I had an email over the weekend from Helen, who is a little frustrated at the removal of Australian terms from romance novels set in Australia:
I have a topic to suggest. International heroes, or, false advertising: why are
you labeling him Australian, giving him an American name and calling him a
rancher?American cultural imperialism! It drives me crazy. Corrugated iron roofing
is called ‘ripple iron’, properties or stations get called ‘ranches’…
and dear God almighty, a Sheriff? I hope he’s flown in from the USA cos
I’ve never met one in Australia.Why do editors assume that Aussie authors have to be ‘translated’ for the
US reader to comprehend – and then even in Oz, we have to read the
Americanized version! With the Crocodile Hunter, Curtis Stone and those fake
Aussie steak houses, surely you can cope with the odd unfamiliar word. I’ve
never seen a bowl of ‘grits’ or been to the strangely named ‘homecoming’
but I can cope when my characters encounter them.Do you reckon we could persuade editors to stop sucking all the flavour out
of books and let authors write with a bit of local lingo? Here’s the
example that ticked me off below: Masters of the Outback – I can’t get over how American the blurb
sounds – but I ‘m sure you could find a sqillion others:
These powerful Australian men are ready to claim their brides! A rugged rancher – Clay has come home to restore his family’s ranch and find a wife. Virginal Caroline seems the perfect choice. And knowing she’s forbidden makes Clay want her even more. A tempting tycoon – Businessman Quade returns to outback town Plenty in search of a bride. Feisty Chantal is everything he’s not looking for. Yet even Quade can’t deny their explosive chemistry! A commanding cop – Spirited new arrival Amy has got under gorgeous Sheriff Angus’s skin. She’s determined to put herself in danger’s path and he’s sworn to protect her. Could that protection turn to passion?
Now, see here, Helen. You’ll drink our Coke and watch our movies about ranchers and sheriffs and you’ll LIKE IT. My cultural imperialism does NOT make my ass look fat. Got that? Just kidding!
Seriously. I thought it was as silly as anyone that the first Harry Potter book was renamed for the American audience, and that words like “boogies” were removed. But over the weekend Hubby and I were talking about how much more I know about Australia, Canada, England, Ireland and New Zealand (for example) merely from speaking with romance readers from those countries.
So imagine my surprise when Helen says in Oz, they don’t use the word “ranch.” I had no idea! I’m all for local flavor, but “stations?” Really? So I asked for more info. I’d only encountered that word once, in a Harlequin Presents (I think) set in a New Zealand sheep station – and I thought “station” referred specifically and only to sheep.
Helen says,
Lol… yep, ‘cattle stations’ or ‘sheep stations’. There’s even an expression “playing for sheep stations”, meaning that people are playing a game or sport too seriously. eg “Jeez mate, lighten up, you’re not playing for sheep stations ya know!” Possibly the word ‘ranch’ might be used nowadays by immigrants or people who are marketing to the USA, or breeding American saddle horses and the like, but it’s definitely not part of the local lingo.
I’ve often wondered if it’s ‘just me’ who gets so frustrated, or if other readers feel the same way. I read a lot of British authors and fortunately they aren’t usually subjected to the same abuse as Australian/New Zealand authors are.
I’m spoiled by reading on a digital device with a dictionary so when I encounter a word I don’t know, even a very old Britishism every now and again, I can look it up with to gestures of one finger (not the middle one, I’m not flipping off my Kindle). I enjoy learning new words and finding out how different English speakers refer to various things – and it doesn’t distract me. If anything it adds another layer to the setting through the language.
I’m not saying one blog entry will change all the ranches to stations and the ripple iron will start showing up as a sound effect in a rainstorm, but does it bug you to know that words are changed for your reading experience, if you’re reading a romance set in Australia for the US audience? Or would the words you don’t know distract and confuse you? Have you encountered this type of language replacement? What do you think?
Oh, this is definitely a pet peeve of mine. I cut my teeth on the categories of the 70s and 80s, when the local flavor was allowed to shine through. It opened a whole vocabulary for me and made me very interested in the culture of far away places.
