The Americanization of novels
Published by Deanna Hoak November 28th, 2006 in blog, copyeditingI’ve been neglecting my blog lately (I’ve been neglecting your blogs lately, too, so if you have something you’d like me to know, please by all means drop me a note). I wanted to make up for that by providing some actual content. :-)
Thus let’s talk about the Americanization of novels written by UK authors. This is a surprisingly controversial topic, and I have an opinion on it just like everyone else does.
Americanization includes changing punctuation (closing em dashes and reversing the order of quotation marks) but can also include altering vocabulary as well as spelling. First, though, let me tell you that the decision to Americanize is very seldom the copyeditor’s call. A few editors will ask my opinion, but for the most part my instructions arrive with the manuscript.
Let me also note that if a book does need Americanized, it almost never happens–and by that I mean that I’ve never once seen it in fifteen years of publishing–that production allows extra time or money for it in the copyediting budget, even though it might result in as many as say ten extra changes per page. That sucks for us. So when I tell you–as I will below–that I often think altering the spelling is a good idea, know that I’m definitely not saying so for my benefit; I truly think it’s in the best interest of the book.
Now you’ll notice I said “often.†As with most copyediting concerns, I believe in looking at each book individually rather than in following any hard-and-fast rules. Let me address some of the most common issues I think should play into a decision, though.
The first two questions, of course, are whether the characters are from the UK and whether the setting is in the UK. If a UK author is presenting a book to an American audience and the book contains neither UK characters nor a UK setting, there is seldom much sense in keeping the UK spelling and vocabulary–they can cause the reader to stumble unnecessarily. If the term is out of place in the country and among the characters of the novel, the reader has to stop and say “What? Oh, yeah…UK author.†You want them focused on the story.
If the book does utilize UK characters, though, it makes sense that those characters would use UK slang–I seldom like changing vocabulary in such an instance, though I do prefer that the meaning be clear from the context just so the reader doesn’t have to stop reading to search the net for the words. (Twenty years ago the reader wouldn’t have been able to look up slang, but I think we can assume that most readers these days have ready Internet access.)
There are exceptions to my thinking in that regard, especially when the slang word already means something completely different in American English. In that case, the reader will almost never realize that the British term is different until something else in the book tips them off and they have a WTF moment. I very clearly remember a scene where a British character searched a desk and found a “rubber.†I altered that term because I guarantee you that damn few Americans were going to realize it was an eraser, and the mix-up would have…changed the feel of the story substantially in those readers’ minds. I consider a large part of my job to be saving the reader from having those “WTF?!†moments and instead keeping them focused on the story.
Despite thinking that UK vocabulary should often stay when presented to an American audience, I seldom (exceptions will follow) think that the spelling should. Almost every American is going to know that “honour†is a British variant, but plenty of them will have a split-second stop at such terms as “realise†and “manouevre.†Why cause them that? Again, let them get caught up in your story; there’s no need to interrupt them.
If the spelling actually reflects the way in which the characters say words, however, I’m inclined to leave it; I like the reader to be able to hear the characters’ voices and accents. The popular theory in publishing is that “towards†is a UK variant (though I know scads of Americans who use it, and I think that notion’s ridiculous), and so I would not remove the “s†from that spelling.
And as I said before, I don’t believe in hard-line rules. If a novel with UK characters contains a lot of text that is presented as actual writing–notes and diary entries and such–I prefer to keep the UK spelling intact, because UK characters simply aren’t going to write with American spelling; that would be silly.
Most of the actual text in a book is not writing by the characters, though. It’s their thoughts and their narrative and their spoken words, and the spelling doesn’t make a difference to it. But a lot of die-hard “Keep the book intact!†fans believe that preserving the UK spelling is necessary to maintain the “feel†of a novel–and in a few cases I agree with them. China Miéville’s Bas-Lag definitely evokes a British feel (I’ve seen reviewers hypothesize that New Crobuzon is an alternate London), and I prefer to keep the British spelling in those books in order to maintain that feel to the fullest extent possible. Not every fictional place evokes that, though.
