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Britishisms, Americanisms...


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There is indeed often inconsistency in American terms. If it's too noisy I want the kids shut up, and I want the engine shut down. Our terms are often different from UK terms, while theirs are different to ours. It is possible for your American mom to get "onto" you about something, but more likely she'll get "on your case" or "all over you". But if she's "on to" you it means she's figured out your sneakiness.

Gotta love language.

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Language is a never-ending fascination for me.

I was in a museum dedicated to the poetry of the Lakeland poets a while back and noticed a wall poster with an extract from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, including the line 'Thorough the fog it came'. I tactfully pointed out the printing error to the attendant on duty who noted it down to be corrected in due course, but when I later checked Coleridge's original poem I found he did actually write 'thorough the fog it came'. He was intentionally using archaic language, and the word 'thorough' once meant the same as 'through' - we still have the word 'thoroughfare' for a through road. More fool me.

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I think if the meaning is clear, you should leave the British on their side of the Atlantic (and the Aussies on their side of the Pacific). Sometimes in editing, though, I will make a change ('on' to 'in', for example) because I don't know if the Aussie or Brit has made an error. If the meaning is not clear or is misleading across the waters, then something needs to be changed. I had a recent instance where someone got 'onto' a board in order to pursue a change. I assumed they were elected or appointed to the board. But that was not the case; they were onto the board to object to something; we in North America use 'she was onto me for my bad behavior' in the same sense as 'onto a board' was intended. Anyway, some rewording clarified the text.

Exactly, on both points! I do tend to leave things alone if I'm pretty sure it's Brit-speak and not an error. Oh, sometimes I can't help myself and throw in a snotty remark, but mostly I leave them be. The real problem is the second one: what if it wasn't meant as written, what if indeed it's an error? Then I feel I should mark it, because the author has the final say and if he wants it as written, he can ignore my intrusion.

But prepositions are a gnarly conundrum. I guess the Brits park up in the lane. We'd park on the lane. Their way is cuter than ours.

I do love language, too, and love the differences. By editing a long story, you really do see a lot of anomalies you hadn't discovered before. Editing forces you to read every word, so you can't glide over things like when you're reading for pleasure.

C

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I'm currently editing an Englishman's story, and the differences in our two languages can be perplexing. They use prepositions differently than we do. If they use 'on' where we use 'in', should I correct it, or not?

As the recipient of American early readers and editor, my recommendation is to flag it for the author to decide. What happens with my stories is that my first reader will flag anything that reads odd to him so I can decide if it's a typo (which it could be) or an Australian colloquialism (also quite possible). The same applies when my editor goes through and makes changes. Most of the time, I allow Americanisms to remain because Australia is actually multicultural with a lot of phrases (the American, British, or Australian versions can all be used here, depending on the speaker), and only change them back if I feel that it no longer sounds plausible for an Australian to use that phrasing.

I think if the meaning is clear, you should leave the British on their side of the Atlantic (and the Aussies on their side of the Pacific). Sometimes in editing, though, I will make a change ('on' to 'in', for example) because I don't know if the Aussie or Brit has made an error. If the meaning is not clear or is misleading across the waters, then something needs to be changed. I had a recent instance where someone got 'onto' a board in order to pursue a change. I assumed they were elected or appointed to the board. But that was not the case; they were onto the board to object to something; we in North America use 'she was onto me for my bad behavior' in the same sense as 'onto a board' was intended. Anyway, some rewording clarified the text.

And this is why I like using an American editor :smile: I want my stories to be understandable in America as well as Australia and Europe. It's the little linguistic phrases that only a native will understand, but being a native I don't realise that everyone else doesn't have the same understanding.

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I am such an easygoing and accepting guy that it is hard for me to think like an editor, but I believe Graeme has the right of it. Flag first, then flog.

I have lived in so many different locations here in the U.S. of A. that I've had to learn (and unlearn) many differing sets of colloquialisms and ways of expressing myself. Relocating from New England to the mid-South was especially brutal. Try asking for a frappe in a land of milkshakes, or attempting to order a cup of hot brewed tea.

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And only today I've learned that you can't play "Tig" in Leeds! Fortunately they buried a secret decoder ring in the story.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-35763938

Makes about as much sense as the youth soccer leagues that don't keep score so the kids won't feel bad. As though every mom, dad, and player isn't keeping score. (And wouldn't that be "football" in England and "footie" in Australia?)

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I have an idea that footie in Australia is Australian Rules Football, a quite different game with some similarities to rugby, and as far as I remember very attractive extra short shorts... No doubt Graeme will pop up and correct me if I've got that wrong, or maybe Des will?