I have to admit I’ve run into this in my editing – not just with Aussie and NZ and UK words, but even more interesting American words. My vocabulary is…well-developed thanks to those early years of romance reading, and I tend to choose my words very carefully. I have, on several occasions, had editors ask me to replace a word with a more common word that means close to, but not quite, the same thing. Well, by golly, I actually MEANT the word I used, and I think that romance readers are really short changed by editors thinking that romances need to be dumbed down and/or homogenized for the reading public. What happened between the era of Roberta Gellis and now that stripped editors of their confidence in the brain power of the romance reader? Are we somehow getting dumber?
If I want to use esoteric words, I’ll by golly use them. It’s not a bad thing to learn a new word from time to time. Give the reader a bit of credit!
Ha. Spamword is faith56. That’s right. Have some bleeding faith!
When did they start doing this? I read plenty of Australia-based stories in the 1970s and 1980s and remember plenty of the lingo, including “good on you.” (I have no idea what category romance that was in, but I actually picked up the expression.) Elizabeth Lowell’s The Diamond Tiger was set in Australia and I distinctly remember references to cattle stations and whatnot. It’s one of my all-time faves. I haven’t read it in twenty years, but I still remember the way they dug a hole to get water from a tree (something the hero apparently learned from native Australians), and the way they traveled on this road that was so narrow that only one car could go on it at a time. So they’d be going along at like 90 miles an hour playing chicken with the oncoming vehicle.
Of course I think they’ve been “dumbing down” romances for quite some time now, and I’m not sure why. Books I read twenty years ago seemed denser and more complex. I guess it’s a response to competition from so much other media, so maybe this is part and parcel of that trend. I used to love books set in foreign places because I could take a trip in my easy chair. I felt that I “knew” London because so many Harlequins were set there, and I always wanted a Mini because that seemed to be the vehicle du jour of London based heroines back then.
This reminds me of the time about 10 years ago when I met an author I enjoy reading in a bookstore when visiting my family in the UK. I told him how much I enjoyed his books, and that I actually had a friend send them out to me in Canada, because they were published so much later over here. He told me one reason it took a while was the “translation” the books had to go through to be published in North America. He gave me a few examples and when I got home I checked a couple of the books out of the library to compare to my UK copies. It was interesting to see what the North American publisher did not think North Americans could understand!
Okay, just to be a bit of a devil’s advocate and for the record, I agree with the all the opinions expressed here, but maybe the half of all romance readers (probably more than half) who are off-line feel differently? I dunno -trying to wrap my mind around the “why do it” because it just makes no sense at all to me.
Publishers must think romance readers are stupid or something. But then Cassie Edwards sold an awful lot of books, didn’t she? Can’t help but feel sometimes that the opinions expressed here and at other blogs are unfortunatly, a very small minority. Sigh. I
:
Is it true that Bronwyn Parry doesn’t have an American publisher? That would be a real shame. I live in Scotland, and I got both of her books from amazon uk, and loved them.
Someone noted that saying Parry’s books are too Australian would be like saying Stieg Larsson’s books are too Swedish. Well, my book club just discussed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night, and several members complained that they found the Swedish names to be confusing and thought there was too much detail about Swedish food, media, and finances.
It does drive me crazy when American writers use British terms incorrectly. I love Carla Kelly’s books, but she always refers to men’s trousers as pants. Now pants are underpants in the UK, and saying that something is pants is kind of equivalent to saying that something is crap. I keep wanting to shout out to her: Carla—use the word trousers! Your American readers will understand that word …
I loved this post – gave me a good laugh to start the day. I do hate it when people don’t do their research. I think it’s more about research than about cultural imperialism (please pass me a bowl of u to add back to the words).
In my own writing I stumble a lot, because I don’t realize I have it wrong and my problem is I work through a background of British and Canadian assumptions. My critique group is always asking me if that’s the right phrasing.
So, Helen, how about contacting Harlequin and selling them on hiring you as the Australian translator. 🙂
Two points:
1. Recently, I purchased a Harlequin Romance about a “rancher.” I thought it’d be set in Texas, or Montana. Imagine my befuddlement when I realized it was set in Australia. Gaaah. I felt bait and switched, and the book sits ignored, somewhere.