As with most other decisions in copyediting, it all depends on the book, and even seemingly small decisions as Americanizing spelling can make a difference in a reader’s perception of a work: I analyze each novel individually and make any changes or recommendations based on that analysis. I want to keep your readers in the world you’ve created, which is not necessarily the one in which you live–or the one in which they live.
16 Responses to “The Americanization of novels”
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I'm a freelance copyeditor specializing in fantasy and science fiction. SF/F novels I have copyedited have been finalists for (and have sometimes won) the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Golden Spur, John W. Campbell Memorial, Quill, Locus, Philip K. Dick, British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy awards. In 2007 I was short-listed for a World Fantasy Award for my copyediting.
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Another thing I’ve noticed about UK books — having a friend in England who supplies me with Pratchett and the occasional Dr. Who, now and again — is that they reverse the order of quotation marks. (He said, ‘You know that Joe says, “Only the weak sleep.”‘ vs He said, “You know that Joe says, ‘Only the weak sleep.’”) I’d think those would fall into the 99.9% “change them to American standard” category? (Even in something written by a UK character, I’m honestly not sure if the “feel” of reversed quotation mark conventions would make any sense to an American reader.)
I’m definitely going to have to ask my friend what the local definition of a “rubber” is, though. *chuckle*
Ah, yeah, I should have noted that Americanization involves punctuation, too. I definitely agree in altering the quotation marks to the American standard. I’ll fix that. :-)
Where the difference will evoke entirely the wrong association - as in ‘rubber’ or ‘tabling a motion’ then finding something that’s universally understandable makes good sense. Particularly when - see ‘fanny’ - the connotations are sexual on one side of the pond.
But sayings, and vocabulary - how are you ever going to learn new words if you don’t find them in books and look them up? I do not expect my readers to be familiar with every word I use, although I try to keep the outlandish vocabulary down as much as possible. Sometimes, though, you just need a complicated word or very specific term to make it _right_.
As for narrative not being directly filtered through a character, that’s something I would often disagree with you. Internalisation and tight third (never mind first person) description will use the PoV character’s phrasing and specific filters - a gardener will notice plants, a parent mentally compare the age/heigh/behaviour of children to their own where a childless person would describe them differently. The voice of a book very much depends on the PoV character.
Ideally, the prose will be invisible. If it’s too obviously British for an American audience, that can be a problem - but then again, are American readers so provincial that they can’t cope with other voices? Particularly since there’s no such thing as ‘American Culture’ but rather New England, Southern, New York,… If you were to translate a novel from a South American or French writer, wouldn’t you try to keep much of the flavour (and some of the terms) of the original rather than americanising them?
*blushes at her comment sparking an edit*
(And then there’s the whole “Sorcerer’s Stone” thing, but I’ll go write my own alchemy-fiction and giggle to myself. *attempts to look innocent*)
As for narrative not being directly filtered through a character, that’s something I would often disagree with you.
No, we’re not disagreeing. What I’m saying is that spelling doesn’t usually make a difference in voice there. Vocabulary definitely does, and I spoke up in favor of keeping that if it’s representative of the culture in the story.
With friends in Australia and England I sometimes get to read their versions of books. I find it very interesting, but dangerous. The rubber example is a perfect example. If you know enough to be looking for things like that, ok but even then it can take you a minute to realize you misunderstood. It is like an American driving in England. It is very easy to run into a mail box by the side of the road, because of many years of conditioning even though you know that you have to watch out. Unfortunately, the average American has never driven in England and if you say “torch” they will think of a pole with a fire on the end and not a “flash light”. Is it more important to keep the flavor or the reader? I would think that this type of “translation” is more difficult than a normal editing job.
John
Ps welcome back, hope you had a good holiday!
Funny, I was thinking of writing something on this very subject, but you beat me to it!
Just for that, let me point out:
if a book does need Americanized
Hah! :-)
But seriously…Not so surprisingly, I agree with you pretty much on everything. For example, I grew up in Maryland, but I have always said “towards.” My father was Canadian; maybe I picked it up from him. I’ve never thought of it as particularly British.