Tig? Around these parts it's known as Tag. There are massive regional variations over quite small distances in playground terminology. Gym shoes are a good example. They're pumps, sneakers, trainers, daps, tennis shoes, sandshoes, and several other names - and alternative words are completely unknown out their region. So we always called them daps and wouldn't have known what a sneaker or pump was.

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I agree with Bruin: the most disturbing thing about this story is calling tag, tig. Tig! Come on. The game is to touch, or tag, another person who then has the goal of touching, or tagging, someone else. Where in the world does the meaningless word 'tig' come in? I agree with these over-zealous school officials: ban the game! Ban it until there can be a multi-national conference to decide what to call it, and that 'it' should be TAG.

C

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The one thing that always rings a bell in my head when I read it is the term "different to." British English is different to American English, while American English is different from or different than British English. The OED says different to predates the other two usages and that during the Sixteenth Century, different against was also used.

Some authorities feel that because one writes differ from, the related different from is preferable to different to.

Because I am an Anglophile, I would prefer to use the British versions of such things, though I don't want to seem pretentious to American readers, but I can't bring myself to write different to. It just doesn't sound right!

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Different comes from French and just means 'differing'. So the following sentences mean the same:

At this point his opinion departs from the orthodox.

At this point his opinion differs from the orthodox.

At this point his opinion is different from the orthodox.

I don't think I would accept either of these:

At this point his opinion is different to the orthodox

At this point his opinion is different than the orthodox

I found a discussion on the Grammarist website which insists that in fact all three usages -different from, to or than - are correct although than is more common in the USA and to is more common in the UK. Apparently all three have been used in great literature for hundreds of years. The Grammarist does tactfully point out that some people consider to and than absolutely unacceptable and therefore to take care when using them in work to be presented to a teacher.

http://grammarist.com/usage/different/

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As for 'passel', although the on-line dictionaries list the word as 19th century American, I'd not be surprised if in fact, it was far older.

​Actually it is far older. Passel is the old pronunciation of parcel, which was often written pacel in 16th century England. At that time the term parcel/pacel just meant a collection of things that were gathered together. In British Legal English we still use it in this sense when we refer to a 'parcel of land' to describe a piece of land consisting of more than one field. At the moment I have an auction listing on screen that describes one lot as a 'a parcel of land consisting of four fields ...'

The important thing is that the collection of things does not have to homogenous. There does, however, have to be some communality between the elements in the parcel. So you could have a parcel of plants or a parcel of bird skins but you could not combine the two:

"I have sent to you a parcel of pressed plants which have recently arrived from the exploration of the Amazon and with the same a parcel of bird skins from the same source."

The restriction of the term parcel to mean something that is packaged for sending by post or courier is relatively modern. I can recall doctors referring to a parcel of drugs in the 1960s - now the term would be a cocktail of drugs.

The pronunciation of parcel as passel still exists in some English and Scots dialects. I have just finished reading a piece set in Glasgow where the speaker in reported dialog asks "'as mi pascel kom?" Over the Christmas period I went over to the Black Country to assist and elderly friend to sort out a room that she has used for years as a general store room, but now needs to return to being a bedroom. She pointed to a collection of stuff on a table and told me to "passel up that lot and bin them".

I think it is clear that the modern American passel and the English parcel do both have a common source.

Personally I have doubts about using the term passel or parcel to refer to a group of journalists, I was under the impression the correct term was a stupidity of journalists.

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Just mentioned this to a friend who is a leading journalist on one of our national newspapers. He informed me that the correct term for a group of journalists is a gaggle.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This was in the same place as the knocking up article and is a real knock out:



Almost 8,000 jobs in UK libraries have disappeared in six years, about a quarter of the overall total, an investigation by the BBC has revealed.


Over the same period, some 15,500 volunteers have been recruited and 343 libraries have closed, leading to fears over the future of the profession.


Children's author Alan Gibbons said the public library service faced the "greatest crisis in its history".


The government said it funded the roll-out of wi-fi to help libraries adapt.


The BBC has compiled data from 207 authorities responsible for running libraries through the Freedom of Information Act. Our analysis shows:


  • Some 343 libraries closed. Of those, 132 were mobile services, while 207 were based in buildings (and there were four others, such as home delivery services)
  • The number of closures in England is higher than the government's official estimate of 110 buildings shut

  • A further 111 closures are planned this year

  • The number of paid staff in libraries fell from 31,977 in 2010 to 24,044 now, a drop of 7,933 (25%) for the 182 libraries that provided comparable data

  • A further 174 libraries have been transferred to community groups, while 50 have been handed to external organisations to run. In some areas, such as Lincolnshire and Surrey, the move has led to legal challenges and protests from residents.

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