2. Being bilingual in Spanish, I am disgusted when authors don’t do their research and plop any Spanish-sounding or badly misspelled Spanish word that reveals the author’s laziness.
I read on an ebook so I love the mobileread website. From reading posts there I discovered that there are an amazing amount of people who read in English for recreation even though it’s not their native tongue. If they can enjoy reading in another language surely English speakers can cope with the odd different word. I think it insults American readers’ intelligence to change words and treats them like children.
I like to enjoy the flavour of a setting when I read a book. I like Greek words in stories set in Greece etc. (Phonetically spelled, of course. 😉 ) I want to be spirited away from my mundane life when I read. I want to be able to picture myself in an exotic setting. What’s next? Remove all the millionaire lifestyle because that’s not how most of us live? Cut out all the vampires because we’ve never met one?
Funny how the publishers see nothing wrong with authors creating alien cultures with made up words in Science Fiction. Hey, but that’s read by intelligent men not weak, feeble, empty headed women like us. Grrrrr!
I’d better stop before before my blood pressure rises too high.
Me too!! And funny enough, was totally able to figure out what they meant. Well, the jumper thing took a while, but I got it eventually.
But really, this idea that Americans are ignorant & illiterate is fairly resent & pretty pervasive. The worst part is that Americans are the ones that perpetuate the preception everytime we cater to the lowest common denominator in the country. Hence celebrating the millenium January 2000 instead of 2001 which is when it actually started.
The name of the second Timothy Dalton James Bond film was changed to “License to Kill” for American audiences because the original, and more appropriate title, “License Revoked” contained a word it was felt most Americans wouldn’t understand. Yes, revoked.
So now the entire world feels we’re not very bright. Which leads to my former neighbor who introduced himself as “Jason”. Since he barely spoke English, and was from Japan, I found this unlikely and said so. Apparently the perception is that Americans find pronouncing foriegn names difficult and annoying, so they make it easy on us. How appalling.
The next historical I’m contracted to write for Pocket (rock on!) is set in 1882 Australia. I’m furiously taking notes. Hope to do the Bitchery proud…
GARG!! That would be RECENT. OMG! I am illiterate!!!
Imagine my horror at reading a Regency romance this week, which was set in England… and the heroine to mention seeing a family of skunks…
and no she wasn’t in London Zoo!
Spoiled…
a skunk in England? LMAO
Hey, why not Caribou next? Or how about a moose?
Seriously. Lazy writers – negligent editors.
I had the ultimate irony of writing a cowboy book set in California, spending a lot of time getting the language and terms right (I’m a Brit living in CA) only to send it to my UK publisher who then used British spelling and terminology… You have no idea how many irate emails I’ve had from U.S. readers telling me I can’t spell. LOL
I have one word for you, and that word is Tittybong. Thanks to Bill Bryson, I giggle every time I read it.
WHY is there no romance set in Tittybong?
Also, I am personally terrified of Vegemite sandwiches.
I do not understand that agent telling you that your work has to be changed that way. I read lots of books set in Scotland or including Vikings or whatever and the author either explains the unfamiliar terms in an appendix or makes it clear within the context, while still using the correct term.
I tend to agree that we are being “dumbed down” but I cannot figure out why. Are we as readers complaining we can’t figure out what’s going on if the terms are slightly unfamiliar or is it the management of the publishers who are too lazy to take the opportunity to learn something new? I don’t want to live in a totally homogenized world based on someone’s perception of the USA (that’s probably wrong anyway). Keep the local terminology!
Huh, I never even knew they do that. They TRANSLATED Harry Potter for Americans?!??!?! I guess it is different for me since I am not a native speaker of English anyways so I have to look up words on occasion even if it is American English. I like that though because I learn new things. I also often picture-google (is that a word?) things (like cars) since I don’t know what they look like even when I know the word – for example, I know that an SUV is a car but have no idea what kind.
