fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2714 ]

[ SECRET POST #2714 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2714 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 071 secrets from Secret Submission Post #388.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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How many of you actually switch spellings based on whether your characters are British or American (or Canadian, the bastard stepchild of both)? And what do you do if you have characters of both nationalities present - switch based on whose perspective you're using? It seems like that could get really distracting.

I don't really switch spellings, but I noticed I used "bum" instead of "butt" when I wrote a smutty 11th Doctor/River fanfic.

I'm American, and I think changing your spelling is stupid. Neither is more correct than the other, and it shouldn't matter, as long as the characters are speaking in a way that is appropriate for their location. Exception would be, I suppose, if you are writing out some kind of note that a character received, or something to that extent.

On a related note, I'm going to be attending school in the UK in the fall, and have had to seriously overthink how I correspond with the school people there. Do I refer to my "program" or my "programme"? Especially when responding to someone who has just written the British spelling? Does insisting on American spelling make me seem like a stubborn American, or does using the British spelling make me seem even more annoying, or like the British version of an obsessed otaku? lol my life.

I can't speak for people from the UK, of course, but Canadians just expect Americans to use American spelling. It's not wrong, it's just how they do things. If you used programme, that would be fine of course, but if you used program, no one would even blink. (...Though to be honest, if an American used programme, I might look at it a bit like a dog riding a bicycle ;p)

Of course the British might be more aggro about it, but I expect the worst you'd get is a polite reminder to use British spellings in correspondence and course work.

Haha, thanks for the perspective. I personally find it annoying when my fellow Americans insist on using British spellings because it just ~feels more natural~ or go to the UK hoping/expecting to "lose their American accent" and come hope talking in a weird wannabe English accent. I don't want to come across that way.

But at the same time, it feels rude to use the American spelling when the person I'm e-mailing is using the British spelling. Or if I'm referring to a document with a title that uses British spelling, I feel like I should write the title as it's written, but that leads to a lot of inconsistency.

I can't speak for your friends, but some people just naturally pick up accents and speaking patterns of where they are. It's not some juvenile concept like ~wannabe English or something.

Re: Inspired by Secret 7 - British versus American spelling

ariakas - 2014-06-08 21:17 (UTC) - Expand

Unless it's oxbridge they literally won't give the slightest damn unless they want to be uppity about it to prove a point, in which case they're not worth bothering with.

They'll know what you mean, just use what feels natural to you.

I didn't see this yesterday. Bad eye-brain coords, missing interesting posts!

If the fandom's American, or the original story's setting is American, I use American spelling and American vernacular. I just feel it's a good writing exercise, and it's also been appreciated by people who read my work. But I'm South African, and our spelling and grammar rules are identical to the British, so it took a bit of work and Eagle Eye efforts from betas, my current awesome proof reader, and my editor to make sure that I "wrote American, dammit." Now I actually have to concentrate and make up my mind to write using the British rules.

I have relatives and friends in several countries, and I find their emails to be awesome reference materials. I can manage to make characters "sound" like they're from any of those countries. I feel that one only gets true practice in that little art form by stepping outside one's comfort zones. "Writing American" helped immensely with that: I stopped automatically thinking up dialogue in my own vernacular.

It's more based on setting for me. If it's an American show set in the US I use American spellings and wordage, if it's British I use British wordage, etc etc.

I do mix it up a bit for foreign characters. Like with Wesley from Angel, American spellings but Wes uses a few Britishisms so I'd write that accordingly.

I'm American, but I can do British spellings and grammar almost as easily and automatically as American spellings pretty much solely because I was raised on having British spellings in 1/3 of my books, including the Harry Potter books 1-3 and 6, while having American spellings in 2/3 of my other books as well as Harry Potter 4 and 5.

Mostly, both spellings (ou's and all) "look right" to me, but with one exception: I don't care what anyone says, the word "defense" should be spelled with an "s", not a "c". "Defence" makes me think of someone taking down their front picket fence, which is a bad association to make when reading terms like "Defence Against The Dark Arts."

Bastard step child here. I use Cdn spelling, unless I'm quoting something the character is reading, like a sign or email. As to your other question, I write in the style of the country the show is from and if there is a character from the other country, then I'd reflect that in their speech. If it's a canon character, then I'd match however they speak in the show.

For example, in Hustle, set in the UK, with a mostly Brit cast, Robert Vaughn is and plays an American, who's been in the UK a while--and I noticed that his character sometimes used UK terms for things. Which makes sense for the amount of time he's been there.

I admittedly use British spelling a lot partly out of habit. Years ago I read an article about raging at video games and the author intentionally used the Brit spelling of "behaviour" to make the article seem more ominous (yes, they actually said that in the article) and I kind of picked up the habit because of that. It's something I've long since given up trying to break.

I don't worry about this and you can probably guess why. I try to write speech in a style appropriate to the time and place though.

I'm American, and I don't bother to change my spelling in British fandoms. I do update my vernacular, though, because that's way more annoying. I also get my stories Brit-picked, which makes things much easier. Ameri-picking is much less common, though.

Like I commented to the secret, I don't care about spelling, only if the characters sound like they're supposed to and not like they were all transplanted to a different country.

Oh no argument there. I'm the biggest proponent of syntax/dialect > spellings/phonetics out there. If you don't know a dialect well enough to distinguish it using syntax and characteristic word usage, you don't know it well enough to bother. Just put "s/he spoke with a ____ accent" in the narrative and have done with it.

The worst is when writers spell out accents. That's just distracting.

Re: Inspired by Secret 7 - British versus American spelling

ariakas - 2014-06-08 22:20 (UTC) - Expand

I never change spellings. Phrasings yes, slang if I know it, they have to sound right, but spelling would only count if we're imagining that characters think/speak in text or something. So I just use British spelling, and in defiance of my bloody American spellchecker too.

(Yes, I know you can switch defaults on spellcheckers, I just keep forgetting, and it's always easy to tell which words it's getting caught on because of it).

This.

If I was transcribing a letter a British character wrote, sure. I'd use British spellings. But otherwise no.

I don't usually write things that have both American and British (using that term incorrectly to mean anyone from the UK) characters, but when I do, I certainly do switch spellings. It's an easy way to convey the accent.

Interesting. Spelling doesn't convey accent at all, to me, it just conveys the background of the writer. Syntax conveys the accent.

British, don't bother to change my spelling, but I do use American phrases if appropriate to the character.

I'll at least change grammar, and often I'll change spellings.

When it comes to fic, it depends on how it's being written. If it's third person, IDC. If it's from a character's POV, I find it disconcerting for the character to be thinking in the wrong spelling for their nationality.

But that's just me, so I don't really say anything. I get everyone has their own perspective on this.

I write so rarely that the question of spellings doesn't come up much. That said, I feel it is just a bit more appropriate to use British spellings in LotR, but given all my LotR writing is RP, I don't worry if I leave a few z's in words that end with -ise.

The one American/English spelling difference which will always jerk me around if I see it out of place is mum/mom. It is very much a pronunciation difference.

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