(no subject)

[sealie]

I’ve been musing on this topic a wee bit as of late. Brits writing Americans and Americans writing Brits, we can a soupçon of Canadian to the mix.


I’ve had US born and bred beta readers since I realised that there was a significant difference between the UK and US use of the English language back when I was writing ‘due South’ fanfic. I genuinely didn’t realise that there was a difference. I admit it: I had Benton Fraser wearing a white woolly jumper. He looked very pretty too.

But phrases, words and terminology that aren’t ‘right’ still make it through to the final edit of my stories. Some rules are pretty straightforward but other are fluid. I’ve discovered that an editor/beta from a northern state of the US will give you a different edit to someone from a southern state. I’ve ran into confusion, for example, over the use of certain words, e.g. house shoes/slippers and the usage turned out to regional. And I’m still not clear which is correct, so characters go barefoot. In SGA, dialogue-wise/POV should you have to have an individual beta for each main character e.g. a British person (ideally Scottish) for Carson, a Canadian for Rodney (should they be Toronto–based?) and a Texan(?) and/or Californian for Sheppard et cetera? I’m not saying that that’s not impossible and to be frank it’s desirable (and any Canadian beta readers out there, please make yourself known – I’d love to meet you). But confusion for the reader and the writer still happens. If you have a scene in a restaurant in Carson’s POV you’d pay with a wad of notes, but in Rodney’s POV you’d pay with a wad of bills. Theoretically. But I’ve been told that if you’re writing an American/Canadian based telly series your base of the story (e.g. terminology, text, descriptions et cetera outside of actual dialogue) should be North American. Plus again which North American usage should you use Seattle-esque or Floridan or a local from Vancouver? Is there a generic base? Damn those bloody house shoes or is it slippers?

Comments

[ratcreature]

That's the advantage of being neither-- I'm rarely jarred by these differences. ;)

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

lol -- How jarring can 'Sharpe' be (assuming you've watched the series with Sean Bean?)

[ratcreature]

Actually I haven't.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

it was the only programme off the top of my head that I thought had a extensive cast of french, english and other european charasters for which i know there's a fandom

[ratcreature]

There's a lot of British tv series with an international fandom though, like Dr. Who and the Professionals, even Life on Mars, though I don't know about multinational series.

[celtic-tigress.livejournal.com]

As an American and a beta, I have to say that the biggest things you need to watch out for are spelling and word usage that doesn't cross the pond. When I'm reading a fic in say SGA or SPN fandom, I want to see American spelling, simply because if John says he needs to change a tyre on his new Ferrari, not a tire, I get thrown out of the story to think, hey this author is british, wish she'd had an American-picker. Like you said about the jumpers/sweaters thing, changing language that is not used in both the US and UK is important.

However, with regard to regional use of different words here in the US, it isn't important, at least in my opinion. I think we have far fewer regional dialects and the differences between them are much smaller than you Brits. I know you could tell if you were talking to someone from London, and someone from say...Liverpool would sound significantly different. I think I've even heard that they try to keep the dialects intact when they show tv programs in different regions. In America, our media tends to try to unify the dialect being used, and it generally comes out at the generic Midwestern part of the spectrum. I noticed it especially when I was living in Kentucky, a southern state, this summer. When I would watch their local news, the anchor didn't have a southern accent, they would have a generic Midwestern accent closer to that of my native Chicago, with perhaps a hint of that drawl they couldn't get rid of.

So, keeping that in mind, house shoes/slippers are pretty interchangeable, and even if your reader or beta only uses one or the other, they've most likely heard the other usage enough that it wouldn't seem weird. (btw, slippers is a northern thing, house shoes is a southern thing. Just so you can tell for next time *g*)

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

Do you really find the spelling that distracting e.g. colour/color? I decided pretty early on (being a tad dyslexic) that I couldn’t adopt non-UK spelling e.g. the -u-, -ise vs –ize, -ll- vs -l- because I simply couldn’t increase the probability at would spell things incorrectly at school and work.

