serenity now ...

[fox]

tonight's mantra: i will not post HP without a green light from a genuine British person.

repeat until urge to do so goes away.

this is not, as you might expect, a reaction to reading too much (or indeed any) HP-fic-with-dialect-issues. except inasmuch as being aware that the problem exists, i refuse to risk compounding it ... so my own HP stuff strains at its leash until such time as i get the notice that i'm good to go.

i will not post HP without a green light from a genuine British person ...

Comments

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

You know what? I lived in England for years and most of the people I spent time with couldn't beta Harry Potter if you paid them a billion dollars.

I'm annoyed. Not with you, of course, but with this whole discussion. Of *course* people should pay attention to what they're writing, to getting the voices of the characters right, to keeping anachronisms out of their work as much as they're able.

But for god's sake, some of the people involved in this discussion make it sound as if there's a single dialect in England that all Brits use, and it's just not true.

It's like...I read due South stories written by Americans who aren't from the midwest or don't have a working class background or don't have Polish relatives (all of which I *do* have) and they may as well be from a foreign country. Or they *are* from the Polish Chicago working class and yet don't know canon well enough to know that 'queer' is a RayK word. Or they're too young to know that Ray didn't grow up listening to Eminem.

Friendly Brits who are smart and good writers and canon whores are worth their weight in gold - and lucky are the writers (from whatever country) who have beta relationships with these people. But just any old British person? No, thank you.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

But for god's sake, some of the people involved in this discussion make it sound as if there's a single dialect in England that all Brits use, and it's just not true.

no, you're quite right, and i didn't mean to imply that Joe Q. English should get to sign off on all HP fic because no american could be trusted to get the dialect (whichever it is) right.

my issue is much more keenly-focused. i know i have an ear for character voice, and i also have praise-worthy betas who double-check me lest i delude myself; i also know i have an ear for dialect, plus some experience as a kid in a british secondary school, so i'm relatively sure that what i see as briticisms aren't complete hallucinations.

what i need, speaking only for myself, is a yankee detector -- someone not a native speaker of american english, who is far more likely than i to notice americanisms (ones that would never come out of the mouths of british characters, that is). last time around, my british english was fine, but i'd failed to zap a "gotten" (just one; the rest of them i'd caught).

it's not, in short, that i think we all need Guidance with regard to what the characters would say (any beta tells me something is wrong when it's in fact canon, and i'll just disregard the advice); but i, at least, feel better when i have someone do a second review with regard to what they wouldn't say.

(for the record, also -- i have a dS fic in progress on which i have consulted with a native chicagoan, since my midwest accent is different from ray's. [g])

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

what i need, speaking only for myself, is a yankee detector -- someone not a native speaker of american english, who is far more likely than i to notice americanisms (ones that would never come out of the mouths of british characters, that is). last time around, my british english was fine, but i'd failed to zap a "gotten" (just one; the rest of them i'd caught).

Ah. I'll just be coming off my high horse now. *g*

Yes, this is absolutely true. Those of us who've spent a great deal of time in England (or who just have good ears for dialect) are probably as good as most Brits in terms of what characters *would* say, but - as you noted - not always able to catch those Americanisms which are so much a part of us that we're all but incapable of seeing them as something 'wrong.'

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Have you been following the very amusing discussion (http://www.livejournal.com/users/isiscolo/86348.html) going on at isiscolo's LJ on Britpicking, etc. (Or is it what's motivating your post?)

This being said, I can certainly help you with the Britpicking if you've got no-one else (went to boarding school there, worked there.) I might let a piece of dialect pass, but not a situation...