Subtle Britishisms

[maychorian]

spnroundtable has a workshop on writing like a US citizen as a non-native, and I commented with the raw information in this. benitle asked me if I had these under a tag, because apparently they're kinda useful? So that sounds like a good idea. I was trying to save up enough to have a reasonable-sized blog post instead of just random mutterings, but putting this up now

Comments

[22by7]

I gather you're talking about dialogue/reported speech/character voices only, and not... the rest of the chunk of prose that goes into an individual fic?

[maychorian]

It especially throws me off in dialog, yeah. To me, that's an aspect of characterization, how Dean and Sam talk and act. (And other American characters, of course.) Hearing Dean say "Bugger off!" or an OC yelling "Oy!" instead of something like "Hey!" will usually chase me right out of a fic.

To a lesser extent, it does bother me in the rest of the prose, too. Mostly, I think, because a lot of fanfic is written from a character's POV and is nominally their thoughts and experiences, so to hear them using non-American words and constructions is off-putting.

Again, this is just my perspective and my feelings on the subject. I'm picky and sort of OCD when it comes to language. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt. (Or a bucket.)

[cryptonomicon63]

HAHAHA!! as a teacher of (American) English in Europe, I have to teach (or, better, explain) all of this to my students!!! This entry just made my day! (and I'm not even American, I'm German... but the whole thing's too complicated to explain) anywho (I hate that one with a passion) it was real fun reading this -I'm weird that way -thanks

[maychorian]

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :D

[chiiyo86]

Huh, it's almost too subtle for me. I notice, though, that I must be more familiar with americanisms than britishisms, because most of the britishims you point out sound weird to me.

[maychorian]

Hey, only take advice that's useful to you. If none of this is useful to you, that's cool too. :)

Thanks for reading!

[janissa11]

::sags:: I'm so glad someone else is bugged by "in hospital." AND "he'd not." They just don't sound right as American speech/writing.

[maychorian]

Heh, those two drive me NUTS. Especially the first, since I read so much H/C and therefore see it everywhere. :D It's not enough to drive me out of a fic, but I notice every single time.

[tahirire]

The one that kills me is 'I've just been' doing *whatever*. It's I WAS JUST.

/ocd.

[maychorian]

Really? Huh. That's doesn't bother me at all.

Maybe it's because you're from Florida, you weirdo. ;D