[ SECRET POST #6029 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6029 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #862.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/RCblQKh.png

[(Anonymous)]

“Dodgy” is British? Whoops.

I was going to contest “legit” until I saw the definition.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that's two words.

Leg it. Not Legit.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I still hear "leg it" from Americans.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah dodgy is definitely used in the US with the same definition. At least the parts I've lived in (mostly east coast).

[meadowphoenix]

it's not solely and neither is "hard". dodgy has a bit of a old-fashioned or accent specific connotation in the US I would say though.

[(Anonymous)]

I give them some leeway but yeah, if a show that takes place in a certain time in a certain country and the fic is just full of anachronisms and non-local slang I'm out.

[(Anonymous)]

It's a weird thing where I'm fine with it if it's intentional but it's really grating if it's not on purpose and they just didn't put any thought into it

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed, I do the same for Americanisms in British fandoms. My interest is just killed by the incongruity. I wish there were loads of Britpicking and Ameripicking communities.

[(Anonymous)]

It’s the same for me both ways. Some words and phrases get a pass because each place has extremely popular movies and shows from the other and slang is starting to overlap, but there aren’t many instances of this for me.

[(Anonymous)]

"He was stood by the window."

"She wiped her face with a flannel."

They kind of crack me up. I don't mind if the fic is otherwise good.

The funniest one I saw lately was an Aussie who used "revision mirror" in a fic. I guess they call it a rear vision mirror and not a rear view mirror there? It stumped me.

And not to go off topic entirely, and it's not a different country thing, but somebody wrote "hammy downs" for hand-me-downs. Also very funny.

[randomdrops]

Idk why but "hammy downs" is cracking me up.

I love shit like that, where you can tell the person has only ever heard the phrase not seen it written out. I love regional differences too, but they're not usually as funny.

[(Anonymous)]

Heh. I once betaed a fic for a British friend and had to tell her that Americans working in a typical American office setting do not come back from anywhere (like a meeting, lunch, whatever) and "put the kettle on" because at the time, electric kettles weren't very common at all, and especially not in office settings because people drank coffee or soda/pop and not tea.

[(Anonymous)]

The privilege of being ESL and mixing American/British/Australian English everyday due to blessed ignorance.
If it's not very specific slang, like IDK shag, snog and fag for the cigarette, I generally don't really care or even notice.

I get why it's a problem for you, though. I have a similar pet peeve for characters who speak in my native language but have dialect inflections. I get irritated when people get them wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

I get this, and feel the same way about American-specific slang in fic for British works. Or misplaced slang in fic generally.

I also feel this as a pet-peeve a little irl too, while fully admitting that it’s not actually a problem just because it dings my “that’s not the way people usually talk there” sense. Like, I’ll feel just a little bit that way when I see a British fan of an American show call a season a series, and when an American fan does the same by calling a British series a season. But it’s not actually a big deal, so I move on.

And for the person from the comment secret thread: Just because some people feel taken out of the experience at misplaced slang in fic doesn’t mean it’s an “error” that has to be fixed, or that the author is doing something objectively bad. So it’s not an “extra hoop” ESL writer’s have to jump through unless they want to be 100% accurate. And if they don’t, then that’s fine, and I feel like most readers won’t care if they keep the slang that might not accurate is there. You’re fine, even if some of us aren’t completely immersed. Most people understand that people who aren’t native speakers of the language might find slang from different places that speak it confusing to keep up with.

[(Anonymous)]

i tend to see far more misplaced americanisms in british settings than britishisms in american settings tbh

[(Anonymous)]

I tend to see more misplaced britishisms than americanisms in fic myself, so it’s probably a different experience for some people and fandoms than one actually being more prevalent than the other.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, it depends on your fandoms. Mine currently are set in the US so I see the British stuff.

[ibbity]

This is a thing in a surprising amount of bandom fics I've read. I don't backbutton, but I pause and cackle to myself whenever I see a writer make a c. 2000s twenty-something rocker dude from Chicago or New Jersey say "hard-on" in a context where they would absolutely have said "boner" instead

[(Anonymous)]

Hard-on is used in the US, though? Is this more of an age thing?

[(Anonymous)]

Too funny because I roll my eyes when people use 'boner' - it seems very juvenile to me. Which works in some instances but generally just makes me laugh. Hard on is more normal to me. I'm in the US and around 40 - for context.

[(Anonymous)]

I still remember an absolutely beautifully written fic set in England (the source was set in the US) but with an American main character. The author didn't even try to make her sound American. It was mostly something I could overlook until she was finally explaining her tragic backstory and whoops, her true love got killed by a "lorry". Ruined the entire speech.

But the thing I really remember was how hilarious I found every description of the male lead's clothing choices. I never realized how Eurotrash England could be. Shirts unbuttoned to the navel, robes so short it sounds like you could see tip of his pooter hanging out, just weird flashy patterns. Yipe.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd ask if I wrote this in my sleep, but it's not REMOTELY a secret for me.

Current primary fandom is Stranger Things, before that it was Supernatural, and oh boy, the number of times I've seen a guy from the midwest say 'I've not' instead of 'I haven't' just...

It takes me out every damn time. Like... presumably if you're writing fic for the show, you've watched it, so how do you not hear the characters' speech patterns? In fifteen damn seasons, have you ever heard Dean Winchester say 'I've not'?

And the thing is, YEAH, some Americans use britishisms-- I do, because I was raised on PBS, P.G. Wodehouse, Roald Dahl, JRRT, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, C.S. Lewis... so I absorbed a lot of that, you know, but *especially* britishisms that would make me sound like a fussy little old man rather than a modern young person. But here's the thing, when I was a kid, it was WEIRD, because NONE of my peers talked like that. This was before there was a single, super popular aimed-at-children thing that would get American kids talking like Brits.

But Dean Winchester was not raised on Keeping Up Appearances and Are You Being Served?, Dean Winchester was raised on Scooby Doo and westerns and horror movies. The ONLY time Dean Winchester busts out an obvious britishism should be to make fun of Ketch or the like, not just in his everyday dialogue, and we have heard him talk SO MUCH that like... it's just incomprehensible to me that people can listen to even *five* seasons of dialogue and not know how he sounds, let alone *fifteen*.

If you describe someone using a flannel instead of a washcloth, I give that a pass if it's a non-POV narrator. But if it is in dialogue or a specific character's thoughts, like, it needs to be a word they would use.

[(Anonymous)]

I usually catch the Britishisms too.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't be bothered to give any fucks. I used to worry that British people will be upset at American slangs ruining their British experience and vice versa but these days, depending on the fandom, I just...am too tired to care.