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  EDline Vol. 8, no. 78   (1 September 2003)

  Editorial mailing list (digest version)
  Published by the Electric Editors
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  Contents:

         Q & A
  [2yk]  Keeping a text's local flavor
            [Offshoot of [2yj] Usage: "on / at (the) weekends"?]

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---[2]-- Q & A --------------------------------------------------

         Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003, 7:50:52 AM
         From: Esther Shchory, eshchory@nonstop.net.il

Anna McCormack wrote:

> I wonder about the intrinsic value of changing vocabulary to
> suit a different country. ...
>
> I think my point is that local language is as evidential of
> place as native fauna, so should be permitted. The Harry Potter
> books couldn't exist without generations of British-boarding-
> school stories as a precedent, so why dilute their Britishness?

I agree that children should be exposed to many cultures and I
think the Americanisation was a (faulty) decision made with the
Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, from which there was no return.

However with some words (such as pants/trousers) you need to be
aware of the origin of the text, and therefore the word usage,
just to avoid misunderstanding.

I understand Australian, South African and American English, and
even the strange Henglish most Anglos seem to speak in this
country but I still do my best to speak British 'like wot I was
taught' :0)


         ----------------------
         Date: Mon, 1 Sept 2003
         From: Judy Stein, jstein@panix.com

Just one more note on this--

Anna McCormack wrote:

> Even so, I wonder about the intrinsic value of changing
> vocabulary to suit a different country. Surely, if Mad Eye
> Moody has a fracas with his rubbish bins in the UK, isn't it
> instructive for US children to learn that Brits do call them
> 'rubbish' bins? Why deprive them of a bit of multicultural
> knowledge? Why encourage insularity? Kids aren't dumb. They can
> work (or find) it out.

I'm in enthusiastic agreement with the principle here, but just
for the record, "rubbish" is a common word in the U.S. for stuff
that's been discarded (or metaphorically, as in the U.K., for
anything considered worthless). Kids probably wouldn't even
notice the difference between "rubbish bin" and "trash bin," and
if they did, they'd be very unlikely to be confused.

So if some editor changed "rubbish bin" to "trash bin," I can't
imagine it would be because he or she thought kids wouldn't
understand the former, but rather to avoid even a Brit *flavor*,
which is just a stunningly stupid thing to do, even more so
because in this case not even the *flavor* is that distinctively
British.

> I think my point is that local language is as evidential of
> place as native fauna, so should be permitted. The Harry Potter
> books couldn't exist without generations of British-boarding-
> school stories as a precedent, so why dilute their Britishness?

Amen. You'd have to rewrite the books from scratch and make all
kinds of changes not just in the vocabulary but in many of the
specifics of the various situations in order to de-Britishize
them.


         ----------------------
         Date: Mon, 1 Sept 2003
         From: Robert Ritter, robert.ritter@oxcis.ac.uk

At the risk of seeming to flog other OUP books, there is a
section on US versus British English in the 'languages' section
of the *Oxford Guide to Style* and *Oxford Style Manual*,
together with a fairly long list of common confusables. Also, the
current edition of the *Oxford Dictionary for Writers and
Editors* clarifies individual US/UK forms and meanings. None of
the three takes the place of a discursive treatment---as we've
seen in recent discussions here---or attention to context, but
they can offer a swift answer where needed. 


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