The regional insight is interesting. There are considerable variations in word usage, phraseology, dialect throughout the UK. Local news stations will use a local accent but they probably wouldn’t deliberately use dialect when delivering the news. Telly programmes can and do employ a ‘weaker’ version of accent/dialect in some programmes e.g. characters in Life on Mars or Auf Wiedersehen Pet. In much the same way that Carson Beckett is Scottish but his accent is rarely ‘broad’ (and occasionally jarringly wrong). So in general, do you think some American actors/public speakers in the US adopt a Midwest accent, phraseology et cetera because it is considered the most accessible?

[celtic-tigress.livejournal.com]

Well, some words are more jarring than others in terms of the spelling thing. Tyre is one that really throws me because it is so different from the American spelling, and we don't normally use 'y' to make that sound in the middle of a word EVER. Things like color/colour, center/centre aren't a big deal, but not all of them are so similar. Program/programme and ton/tonne are two more of the ones that are some of the more jarring ones. I don't see any reason why you should use American spelling in your writing if it confuses you in RL, just find someone willing to pick it and compensate for the differences.

As to actors changing accent, I know they do. It is part of the reason actors have voice coaches. They are trained out of their native accent into a more generic, all-American, Midwestern accent unless their character is supposed to be from a particular region, and maybe not even then. I don't know if you watch Supernatural, but that is a good example. The show takes place in many different locales throughout America, but very rarely will any particular accent show through in the people who populate whatever town the boys are in. Even Sam and Dean, who are supposed to be from Kansas, don't have accents. In real life both of them are from Texas, and when they get emotional or angry you can hear it bleed through a tiny bit, but generally speaking they speak with the accepted white-bread American accent. That could be explained by saying their characters grew up all over the country and didn't spend enough time in one place to develop an accent, but it doesn't explain the other random characters in the show who are supposed to be from New England, or Wisconsin or Mississippi and who all talk like they are from northern Illinois or Ohio. (That is the region I'm talking about when I say generic Midwestern accent.)

If you want more proof, go and look up the bios on some of your favorite American actors. Even though actors come from all over the country, they all speak with mostly the same accent. This is because accents are considered a mark of unprofessionalism, and certain ones, southern accents in particular, are something that is considered uncouth and undesirable. If you sound like you come from the hills of Tennessee, people will make fun of you in the North because you sound like a hick. Actors are supposed to be someone that anyone and everyone can identify with, and having an accent that sounds foreign or odd to the ear of the general audience (which is assumed to be a middle-class white person from the suburbs) prohibits that.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

That’s interesting, thank you. I can tell that Captain Picard/Patrick Stewart is from Yorkshire despite having cultured a ‘Queen’s English’ manner of speaking. So yes, it is a lack of familiarity (on my part) since generally I mainly hear an ‘American’ accent and lack the experience to pick up regional differences within a deliberate Mid-western accent. Yes, there are characters with strong accents normally ‘hillbillies’ but generally I just hear American.

[gillyp.livejournal.com]

I understand that syntax and word usage should be consistently American - when writing for a US based show, as they should stay British when writing Doctor Who or HP; but I see no reason at all why *spelling* has to change. It has no impact on the way the story reads. I can cope with a Doctor Who fic with American spelling so long as the Doctor doesn't fill his glass from a faucet or open the trunk of a car (unless the car has an actual pirate's chest or massive luggage item in it). I write in a US fandom that has many Brit/Aussie?Kiwi and Canadian writers - they all have good betas to pick the language, but they all spell colour with a 'u'.

[celtic-tigress.livejournal.com]

jimandblair just asked sort of the same question. Look at that reply, por favor. I don't want to clutter up her thread by saying the same (kind of wordy) thing twice. :)

[betagoddess.livejournal.com]

I'm Canadian. *g*

Living in Quebec for over 33 years, but born and brought up in Toronto, frequently going back to Ontario to visit relatives.

Finding British speak from a North American character, or conversely, American speak from a British character can take me right out of a story!

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

>Finding British speak from a North American character, or conversely, >American speak from a British character can take me >right out of a story!

I understand that. When Jim Ellison said, “I’m gagging for a cup of tea.” Blair fell over backwards laughing.

But what about non dialogue writing i.e. setting the scene text? If you’re reading Carson’s perception of an alien world which for once wasn’t a lot like British Columbia but was like Lowland Scotland -- would that throw you out? If the previous paragraph had been in Sheppard's POV?

[betagoddess.livejournal.com]

Nope, that wouldn't throw me out at all, since Carson is a Scottish character. Like Spike being English in the Buffyverse, he can use expressions that the N. American characters would sound weird using.

