UK vs. US

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 170760

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
>
> Ken wrote:
> > > >We are not idiots and we don't want our Harry Potter or anything
> else in predigested form from a copy editor. Sorry, Carol....
> > > 
> 
> Carol:
> Now, now, I wouldn't insult your profession. Please don't inult mine.
> We just do what the publishers tell us to do, and if that includes
> changing british english to American English, we do it. And I , for
> one, at least appreciate having double quotes instead of single ones.
> I don't think it's an insult to kids to remove the more difficult or
> unusual Briticisms.
> 

<SNIP, for brevity, not because there is anything wrong with it>

> 
> Carol, who wishes you could do my job for a day just to see what it's
> really like
>

Ken:

I think perhaps you don't understand how similar our professions are!
As an engineer I rarely get to do what I know should be done. Instead
I have to do what managers, salesmen, marketing, and company policy
say that I must do. If engineers had a free hand in designing products
the things you use would be much better and last much longer. Now
granted you'd never be able to afford to buy them and no one but
another engineer would ever be able to figure out how to operate them
(think first generation VCRs) and they'd never actually be offered for
sale because there is so much more we could do with just one more
design revision ... so I suppose those other professions do have a
proper role to play in the design of products. It is only when they
overstep their bounds that products suffer.

I'm not insulting your profession then. I am saying that I don't agree
with the *publisher's* policies in regards to translating English to
English. You've already explained the copy editor's role in this
process and I wasn't unclear on it. The policy is wrong. The intent
was not to demean copy editors for this but to state my feeling about
the policy. I addressed you because you seem to defend as well as
explain the policy.

If I had children I would want them to read what JKR wrote, not the
Scholastic Party Line on what she should have written had she been a
Proper American Speaker. Now, ok, in a few instances where usage on
one side of the Atlantic is G rated but X rated on the other, I can
accept substitutes. For the most part, no. If my children had trouble
with a passage and had to come to me for help with it isn't that a
habit I would like to instill in them?

Most Americans have cable or satellite TV if FCC statistics are to be
believed. Any American who needs a crash course in British English
need only tune in BBCAmerica. I haven't seen anything comparable in
quite a while but they did air a rather good version of *Gormenghast*
a few years ago so they occasionally have something more worthwhile
than the prototype for the next reality show that US networks will
imitate. 

Would you defend this practice if it were common, for example, to
Americanize Bach's works with notes and chords and rhythms that
sounded more familiar to American ears? The very notion is hideous. I
find it just at bad that written language is subjected to this
treatment. I read the books to learn about Harry Potter of Little
Whinging, not his hillbilly cousin from Kentucky. I love American
music too but don't you *dare* mess with Bach.

Ken, who proudly comes from good, solid hillbilly stock from near
Lexington, so don't think he means anything agin ye if you be a
hillbilly or a Kentuckian.