but the issues of the britpicking and thoughts of 'US-centrism' are linked in more ways than one. i mean, the issue is the sheer one-way road by which some AE-bashers (not you, mind), tend to travel down.
take a look at what you just said. think it's a little silly, considering both versions tend to be perfectly readable on both sides of the pond,
really? because you're canadian, right? you're used to it.
Well, on the spelling front I meant that everyone can still read "gray" vs. "grey" or "center" vs. "centre" perfectly well despite whether they've encountered it before, as the differences usually have to do with a single letter. It's not like the BE spelling of "color" is "cloryjbrai". I remember I had never seen the word "connexion" before reading Tolkien as a kid, but it was clear enough.
I really don't think it's quite the same as providing a translation across languages,
AE is dif't than BE, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion about it, right?
Well, my point was that CE is different from BE too, and the Canadian publishers don't edit for language. We may use the same spelling in most cases, but we likewise use "gotten" and don't say "sellotape" or "jumper" and all that.
it's okay for people to be British-centrist when it comes to the language of stories. but it's not okay for an american to want to write and read in AE?
In my opinion, no - it is not British-centric to preserve British spellings and culturally-appropriate words in a book set in Britain and written by a British author. It would be British-centric if British people were changing American works set in America to BE; which is exactly what the American publishers of HP are doing. BE and AE are not separate languages - they're two dialects of the same language which, in the written form, differ in extremely minor ways. We will have to agree to disagree on this one, because I just can't stop seeing a 'translation' as pretty silly. :-D
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Date: 2007-03-28 02:15 pm (UTC)take a look at what you just said.
think it's a little silly, considering both versions tend to be perfectly readable on both sides of the pond,
really? because you're canadian, right? you're used to it.
Well, on the spelling front I meant that everyone can still read "gray" vs. "grey" or "center" vs. "centre" perfectly well despite whether they've encountered it before, as the differences usually have to do with a single letter. It's not like the BE spelling of "color" is "cloryjbrai". I remember I had never seen the word "connexion" before reading Tolkien as a kid, but it was clear enough.
I really don't think it's quite the same as providing a translation across languages,
AE is dif't than BE, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion about it, right?
Well, my point was that CE is different from BE too, and the Canadian publishers don't edit for language. We may use the same spelling in most cases, but we likewise use "gotten" and don't say "sellotape" or "jumper" and all that.
it's okay for people to be British-centrist when it comes to the language of stories. but it's not okay for an american to want to write and read in AE?
In my opinion, no - it is not British-centric to preserve British spellings and culturally-appropriate words in a book set in Britain and written by a British author. It would be British-centric if British people were changing American works set in America to BE; which is exactly what the American publishers of HP are doing. BE and AE are not separate languages - they're two dialects of the same language which, in the written form, differ in extremely minor ways. We will have to agree to disagree on this one, because I just can't stop seeing a 'translation' as pretty silly. :-D