It never bothers me if a dialect/foreign language is used in a book – as long as it is used correctly. Nothing bugs me as much as incorrectly used words/phrases or major mistakes (I once read a book where Prague was said to be in Russia…) I am not as sensitive to British/Australian etc English mistakes but that is simply because I might not notice them 😉 For me, if it is done well, the use of dialect/words from another language enhances the book because it is part of the setting. And if a book set in Australia has a distinctly American “flavor” that even I recognize it doesn’t work for me. If it is set there, then I prefer having to look up more words if necessary. I mean, what is the point of writing a book set in XY if it is basically American with a few unusual place names?
*wry grin* I agree with the prevailing opinion here, but I can one-up that (or can’t I?) – Imagine being a German reader who loves reading in English and if a German shows up anywhere in a novel it’s mostly a Nazi – and THEN the German he/she uses is grammatically incorrect as well.
On the other hand we have Sandra Schwab who lives the life I always dreamed off but never got off my butt to attempt living – Doctor of English and teaching as an assistant professor at university in Germany by day and by night she writes romance. Oh and she does handicrafts, too.
Oh yes!!!! Completely forgot about that! That does top the other pet peeves.
Estara, how about an Austrian-set romance? I know it’s not Germany, but it’s sure as hell not England…
I think that the powers that be that control entertainment should stop assuming that the readership in the U.S. is
a) Lazy
b)stupid
and
c) not willing to change a or b
It has been a pet peeve of mine that films and books tend to talk down to the consumer rather than challenge them. As a child in the Caribbean, I garnered meaning from context when I bumped into “Americanisms”. I am sure adults in the U.S. can do the same. While on this subject why does every local in books set in the Caribbean always say Irie and Mon….We do not all talk the same way!
This is interesting for me b/c I am an unpubbed writer trying to sell to Harlequin/Mills & Boon and specifically targeting my projects to the Mills &Boon; London office.
I set my books in the U.S. b/c I am an American and it is the place I know best, but I do admit I”m often questioning myself if certain things are “too American” or too regional.
I don’t worry about the editors not understanding it :-), but I do worry of it not appealing to them and consequently not selling.
But as a reader, I always prefer my books not translated or watered down for American tastes. I cut my reading teeth on British editions of Paddington Bear and have had a soft spot for British English ever since. And one of my favorite books of all time is Nevil Shute’s “A Town Like Alice.” No ranchers there!
I cannot tell you how cross this whole subject makes me. After reading Lexxie’s response from her agent I am almost too angry to type.
Here’s the thing. If you only want to read romances set in your own country, then fine, do that. I’m British and I will happily admit to a preference for stories set in the UK. But what I will not stand for are stories that claim to be set in the UK but are in fact set in a version of America that is called England. I cannot see why anyone would want to read that. Unless Americans really do want the whole world to be like them? I have to say that my experience of Americans does not support this. In my experience, Americans are fascinated by British culture, and no doubt by Australian culture too. But if people continue to read books that perpetuate the myth that everywhere is just America by another name, then I am afraid that fascination will diminish and the creeping Ameri-centricity will takeover. To everyone’s detriment.
Also, you know what, we do call a sweater a jumper. Get over it. Like I have to get over it every time I read about someone wearing pants in public.
I dunno, but I set scenes in one of my books in the very real village of Ugley.
As an English author writing for American publishers, I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to change words or phrases in my books because ‘readers won’t understand them’. I honestly appreciate it when my US editors pick me up on points of dialogue with my American characters, but it makes me rant at the monitor when I’m asked to have a grown man walking around in public in his pants.
During middle school, I had a very hard time on spelling tests because I kept adding the British “u” to words that I read frequently. I am from New Jersey, we don’t have favourite colours.
When you are removing all flavor/flavour from your books, how do you know what is American and what is Australian? Thongs as a name for Flip-Flops is very common here in the US. It is used little less since thong underwear became more of a discussed thing, but it is still totally an American usage of the word. But I have never seen ripple iron for corrugated roofing material.
Seriously, I have worked in labs at Universities enough with native speakers of English from other countries and non-native speakers that I know it is often the little differences in meaning that creep up on you.
The British use of “mooch” (lie around and be lazy or something similar) and the American use (beg, especially beg in a very determined manner) are both related enough through an outdated use – junkie – heroin addicts show both behaviors. You wouldn’t necessarily notice that you had written something that wasn’t American if you used mooch the British way, but it would not really mean the same thing.