As a Canadian of my age, I use "British" spellings for "colour" and so on, but even that can distract me in an american story. Not as much as totally different vocabulary, though.

When I was growing up in Toronto, a jumper was a tunic-like dress with no sleeves, under which a blouse would be worn. Fraser would look adorable in a wooly white one! *g*

[tabby333.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about variations in language last night when I was grumbling about the use of "whilst" in a story told from John's POV. U.S. folks may have varying dialects, but I don't think any of us use "whilst," except maybe the Boston Brahmin crowd. I do think the terminology an language in dialogue should reflect, to some degree, the language of the character. It's probably also true that if a story is told from a certain character's POV, the language should be true to the character. But if you're using omniscient POV? I don't know why you need to restrict yourself.

As for different spellings for the same words, that doesn't bother me. However, I, as a northener born and bred, would not have a clue what house shoes are and would be brought up short if for instance John Sheppard wore them instead of slippers. I think in dealing with North American dialects, it's safer to stay away from slang to standard English. That is, slippers is a universal term, house shoes is more slang, I think. I could be wrong. It may weaken the character a bit, but probably not many would notice.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

Furtively checks for John or Elisabeth saying ‘whilst’ (breathes a sigh of relief)

Good point about Omniscient POVs. That might be something interesting to try – from a dense, regional perspective using dialect and slang.

[ex-nonniemou154.livejournal.com]

*wibbles*

Am I fired?

;-)

The one thing I do have to contribute (other than I would have thought house shoes was the more universal term) is that I have a lot less patience for authors who don't look at this kind of thing. It's jarring, to say the least, to see Sam or Dean refer to their "Mum" or say, "I'll go have a lie down" and so on. (One reason I loved writing TS fic, not only set in my nation, but set in my neck of the woods, too! ;-)

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

yeah you're fired! *weg* You taught me to block, darhling, I'd never fire you.

You are, however, kidding: "lie down" is a no-no? I didn't know that.

[tabby333.livejournal.com]

I would have thought house shoes was the more universal term

:-) Guess that shows that it's hard to define what's universal versus slang. Slippers to me. House shoes to you. Fortunately, the nice thing about John Sheppard is that we don't really know where he's from, do we? Or Weir. Do most Americans really know enought of what the 'dialect' is of sister regions to object to varied Americanisms? We can recognize accents, but may not be as familiar with specialized words (except maybe soda versus pop versus tonic here in the Northeast.)

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

where in the NE do you live that you say tonic? In New York(The City) it's soda. I lived in NY for almost 40 years. I was from Brooklyn. NY is dense, that there are actual differences in speech in different parts of the city and its surrounding suburbs.

I lived in Montgomery, AL for 5 years and I never those things on your feet called "house shoes". I've heard that Canadian English is halfway between British and American English.

Australian English is totally different.

[tabby333.livejournal.com]

I live on the northeast coast of Massachusetts. I grew up calling cola tonic (it was even on the signs in the supermarkets). I think it was a northern New England thing. Once i reached college, I started to call it soda and I could be wrong, but I think it slowly has changed throughout the area; at least it's not on the signs anymore. We also called subs grinders (also changed over the years) and we're quite fond of the phrase "wicked awesome."

I lived in Austin, Texas for two years and had a roommate from Brooklyn who was as fascinated by my manner of speech as I was by hers. We were both equally fascinated by the Texas drawl.

[ex-nonniemou154.livejournal.com]

*g* And that Texas drawl is my native accent, though I've lived in the PacNW for the last 20 years. I still retain elements of it, though, "Fixin' to" being one of the biggest.

Up here it's "pop." When I was a kid, in Texas, it was "coke," generic. Sofa vs. couch, jockey box vs. glove box, turtle vs. trunk, and so on.

[ex-nonniemou154.livejournal.com]

I think turn of phrase is the biggest deal. "Fixin' to," as I mentioned below. Here, we go to the Coast, rather than the beach. But I do agree that we don't have the regional variations like England does, nor do we really know too much about "dialect" differences. In fanfic, I generally aim for a "tv accent" and phrasing, unless it's absolutely essential to the character's voice to have a specific regional focus. But, I still trip up, since I"m the guilty party on jimandblair's house shoes/slippers debacle.

