Case of the Green Pearl, Part one

[reverend_alex]

”Well the smart money’s on Harlow, and the moon is in the street,
And the shadow boys are breaking all the laws,
And you’re east of east Saint Louis and the wind is making speeches,
And the rain sounds like a round of applause.”The rain beat nails into my window pane, distorting the noise and the grime of the street outside. Car horns blared and

Comments

[reverend_alex]

I knew there would be one!

I do love correcting people, but the thing I really love the most is when people correct me erroneously.

As you might be able to tell (and as will become more evident should the later chapters ever get written), this little vignette is set in America (see Maker's Mark Bourbon, references to 'cops', 'private dick', Marlboros -OK you can get them here too, 'liquor', use of 'purse' rather than handbag). Hence 'tires', not 'tyres'. Better luck next time.

[siobhan684]

Go Nick!! Yes, it's set in America, but your audience is British. The use of American terminology does indeed serve to indicate to us that this little random piece of fiction is set in America, however there is no need to use American spellings of words which we use in English to further your point.

'Cop', 'private dick' etc. are terms that are inherently American. Tyres, on the other hand, are not inherently American, so use the English spelling for an English audience.

If you were writing a book set in France, you would refer to inherently French things using the appropriate French word, but you wouldn't then say 'pneu' instead of 'tyre'.

At least we've resolved the issue of your Grammar Nazi work interfering with your Spiderman work. Nick and I will take over the Grammar Nazi role. Nick, can we share the Grammar Nazi uniform? We could work shifts or something. I'll draft a rota.

[reverend_alex]

OK, first off your argument is flawed. American people use American words and spellings, regardless of whether the word is 'inherent' to their vernacular or not. French people do indeed write 'pneu', but it gets translated before it reaches a British audience. As the main character is clearly the one relating the story, and clearly not meant to be me, there is no reason to avoid american spelling.

Secondly, as the piece is (at best) a pastiche of the pulp detective genre, there is further argument for using the terms, spelling and literary devices of that genre- i.e. most of them are American, as in this case. Though it's true that most British works will go through an editing process to change words/spelling for an American audience, the same process is less often applied the other way round, though why this is, I couldn't say.

And finally, it was intentional, so even if your reasoning were acceptable to me, your pointing it out as a spelling mistake is not correct. Conversely, if you were to have pointed out that I have spelled '