That is part of why reading is fun- because language is actually alive and interesting. The same story can be told millions of different ways by varying the words.
We have already lost so much regional flavor and character, American accents and stores and foods are merging into one giant outlet store.
It’s actually a DNF for me if there’s an Australian hero who doesn’t sound Australian or trying to hard to sound Australian. Fine line and all that, but bascially if it sounds natural I might be able to finish the book.
On the other hand, if there’s mentions of actual places in Sydney, I squee because I know those places!
THIS.
The translating happens across the board. A few years ago, I got my hands on an ARC of a Jasper Fforde novel that was basically the final UK version before it was edited for American audiences. Maybe I’m a smartypants, but I didn’t have any problems reading it. But, I do know from having worked at a big publisher, that all books published in the US get Americanized, not just romances. (I once had a job where I had to British-ize a booklet, actually, which is to say, I’m an American, I was working for an American company, but they needed this booklet published for their London office, and somehow the editing on this job fell to me. I learned a lot about British grammar while working on that project, let me tell you.)
This is something my writers group argues about sometimes. We have a Scottish member who submits things with British spellings, which is one thing, but also, how much regional or, say, career-centric jargon can you use and still be authentic without boring or losing the reader? (Like, if you’ve got a book set in San Francisco, how much slang/place names/ephemera can you include before your reader gets confused? Or how much police procedure can you put in a novel without explaining it? Which is maybe another discussion from this one!)
This drives me crazy too. Last fall, I met a girl from China, who was in the US on a student Visa. Professors would ask her what her name was and she would say Isabel because they couldn’t pronounce her real name. I wouldn’t dream of changing my last name because teachers used to say it wrong (For some reason they would try to make it sound German-er than it actually is. They would place an umlaut over the “u” when there never has been one there. It got to the point where I would just tell them to pronounce it like the character on Friends=) ). I would just correct them and we would all move on to something different (like learning a flat was an apartment in the UK).
I’m not sure whether the assumption about American readers is that we are stupid or if we are culturally biased. A lot of people think that America is the greatest country in the world (which it isn’t), therefore all things foreign need to be made American—they can’t possibly be good in their original vernacular. This definitely makes many Americans ignorant, but not necessarily stupid.
That being said, there is an historical tradition in America of changing things that don’t make sense to Americans because they are foreign. For example, when my great grandparents came through Ellis Island in 1903 their last name was made less Italian (or the Americanized version of Italian). Suddenly, there were extra “f’s” or the vowel at the end of the name was changed (I have relatives with an “e” or an “i” at the end instead of the “o” that was at the end of my mother’s maiden name.) It makes researching your family tree extremely difficult—we can’t even find my grandmother’s family passed a certain point, possibly because the officials thought her name was too Polish when her parents emigrated in 1905.
This is so timely ‘cause I’m planning my trip to Oz for this year’s World SF Convention (2 Sep.-6 Sep [see? I’m even writing the dates non-US style)]. I absolutely want to read books that are not “Americanized”. I can’t imagine reading A Town Like Alice with someone helpfully translating it along the way for me.
Oddly enough, I once encountered the opposite problem. I was reading a Black Lace novel set in the US and the cops went to the boot of their car to retrieve something.
And now, I’m going back to gazing on my Men of Cricket calendar to get in the right mood for my upcoming excursion.
Which is why I tend to buy all my Brit authors from English online book providers . . . not sure how I’ll manange in the new world of eBooks with this one.
I do not even want to imagine the horror of Jasper Fforde ‘translated’ into American. Practically every single joke in that book depends on its Britishness.
I’m with the everyone else in that I really don’t like or want books that are lingo sanitized. American readers aren’t dumb. We can look up a word or two if needed. I probably would have had to look up jumper to figure out what the hero was wearing just to reassure myself it wasn’t a calico dress, but I’m fine with that.
I want the local lingo when I’m reading a book so I know what country I’m in and the time period. I’ll look up a word if I don’t know it.