Sheppard is supposedly a military brat, so depending on where his dad was stationed, he would have no real discernable accent. To me, I hear the Colorado in JF's accent, as well as California.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, you can hear Colorado in Sheppard's accent? Can you describe that? I just hear a California accent, if anything. Some people say there a Southerness to his speech, but I don't hear anything that I would identify as Southern, and that's a wide range of speech patterns. Sheppard's drawn out "well" has me stumped. It sounds Midwest to me.

[ex-nonniemou154.livejournal.com]

That drawled out "well" is part of what makes me hear Colorado--or maybe just a general Rocky Mountain state accent in Sheppard's speech. Less of a twang than Oklahoma and West Texas, but not as "Nort' Dakoda" as states further west and north. (If that makes sense. ;-)

I don't hear anything truly Southern in his accent, either. Just because someone elongates some of their words doesn't automatically equate to "Southern." South west states have some of that in their speech patterns, too.

[acrasie.livejournal.com]

It depends on your ear and how much you have traveled, but you can hear definite regional accents if you try (and there are so many in the U.S.). John has Joe's tonal, broad Nevada/California accent--which a lot of people mistake for Texas and I can't figure out why. There's a definite difference. Weir sounds Canadian actually and it's really weird to hear. So many of the actors and actresses on SGA are Canadian and they sound it (moreso with the extras) and it's pretty funny to listen to.

I do know that people can get very funny about regional slang. My family was Navy and living overseas with people from so many different regions from across the U.S., we got into a lot of fights over slang. My entire class got into a fight over soda vs coke vs pop for a full week once and we only stopped when someone told us that the actual term for water fountain was bubbler. People still make fun of how I say coffee and if you've ever heard someone from Washington D.C. say where they're from, it'll definitely take a minute to sink in. Same with people from Baltimore. And when Nelly says "Right hurrr" in his song, that is actually how 'here' is said in East St. Louis.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah Ha! I've always thought that Sheppard sounded Californian - couldn't figure out where the Texan/southern idea was coming from. But then, I've lived in Colorado for over 20 years, so I'd probably wouldn't notice a Coloradoan accent. I suppose either would work - From what I remember, Joe grew up in California, but he went to Colorado University in Boulder.

As one of Sealie's betas, I've always tried to steer her right, but the US is so varied in subtle differences, it's easy to miss something.

(And for the record, if you'd told me about the 'slipper/house shoe', I would have told you to go for something unique, like bunny slippers or moccasins.)

[arlessiar.livejournal.com]

Pants or trousers, torches or flashlights, house shoes or slippers, cookies or biscuits... this is so very confusing!

I've learnt British English at school so I usually use British expressions and the British spelling (like Hewlett, as he said in his latest website entry *g*). But since I met so many people from all over the world on the internet, I'm often downright confused and start to mix up the words, expressions and the spelling. :(

You know, at first I really thought the spelling of the new SGA episode "Travelers" was wrong, but obviously that's just AE... Seems I learned (*ouch*) something new then. The internet teached me a lot. Argh.

And then there are also the regional differences... Scottish, Welsh, Irish...
Canadian, Australian...
North, West, South, East US American...

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

the single Ls thing threw me. I betaed a fic for Cindy Combs and painstakingly changed them all to double LLs. It's interesting, actually... Cindy asks me to read her fics so that she can make them more accessible to a non-American audience.

I wonder how different Australian is?

[celtic-tigress.livejournal.com]

Er, it would be 'taught' actually. 'Teached' is not correct English in any dialect. Oops. :)

And I know what you mean about being confused with spellings and different words for the same thing. The only consolation I can give you is that everyone else who has been on the internet for any significant amount of time has run into the same problem. They went through the confusion stage too, we all did, and most people will know what you're talking about, no matter what spelling or dialect you use, unless it is something really obscure...

Where are you from, by the way?

[arlessiar.livejournal.com]

Yep, I know that it's 'taught', that's why I put 'teached' into italics, as it's one of those words I come across a lot in many fanfics lately and it makes me cringe! :S
I learnt BE at school and I really thought the irregular verbs are the same everywhere where people speak English, but when my online life started I learnt that many US Americans obviously prefer the lazy way and add the -ed to almost every verb in the past tense! At first I thought that's just a mistake by a few, but I see it more and more often now.

