Americans....

[meridian_rose]

I received a review on an older fic - it's always nice to get comments on older fics, and fics in small fandoms, and this was both. However the writer was under the impression that there were "minor spelling and grammar" errors. Now this is a fic that I edited before posting to AO3, but which has never been beta read. So I copied and pasted the AO3 version into Word to have another look.

I found I'd used portacabin when I mean the propriety term Portakabin. Fair enough. Maybe it was because I used some non-standard words within the dialogue, "lemme see" rather than "let me see" as a nod to a character's speech patterns. I couldn't find any other errors. Then I thought, oh-oh.



Changing the text from UK to US in Word showed up a whole lot of "errors", eg favourite, neighbour. However these are not errors in my work. I try to have characters use the correct terms "elevator" rather than "lift", for example, if the character is American. But I'm British, and I write a variety of characters, fandoms, and original works, and I am not going to start spelling words without a u in them "Because America".


Team America: World Police. "It's okay, we got the terrorists!"

Do I need to have the spelt vs spelled debate again?



#yesIknow #notallAmericans #BritishEnglish

Comments

[setentpet.livejournal.com]

You would think people would know that it can be done both ways. I am american and I know that. Of course that doesn't mean everyone does. That sucks. You would think they would see all the u's and wonder why things were being spelled that way and maybe googled it or something. Or they just thought you were just that bad at spelling.

[meridian_rose]

That's why I took such umbrage; I think they were saying "you're bad at spelling but you can do better" by which they mean you should spell like an American :/
Thank you - not all Americans :)