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#61 |
Addict
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I read a lot of Regency romances and I can rell if the author is Engish or American by the words and phrases used.
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#62 | ||
Can one read too much?
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Quote:
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I would not say Americans "often" need subtitles for British TV/film -- most of us manage just fine. Last edited by SeaBookGuy; 09-17-2011 at 01:05 PM. |
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#63 |
Groupie
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The biggest difference for me, and I've only noticed it in fanfiction, is the author will mean plural people or things and will put an apostrophe s on the end. An apostrophe s, means possession for me (as an American). Is this a common thing for Brits and other Commonwealth writers to do? An example would be: the Dursley's (meaning all the family members, going by the context of the sentence).
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#64 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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Quote:
Last edited by pdurrant; 09-17-2011 at 05:34 PM. |
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#65 |
Groupie
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I thought so, since I don't remember that from when I attended a British school, but it's nice that you cleared that up. Now, I can stop feeling guilty when I make those changes before adding the stories to my Reader.
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#66 |
Fanatic
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We use British spelling and grammar here, but the lines are blurring with American spelling creeping in. Australians seem to use American English more than we do.
On a related topic, I've just been to "The Help" movie and being a New Zealander I found some of the Southern US accents really hard to understand. I had to concentrate for the first half hour or so until I picked it up. |
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#67 | |
Guru
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Quote:
Anyway, one thing I've noticed in reading older books, is that sometimes the American spelling or term used to be the English term, but now isn't. For instance, Scots/Scotch when referring to something that is Scottish. It used to be Scotch, but then for some reason it became Scots. But Americans still often use Scotch. Indeed, that extends to why Americans say our Rs and the British don't. They used to, but they stopped for some reason, but we still do (except those with heavy contact with England, like in Boston). |
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#68 |
eBook Enthusiast
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Misuse of apostrophes is just plain ignorance. You only have to read this forum to see how many people here don't know the correct usage for "its" and "it's".
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#69 |
Old Git
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The apostrophe s for plurals is known in Britain as the "greengrocer's apostrophe", presumably because practitioners of that trade would put out handwritten notices in front of their shops saying things like "juicy plum's 1s 6d per lb".
British writer Lynn Truss wrote an amusing book about misuse of punctuation. Last edited by DMB; 09-19-2011 at 05:53 AM. |
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#70 | |
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Quote:
I have to say my biggest annoyance is the misuse of the word "went" when it should be "gone" i.e. "He should have went there" instead of "He should have gone there". It just really annoys me especially as I'm starting to hear it more and more in conversation with younger people as well as in the written word. Whenever I see it in a book it just makes me cringe and wonder if you actually require any qualifications to be an editor/proofreader nowadays. |
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#71 | |
Can one read too much?
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Quote:
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#72 |
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#73 |
eBook Enthusiast
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#74 |
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On that, I know I commonly forget. I frequently have to look up which is which, because my natural tendency is to use apostrophes for possession, which is not the case for "its" and "it's"
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#75 |
eBook Enthusiast
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Just think of "his" as a comparison. I'm sure you wouldn't be tempted to write "hi's", would you?
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