A living language does change constantly, that's a fact. Yet it doesn't always change for the better, and some rules should never be disobeyed. But since people are naturally lazy, they often shorten words or use easier expressions. And in case of the verbs they obviously decide that irregular verbs are far too difficult to conjugate and use the regular form instead.

Oh, and I'm from Germany. :) I studied German linguistics as I'm very interested in languages in general, so I find this whole AE/BE thing really interesting (but confusing, too).
The German language is also changing a lot, lately we have lots of problems with people rather using the (easy) infinitive+auxiliary verb than the inflected form of a verb. Sounds weird!

[acrasie.livejournal.com]

With a show like SGA, I think a little fudging on slang and words is ok. The show's American characters tend to focus more on pop culture references and the differences between different countries' cultures, not regional differences. But if you were going to do a story for a show where it's town and setting is a part of the show's particular character (like The Office or The Sentinel) or a story that's focused on a character's past, then a bit of research on regional slang is necessary. Without it, you can drive a knowledgeable reader crazy. I read a Sentinel story once where Jim and Blair went camping during a bank holiday weekend and I was so thrown, I couldn't finish the story.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

another side of the equation is when a character deliberately uses 'furrin' slang. For example Carson saying 'gas' for 'petrol' for a car because otherwise it would require translation. It could be argued that the 'gas' was out of character. Sometimes you can (characterwise and in RL) remember the 'correct' word other times not. When jetlagged, I've asked US waitresses for chips instead of fries.

I remember reading a Professionals fic, where Bodie waxed lyrically about Hallowe'en marvelling that it was such a good American idea. That chucked me right out.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

I am a Torontonian! If you need any help for Rodney, at any time, though I think I read that Rodney grew up in Kingston Ontario (His Dad taught at Queens? Is that Fanon or Canon?), which is a tad further north, so his slang will be a bit off, but then if he did his undergrad/grad at Uof Toronto he'd sound like a total snob. It actually really matters which school he attended. At least in Ontario, it does.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

sorry for the delay in responding; I've been away

I don't recall any canon info on Rodney's and dad apart from 1) he argued a lot with Rodney's mum (SG:1 - "48 hours") and 2) inference that he was a physicist (SGA - "McKay and Mrs. Miller").

I thought based on knowledgeable folk peering at Rodney's wall certificates (SGA - "Duet") that he went to Northwestern?

speculate... speculate.

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha. I WAS mixing up fanon and canon. Well, I know David Hewlett grew up in southern Ontario, at least, though he sounds a bit more Vancouver now, on SGA. The only difference there being that Southern Ontarios are a bit more snippy and rude and Vancouverites usually sound kinda stoned. *shrugs*

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

So *McKay* is very much an Ontario resident *g*

[losyark.livejournal.com]

Ooooh yes. McKay is exactly the sort of person I meet daily in Grad School. *headdesk*

[tovalentin.livejournal.com]

Torontonian born and bred, here, and very late to the party. I must have a lousy ear for Canadian and American regional accents. I know a Newfie when I hear one, or Valley girl (that would be the Ottawa valley), but aside from the obvious American regionals that everyone knows I have no idea why Americans think Canadians talk funny. I can't hear any difference between my accent and the average American who's telling me I say "aboot"! I still don't know what was so cute about the way Rodney and Jeannie said "sorry" to Carter; to my ear they sounded the same as Carter, who's of course played by another Canadian.

There are definitely vocabulary variants, though. I'd never heard of the now-famous "house shoes" before reading it in a story. Rodney, for instance, wouldn't say "candy bar", or use "soda" as a generic word--at least, if he's from Ontario. A lot of Americanisms have shouldered their way into Canadian English via the airwaves, though. When I grew up everyone said "Mum", not "Mom"--now it seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Although all my nieces and nephews say "Mum" or "Mummy", so who knows.

Canadian English spelling is neither British nor American, but an amalgam of the two that's almost impossible to anticipate if you didn't grow up with it.
www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/britishcanadianamericanvocaba.html is a cool little site that gives British-Canadian-American vocab differences.

