interesting paragraph about "translations" as pertaining to the novel "Bareback" aka "Benighted" in the US: http://www.kitwhitfield.com/thebook.html (look in the faqs).

[JamesEverton]

LeMarchand - thanks for that. It's interesting to see how things are changed for the different markets. I still think that it's weird to make these changes - when I read an American novel I do so self-conciously and expect to see American spellings/phrasings.

Incidentally, I asked a similar question to dml54 a little while ago:

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Arts_and_Litera ture/Question233072.html

[LeMarchand]

@ JamesEverton - you're welcome. Don't know how I missed your question in May, though I did have a few net problems a couple of months ago.