I’m definitely more of the attitude of “let the reader think a little bit,” but I can understand the other side. In a book by a British author I worked on recently, the copy editor changed some things that I probably would have, such as “done a bunk” (= “run off suddenly”; it is in Web. 11, though, as “British”). And I can live with changing “car park” to “parking lot” when it’s in description–but it was also changed in the (English and Welsh) characters’ dialogue. That I wouldn’t have done.
Too often, Americanizing can create a strange sort of half-breed that doesn’t quite sound British of American. I say, let the British be British. I mean, nobody goes around Americanizing Dickens or Thomas Hardy, do they?
By the way, the same sort of thing goes on with British publishers of American authors. Donald E. Westlake complains somewhere in an interview that in the British edition of one of his books, [NYC's] “West Side Highway” was changed to “West Side Motorway.”
Thanks for clarifying “towards” vs “toward”. I read a blog entry or comment somewhere on a pet peeve against “towards” but was confused as to why “towards” felt more natural to me. (I’m living in Canada, which has a weird hybrid of American & UK.)
I’m an American but in my formative years read novels by a great many British authors. I certainly know what a “rubber” is and like knowing the word and being able to ponder how that particular use arose in the language. I’m rather disturbed to think that with a new era of copyediting, American readers won’t find out that “rubber” is the British word for our “eraser.”
I absolutely understand the delicacy of the editing process and the need to keep the reader inside the story. I do believe, however, that the reader also has some responsibility to understand the language of the original and the words that convey some essence of the culture itself.
Hmm, maybe you can answer a couple of questions for me. I’m finishing off a novel set in late 80’s Oxford, in which one character is a young American trying very hard to fit in with a group of older English academics. So his choice of words is very influenced by them and by classic British films and TV, to the point where other characters notice him stressing eg the ’s’ of ‘maths’. How would you deal with something like that for an American publisher? Especially when the character himself comments on the differences between the copy of ‘Gaudy Night’ he bought in Oxford and the copy he read at home?
I’ve tried to make the ‘period details’ (mostly politics and legal issues) clear for those born too late to remember the 80’s and not get bogged down in details that are alien to those outside Oxbridge academia, but would any of that make you stop and think about mking changes, or asking the author to clarify. Particularly asking because I just read Minette Walters novella, where there were two explanations in parentheses of historical details I would expect most people to know.
Thanks
Gina
Another extremely interesting article.
I guess that most of the commenter’s (and probably the readers) here are “American”, and it’s interesting that you’ve taken the angle that you have.
To be clear, I’m British (although I’m sure you worked that out from my ramblings, all of a sudden I’m very self conscious about what I’m writing! LOL)
Much of what you’ve discussed makes sense to me and I have no problem with it. As an avid reader of Fantasy and Sci-fi works from both sides of the pond, I’m fairly sure I’ve read both British and American books, and I know that I wouldn’t really notice the differences.
It made me think that the export of Culture itself has changed. The example words you used, Realise versus Realize, Honor versus Honour, are perfectly valid, but as a Brit reader I’d just whizz past them in any book, I wouldn’t even notice.
As Robert pointed out, the use of slang is more interesting, There are a great deal of American slang terms (or at least what I think of as slang) entering common use over here, a phrase like “that sucks” for instance which has both a descriptive and inferred meaning, but most of my countrymen (or the younger generations at any rate) would understand the inferred meaning. Some of the more interesting British slang however might make less sense to American readers, words or phrases with inferred meanings such as “chav”, or Robert’s example of “done a bunk”
I think you’re dead right to say that it depends on the context of the story, it would make no sense to have a British setting with “Highways” or an American setting with “Motorways”, and the characters’ mode of speech will of course need to reflect their background or origins.
What it did make me wonder is if texts become “de-Americanised” for the British market?
Anyway, thanks for a very interesting and thought provoking article!
John: Yes, “torch” absolutely is another confusing one.
Robert: Yeah, I absolutely hate changing dialogue. Even in description, though, if the book is for adults, I think they can usually figure it out if it doesn’t misread. China’s Un Lun Dun (which is YA) will have a glossary for the British terms, which I think is wonderful.
Michele: “Towards” is more natural to me, too, and I’ve lived all over the US. :-)
G. Miki: Welcome to my blog. :-) “Eraser” is also used in the UK, though. I do believe in leaving the original terms where it’s not confusing.