I can't see any reason why a writer should spell according to the POV of the character, though; I think it opens too many cans of worms. What if there are multiple POVs? What if the POV character doesn't speak English as a first language, like Radek, Ronon or Teyla, for instance? And what if you're not writing in English? How do you express the differences in US-CDN-UK spelling if you're writing in Tagalog or Russian? And what about punctuation, which also varies? I think it's far simpler just to say "use the spelling you're familiar with". The author is the reporter, after all--ultimately it's she who's expressing all those different POVs.

So spelling doesn't bother me a bit. Wrong word choice does, though. (I'm available for Canadian vocab beta, BTW. :-D) But my biggest bugbear in SGA is people spelling out "zed", as in "zedpm". Let me count the ways that irritates me! Particularly since America is the only English-speaking country that pronounces that letter "zee": even such languages as French, German and Japanese (and I'm sure a lot more that I don't know about) say a variant of "zed".

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

sorry for the delay in responding; I've been away

I read that once that some folk found Torri's accent since she's supposed to be an American very disconcerting. I don't hear any triggers though. However, when RMc was channelling Cadman in Duet and said "inneresting" (for interesting) -- that I heard *g*

The vocabulary variants are inneresting because it does exponentially increase the difficulty in carrying out a 'brit pick' since what is acceptable to one reader is completely unacceptable to another. I had an extremely long and involved discussion with a reader once about the use of the word fleece (as in the black microfleeces that for example John Sheppard wears). My use of the word fleece completely threw the reader out of the story -- it turned out that she lived in New Orleans (south) whereas most of my betas are Northern state dwellers and they most definetely wear fleeces.

But my biggest bugbear in SGA is people spelling out "zed", as in "zedpm

*g* Seems to bug a lot of people that one. I find when entire sentences of Carson's Scots dialogue is written in a phonetic form, especially when spellings have little relationship to common Scots spelling, off-putting. I've seen similar comments about Vin Tanner (Magnificent Seven) character's Texan dialogue/dialect.

Ultimately, it's a personal thing. One person's trigger another person does not even notice.

I can't see any reason why a writer should spell according to the POV of the character, though.

Gosh, that would be difficult.

The author is the reporter, after all--ultimately it's she who's expressing all those different POVs.

The challenge is (and the fun) is communicating the differences effectively across a wide readership. Tweaks have to be made to aid teh storytelling. As an analogy, if Carson was on the phone chatting with his mam, inside of two minutes chatting, Rodney eavesdropping wouldn't have a clue what they talking about (dialect, familial shorthand and speed). In work and play with an international group of fellow atlanteans, Carson would switch his mode of speech to be more accessible.

(I'm available for Canadian vocab beta, BTW. :-D)

heee, foolish, foolish mortal.

[sgafan33.livejournal.com]

Ooo! One of my favorite topics! I'm an Atlantis fic reader. My personal take on this is that while I appreciate the effort made by non-Americans to use American spelling, I can live with British/Canadian spelling. I assume Australians, New Zealand and Europe spell the same as the UK.

What gets me is incorrect words or phrases used by the various characters. Atlantis is a multinational expedition. I would expect American words from the American characters of Sheppard and Weir. When reading a story, if I find Elizabeth saying "whilst", that just throws me right out of the story. Even McKay saying it doesn't work for me because I know he doesn't use that word from watching the show. But he does stubbornly insist on calling the Ancient power source a Zed PM even though no one else, not even Zelenka, calls it that.

As a tangent, this doesn't have to do with writing a story, but other than Zed, and a few words like "sorry", McKay doesn't have much of a Canadian accent to this American ear. In fact, I think McKay's accent has gotten more Canadian as the years have gone by because I think David Hewlett is spending more time with Canadians at work on a regular basis instead of living in the States and guest starring in American TV shows. Weir sounds more Canadian to me, but I pretend she's from Minnesota where their accent sounds pretty Canadian to me.

Back to writing. Another thing I don't care for is trying to write Carson's accent with phonetic spelling. I say just write the words normally and the reader will add the accent in their own mind. Carson does have a way of speaking that the writer can use, like calling the ladies "love", or using words like "wee" and "daft".

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

sorry for the delay in responding; I've been away

Ooo! One of my favorite topics! I'm an Atlantis fic reader. My personal take on this is that while I appreciate the effort made by non-Americans to use American spelling, I can live with British/Canadian spelling. I assume Australians, New Zealand and Europe spell the same as the UK.

