Brit-picking: vital or a waste of time?

[emmagrant01]

jedirita and I discussed this topic over lunch yesterday, and it pops up on LJ constantly. I've never given it much thought, honestly, because everyone who's ever called me for an Americanism has been extraordinarily nice about it. The culture in the HP fandom seems to be that writers should use British English whenever possible, and I'll admit that I've bought into that 100%. I always looked at it as a respect-for-canon issue.

Rita feels differently, though, as do a lot of other people. So I started thinking about it, and now I'm questioning my sudden zeal to make sure my HP fic is as Americanism-free as possible. Can I really accomplish that? And is it really a worthwhile goal, considering there are so many other more important things to work on as a writer?

I'll keep this brief because so many people have already said something about this at some point. I'm still forming my thoughts, and I won't bore you with anything half-assed, for once! ;-)

For now, I'll just point to this post by lykaios, and say. "Yeah. What she said."

Comments

[wivern.livejournal.com]

Have to jump in here because not only am I a language freak but I used to get this from the other side in Starsky and Hutch fandom... showing my age I know.

I am writing thoughts off the cuff so I apologise if I'm not very ordered.

Yes. I think Brit picking, or American/ Australian/ Canadian picking is very important - essential actually. But I don't think the occasional mistake is a major sin and I think people should spell the way they were taught. (And use a bloody spell checker at the VERY least.) It's not so much canon for me, I think, as being in character. I want to read the characters I was drawn to not some totally unfamiliar person with the character's name and/or face.

I personally don't write in American modern-day fandoms because I know I would sound absurd, unless I took more time and effort getting it right than I'm prepared to for a hobby . If I did I would most definitely get a native speaker to beta it for me.

The thing that I find a problem is not so much words but getting institutions or behaviours wrong. Perhaps they are the hardest to even know about. Though how anyone who has actually read the HP books and seen the movies - much less is a fan of the universe - could make some of the gaffs I've seen, astonishes me.

I do think it's apalling that people are dragging other issues into the language thing... as I get the impression they must have been in other forums. Honest mistakes are honest mistakes and have nothing to do with the fact that we are being drowned in US culture whether we want it or not.

In the end there is room for all tastes, especially in a fandom as huge as HP. I probably won't finish a fic that has 'pavements' and 'graduations' and such, and is peppered with US slang... unless it is so fantastic that it takes me past that, not that I've found one that does yet. But there are heaps of people who don't care or don't realise that it's full of anachronisms (so to speak). So... *shrugs*

It boils down to the same thing as has often been talked about in Q/O... Obi-Wan behaving like a scared, dim, insecure adolescent isn't the Obi-Wan I saw in the film, and he's just not interesting to me. In the same way, a Hogwarts that looks and sounds like an American high school isn't the one I read/saw and I'm not really interested in that either... unless it is an AU, and that might be fun, if it is well conceived and written.