As for the author having to remove lift, service station, and thongs for us silly Americans, that’s ridiculous, tell your pub to wise up. Some of us still call gas stations service stations, and use to call thongs, thongs until they got called flip flops. Lifts are a no brainer. The only thing that might throw me off would be a specific temperature in Celsius, but I should be able to figure out if it’s hot or cold from the context.
“where in the US corrugated sheet metal is called ripple iron?” As far as I know, it’s not. Corrugated roofing hasn’t been made out of iron since the mid to later part of the 19th century when they switched to carbon steel, but iron (CGI) stuck. Ripple is a term. And that term refers a shorter than standard pitch on corrugated roofing. Shorter pitch was typically used for walls, not roofs, and I don’t know when shorter pitch was developed. In the US it’s called galvanized steel roofing, metal roofing, CGI, some old timers still call it tin roofing. (use to sell the stuff while in college) Not sure how it started being called ripple iron in Australia, but that’s for the Australia historians. There is a company in Australia called Ripple Iron that sells corrugated metal products including custom roofing.
Just my two cents….
When I was young, I read all the James Herriot vet-memoir books, which are chock-full of British words, slang, oaths (I walked blithely around saying “Bloody!” for weeks before someone thought to correct me) and various other turns of phrase unknown to my American mind. I figured out what they meant on my own—if not through context, then via the dictionary or an obliging adult. I never got frustrated or stopped reading. They were British, so of course they would talk differently! I considered it a fun challenge, as well as practice for going to England someday.
I’m pretty sure Bridget Jones’s Diary kept “jumper” and the rest of the British-isms. I know it was kept for the film. I’m still in mourning over the remake of Death at a Funeral. Such a funny movie, and hello, already in English!
Hallelujah, sister! And I know people who do this, it makes me absolutely insane. I will NEVER again travel with people who are scared of food that’s “weird”.
Isn’t that crazy? Some of the most successful American sitcoms were ripoffs of British ones. Three’s Company, Who’s the Boss. It boggles the mind.
My French is horrible, but even I can tell when the gender, plurality, and EVERYTHING about a phrase is wrong. “What’s wrong, mon petits?” when speaking to a group of girls. No. Just, no. I’m pretty sure I learned that in Grade 7, the first year we got French in school.
I remember reading a blurb by a Canadian author who said that her editors told her that Canadian locales don’t sell. So everytime you see a romance set in a fictional or generic midwest or “Alaskan” place that seems a little incongruous, it’s probably been changed from being a specific Canadian location.
I’m wondering if it’s all part of the war on terror, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a political way. When people are feeling safe and secure, we’re more interested in foreignness. When we’re feeling threatened and insecure, foreignness is threatening and scary.
What I’m trying to say is, I wonder if the americanization of non-american books is a reflection of the trend over the last decade to see threats under every rock, and consumers shifting away from buying anything that smacks of otherness.
Crap, I have to go back to work and I’m not even halfway through the comments yet. See you later!
I love learning new regional or antiquated words through novels. The only thing I ever want Americanized is the punctuation—I find UK-style quotations (single and double quotation marks swapped, periods sometimes appearing after a closing quotation mark) extremely distracting.
That happened to a friend of mine in college. A professor mangled her name so profoundly that no one, not even her own friends, knew who he was calling on. I always had thought that people with hard-to-pronounce names would be called on less in class. Oh well.
I got sent to the principal’s office in high school for refusing to answer to a teacher who couldn’t/wouldn’t pronounce my name. I claimed, quite correctly, that he had never called on me. The principal insisted I must have known he meant me. They stopped bothering me when I asked if it was too much to ask a supposedly college-educated man to pronounce a phonetic five letter word. Sheesh.
Just sticking up for the editors out there…Bookstores are looking for reasons not to shelve your book. According to some booksellers, the majority of the American public do not want books that sound “too British” or “too Australian.” (Remember a previous SBTS post saying 90% of romance readers aren’t on the internet). When editors see that bookstores will not take these books, they start editing those things out. We personally may love those small things, but we need to sell the book. We do what we have to do, because without bookstore distribution, most books are DOA, and we don’t want to see that happen to great authors.