I know that some readers will not touch a story with British/Canadian spelling. I just can’t get into the habit of spelling ‘incorrectly, parts of it would inevitably bleed into work. I got laughed at the other day at work when I told someone that they should have rang 911 (instead of 999 for emergency services)

What gets me is incorrect words or phrases used by the various characters. Atlantis is a multinational expedition. I would expect American words from the American characters of Sheppard and Weir.

I suppose that there could be some bleed over, e.g. a nurse of Carson’s inadvertently saying ‘aye’. But I do agree. [make’s note that whilst is a no-no]

Back to writing. Another thing I don't care for is trying to write Carson's accent with phonetic spelling.<

oh, most definitely, as I was saying above to tovalentin entire sentences of Carson's Scots dialogue is written in a phonetic form, especially when spellings have little relationship to common Scots spelling, is off-putting. It’s fun, a challenge, to get the cadence of the dialect /words and communicate a difference, usage of ‘aye’ and ‘daft help with that. But Carson, himself, doesn’t speak broad Scots. He wouldn’t in an international arena. The way that I speak at home is completely different to the way that I speak when I am visiting or working internationally. Although on occasion, especially when everyone’s tired, it breaks down and you hear gobbledegook and speak gobbledegook.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry. I'm very late to the party, as usual,and not even a beer left.

Like the previous commenter, I find this an interesting topic. As an Englishwoman, I found that when I first started reading fanfic the spelling of certain words tended to take me out of the story. However, after a few weeks I didn't really notice. The only thing now that irritates me is misspelling - the obvious ones being 'your' and 'you're' and one particular writer who always writes rouge instead of rogue. As for accents - did anybody really think that Grodin had an English accent. I thought that he sounded a bit 'West Country' - about 3,000 miles west of Bristol!
By the way, Sheppard does seem to say thang instead of thing. Is this a usual way for Americans to pronounce that word? I love that pronunciation.
Finally, (and I hope I am not upsetting anyone) the only spoken words on SGA that make me cringe are Lieutenant and schedule which are pronounced so differently in the USA compared to the UK.
Thanks for listening (reading) - Pat from Liverpool.

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

Misspelling/misuse is an entirely different kettle of fish. Then/than winds me up something chronic.

The picking up on the accent thing is a hoot. It is interesting reading the other comments some folk pick up on North American differences e.g. Torri’s Canadian accent. First time I heard Carson, I thought “Eh?”. It was good, but it wasn’t right. Same with Wesley on Buffy and Angel – but is part of it that a balance has to be toned down to aid many different ears listening?

Finally, (and I hope I am not upsetting anyone) the only spoken words on SGA that make me cringe are Lieutenant and schedule which are pronounced so differently in the USA compared to the UK.

that doesn’t bother me. It does push me out of a story when Lieutenant is spelt Leftenant when a brit is using the word. LOL.

[shallan.livejournal.com]

I'm also late to the party, and this is something I can sink my teeth into since it is a conversation that Cindy Combs and I have had many times. However, I apologize for coming in late since haven't been searching around the Internet as much lately as having to get up at "O'dark thirty" in the morning for a job that starts at 5 am at a place about 30 minutes away just throws you off your game, and all I seem to be doing lately is trying to get the necessary house and yard things done as well as exercise and catch up on sleep anytime possible. One day I might be able to get back to writing more consistently.

Anyway, to the topic, I was a Midwesterner until I moved to Colorado nearly 10 years ago and have been told by others in the U.S. that I don't have an accent. I can pick up a southern accent just by talking to someone in S. Carolina or, I don't remember if I did when you visited Sealie, slide into a British accent due to watching way too many shows on the BBC America channel. However, I have been told I use a lot of midwestern-isms in my writing and have a beta who tries to correct me as much as possible. Hey, 39 years living in Central Illinois. Of course, I use Midwestern speech. I also beta for a person in the U.K., trying to help her 'Americanize' her TS stories so that she doesn't use terms like 'dicky bow' (whatever the heck that is) or refer to the trunk of Blair's beloved Corvair as a 'boot'. I also help her try to shorten her 4-6 line sentences that are filled with at least 2 semi-colons and a whole bunch of commas, and suggest that we don't need the history of her 'universe' described in the first 15 pages of her story. What I don't do is correct her spellings of words - colour, apologise, centre, etc. Only if I'm going to print a story out and keep it in my bookcase will I change the spelling, correct some of the punctuation, whatever. I like figuring out of a story is written by a Brit, Canadian, Aussie, Kiwi or just some plain, ole' Yank.

