divided by a common et cetera

[tempestsarekind]

So I picked up a novel at the bookstore today; I've forgotten the title already but it had something to do with vintage clothing. Anyway, it's supposed to be set in London, but on the first page a character talks about someone's bangs rather than her fringe, and it was like a needle scratching a record. The author is English, so I suspect that this

Comments

[ericadawn16]

What I really want is the Harry Potter novels in their ORIGINAL words! I mean, they got a lot better as it went on but still...

[tempestsarekind]

A friend of mine deliberately bought all her Harry Potter books from or in the UK, either ordering them online or getting them on vacation. I can definitely understand the decision, especially when the sense of "Britishness" is so important to the way those books are presented in the US - it makes it doubly weird that they would change the vocab.

[significantowl]

ugh, I so agree.

In fact, you were talking about Rivers of London/Midnight Riot the other day I think - when I read it I happened to compare the first couple of chapters via the kindle sample at Amazon US and a British epub, and not only do they change words like "paracetamol" to aspirin, they change the spelling of a major character's name, and completely edit out at least one joke (about the TV show the Sweeney) that I would have gotten, thanks. Meh meh meh.

(But the books are great! just get the brit editions if you can.)

[tempestsarekind]

Yes, I suspected as much, sigh. Considering I spent most of the book wondering what the US title was even supposed to *mean* (the eponymous riot doesn't happen until fairly late!)...

[tempestsarekind]

The frustrating thing about this for me is that I don't order books from Amazon. I do pretty much all of my book buying from my local bookstores (though to be honest, I get a lot of books as presents, and I know some of them come via Amazon, but I don't feel right insisting that other people not use Amazon when it is so much more convenient for them). Ordering books through them is easy...except for international editions. I have been tempted to start ordering more stuff from ABEbooks, though...

[radiantbaby]

Weird. I think they should have just definitely gone with the British English there. O_o

[tempestsarekind]

Hee, that *does* present a problem! Telling me where I can find the right kind of beans is a bit clueless if I have no desire to eat them on toast. I remember my flatmates during my semester abroad (we lived in what was basically a dorm full of single rooms, but we shared a kitchen, so they called it a flat) ate that a lot, and I was totally bemused until I learned that the beans were much more like the ones for hot-dogs-and-beans than US baked beans. Still never inspired me to try it, though.

(Ben Crystal wrote a book called Shakespeare on Toast, which still confuses me a bit. Is it because Shakespeare should be easy like beans on toast? Tasty and filling? The comparison is lost on me.)

[tempestsarekind]

Yeah. I know how common it is, I've seen lots of people eat beans on toast...but I still can't quite wrap my head around it. Which is weird, because I'll happily eat beans and rice, or pasta e fagiole (sp?), or black bean quesadillas, or beans over polenta, so it's not like there's some beans + starch barrier to break. Maybe it's the sauce the beans come in?

[teliesin]

It is annoying isn't it. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone etc. etc.
How are we supposed to learn things if they change the words. I could see maybe in 1920 before the internet when it might have been harder to find information but today?
Wonder if american novels get translated to Brit english when published there.

[tempestsarekind]

It is peculiar that the practice persists (there is perhaps too much alliteration in that sentence). There are easy ways to find out what unfamiliar slang means - and that's part of the fun! The one time I've heard of the practice being useful was with Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, butthat's because he beefed up the descriptions of London in the US edition as well. Though I still don't think they really needed to change "cashpoint" to "ATM."

I suspect US novels get the same treatment; I know that the UK edition of A Wrinkle in Time changed Meg's line about her braces, but that's an instance where the actual word means something else, and those changes seem a little more reasonable to me.

[tempestsarekind]

You know, I don't remember ever having trouble with tea and biscuits, even though I must have read some books as a kid that involved such things. Probably this means that I just substituted US-style biscuits (yum) in my head, because who *wouldn't* want to have those with tea? :) The thing I did always have trouble with was understanding why porridge was supposed to be so gross, because I ate oatmeal all the time!

Mmm, turkey delight. Beloved candy of millions. :) I don't think this bothered me, either - but I was pretty used to just *not getting stuff* in the books I read as a kid. I spent so much time reading that I encountered a lot of things in books before I saw them in real life.