Gina: With something like that, where it’s really important for the British emphases to stay, you would want to give your editor a note about it to pass along to the copyeditor.
Purple: I do believe that it works both ways and that works are indeed “de-Americanised” if recopyedited over there. If any British editors are reading this, perhaps they could offer further insight, though.
As I mention, “de-Americanisation” (it would have to have a British spelling!) does apparently take place. I wonder whether it takes place to such a degree, though.
A couple other confusing words in the Brit/US crossover are “paraffin,” which in the UK means what we Yanks would call kerosene, and “corn,” which in the US now usually means only maize, whereas it can refer to any grain crop in Britain (and even in the US, though this meaning is seldom used anymore).
As the process of changing British usage for American readers continues, we will more and more become “two countries divided by a common language” (–attributed to George Bernard Shaw).
Pardon my long comment but I love this topic.
It can be very difficult to explain some of the differences. Although a friend of mine knew very well that her “biscuit†was our “cookieâ€, she had never had an American “biscuitâ€. I wound up sending a recipe so that she could make some herself. My time in England has been fairly limited. I doubt I would be in any position to judge if something in my writing should be changed or not for an audience there. How would I know if leaving it the same was making the story more authentic or less? To do it properly you really need to understand both cultures well, or at least have access to someone who understood the other culture well and knew mine well enough to discuss it with me.
I am fascinated by the difficulties. I spent about 6 months in Hungary on one project. For part of the time, I had the benefit of a technical translator who grew up there before the revolution and then came to the US. The insight he provided was amazing. It was obvious that although many people there, that we were dealing with, could speak English, there were often subtle and not so subtle miscommunications. They may have understood the dictionary meaning of the words, but the implication of the total paragraph was sometimes totally lost.
It gets even more complicated when you are trying to communicate subtleties by describing a situation. One time in the Netherlands we had a great conversation over dinner about what constituted a good waitress and good service. The same situation when viewed by us Americans and our Dutch friends was interpreted differently. Waitresses that we thought had been “efficient†and “attentive†they thought were “bossyâ€, “rude†and “pushyâ€.
Suppose, you have a book written in the US where the author is trying to get across to the reader that the waitress had one set of attributes. However this same situation would communicate something entirely different to someone from a different culture. How do you handle this? The problem exists even if the words are understood perfectly. I know there is no simple answer, but I find the implications of the problem to be so interesting. Many wars have been fought because of differences like these.
Someone mentioned that perhaps there should be books for different parts of the US. I would take it one step further. You need female and male versions of each book because we obviously speak different languages. Talk about wars …;-)
John
I was always disappointed that they Americanized the Harry Potter books. (I did order UK editions for the first three books.) That’s a shame because I always found UK and foreign usages refreshing, atmospheric, and part of my cross-cultural education. My concern is that we’re facing a sort of “Homogenization of Emily†with this trend.
Many current mysteries are written by Americans but feature an all-Brit cast, UK settings and Americanized text. I don’t read many, but find it hard to keep mindful of British accents and locations with these spellings. At the same time publishers don’t seem to mind putting out literary fiction that features nonstandard punctuation–dashes to introduce dialogue or does away with quotation marks entirely. This is sheer affectation, IMO. I find books like these difficult to read—I can’t turn off the screaming editor in my head. I gave up six pages into Christopher Cook’s stylish and highly praised (yet quotation-free) Robbers. It’s set in Texas, for chrissakes. Even George Bush uses quotations marks. (Or am I giving him too much credit?)
However, with Brit writers writing American characters in American settings (like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers), Americanization is probably the best choice—you’re not trying to evoke tones of Albion etc. But even with the best intentions, cross-cultural contamination (a la ‘rubber’) occurs. I got laugh from George MacDonald Frasier’s Flashman and the Redskins “…in the distance, a prairie dog howled.â€) At Bouchercon last year, Jim Nisbett complained that his French publisher translated the phrase “a topless bar†as “a bar without a roof.†You’d think the French would know.
I wonder what the response is from across the Pond on this issue?