What can be bad are those stories where the author tries too hard to catch the accent of the characters. Vin Tanner in the Mag 7 stories is a good example. Some try just too hard to give him such a rough, Texan accent that you can barely understand what you're reading, much less be able to understand what he'd be saying if you were to hear him speak. Not needed, people. Yeah, I'm doing a crossover in my AU universe with the Mag 7 people coming on board and I'm trying very hard not to make the guy too Texan. It is easier to write without adding an accent, though I find writing Ezra with an accent isn't all that hard. Just trying to think up the '60-dollar' words he uses all the time can be a problem.

As for regional terms, I don't worry about it. In Illinois, we said 'soda' in the central part of the state and they used 'pop' in the northern part of the state. My sister just called it 'coke' for any type of soft drink being served in the restaurant. If we try to get perfect with the terms, we may soon find that the name being used is now out-of-date and just points to our ages. Think people, what used to be known as 'clam diggers' and 'pedal pushers' for a style of pant are now called 'crop' pants. If I remember right, they had also been given another term a few years ago, but I can't remember what it was right now. I must be having a senior moment, or more likely my lack of sleep from having to get up before the roosters this morning is now catching up with me as the sun heads behind the mountains.

By all means, if you're writing a story about American guys, using an American beta to help with some of the terminology is nice. I just want people to write stories that have good plots, dialog and action. You fall into that category, Sealie. Getting a bit tired of the new crop of writers who obviously spend too much time 'texting' and allowing it to show up in their stories with poor sentence structure and bad or non-existent punctuation, or those who haven't learned that there are very few who like 'Mary Sue' stories. Lord help us.

United States accents and word usage...

[army-rat.livejournal.com]

This is a fascinating discussion.

I was born in South Carolina, raised in middle Missouri, and have spent 2 years or more in Colorado, California, Washington state, and Texas. I am now back in Missouri.

While in Texas I had a job that took me around different parts of the United States for anywhere from one week to six weeks at a time. And the differences in accent, word usage, and general culture are amazing! When you take 5 Texans and temporarily locate them in a small town in central Georgia, the first thing that happens is that it takes almost three days for the communication barriers to break down. (I'm talking redneck Texans mixed with redneck Georgians.) First of all the thickness of the two accents has to be gotten past, followed by differences of word usage. I'm talking about words you would think were basic like one person calling an engine a motor, and the other way around. I'vd had similar experiences in Kentucky, Michigan (where I was surprised to hear accents that TV has taught me to associate with North Dakota and Canada) Iowa, and Tennessee.

It may come as a surprise to found out that not all Southerners have the same accent. The difference even between North Carolina, which has a city of Beaufort and is pronounced Bow-Fort, and South Carolina, which pronounces their city as Bew-Fort, is less pronounced than the differences between Goergia, Mississippi, and Alabama, which each have their own strict pronunciations and word usage. And of course the differences between city dwellers and country dwellers in the same region can be interesting as well. Please pick your meal; lunch, dinner, or supper.

When writing your stories I have to agree with the people who have written above this comment. Stick with basic Middle America as represented by Hollywood. Or is it Vancouver B.C.?

Re: United States accents and word usage...

[jimandblair.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you've demonstrated familiarity with lots of different accents. It's curious on one hand folk are saying that 1) yes there's accents but they're subtly different and, the other, 2) radically different. Why would Texas display such a variety of different accents? wiki info: Texas has an area of 261,797 square miles (678,051 km²) and UK area 94,526 sq mi (244,820 km²) -- I think that I've answered my question. Although population density: Texas 79.6/sq mi (30.75/km²) and UK 637/sq mi (246/km² ). Pardon me, I'm thinking out loud.

taking the Middle American/Vancouver route appears to be the common denominator. It boils down to a chosen level of communication, I think. I know that some folk think that Irvin Welsh's Trainspotting is incomprehensible (both book and film) because of accents and it's both thought to be a good story and a bad story because of that.