Why does “mom” vs. “mum” bother you that much? It’s such a minor thing.

kendrene:

justluckyiguess:

lesbxdyke:

justluckyiguess:

lesbxdyke:

It’s not just ‘mom’ vs ‘mum’, that’s just a very easy example to use. But I’ll explain my issue with it anyway.

To me, it’s about respect.

I am from the UK. Words like Mom, Sidewalk, Diaper, Shopping Cart, etc are NOT parts of my vocabulary. They are not words I use, and if I did, I’d get mercilessly teased for it, because we’re not American.

HOWEVER!

A lot of the characters that I write for, they ARE American. So they’d say and think those words.
I respect that. I respect that the creators were likely American. I respect that the people reading it are probably going to be American. I respect that American’s have wrong different words for things.
So I use those words.

I go out of my way to use words that are not in my vocabulary, to make sure that what I’m writing is authentic and correct. I once spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what American’s call Shopping Trolleys (Carts. You call them Carts.) because I knew you didn’t call them Trolleys like we do.
Every British friend of mine does the Exact. Same. Thing.

Now!

Most fandoms, really, are American. If you check the fandom list in my bio, other than one character in Overwatch, and SNK, they’re all American. Meaning that the fanfictions I write are mostly for American Fandoms. Any gifsets I’d make (if I ever gain that skill) will be for American Fandoms. Etc, etc, you see my point?

The 3 big British Fandoms are Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Sherlock. I’ll be disregarding Sherlock, because I’m not part of that fandom.

I’ve read a few Doctor Who and Harry Potter fics and every time I see that the writer hasn’t taken the time to learn British English (Or get a British BETA reader who can catch these mistakes) it almost instantly makes the fic unreadable.

Ron Weasely would not be calling Molly ‘Mom’. He’d call her ‘Mum’. They are British.
The Doctor wouldn’t be talking about getting a ‘Pacifier’ for Melody Pond, he’d talk about a ‘Dummy’.

Yes, it is a minor thing. Which makes it all the more frustrating. It will never take long to make sure you’re using the correct language for the version of English your characters would be speaking.
Or, if you REALLY don’t want to learn, find a British Person who will BETA read. (I’ve had friends that have done this for Sherlock fanfiction. They’ll BETA read the whole fic, but the main aim is to correct Americanisms into Britishisms.)
It’s not like you’re being asked to learn a whole new language, just slightly edit the one you already speak to make it authentic.

So I really do not want to be that person, however one of the things that some times gets lost is regional dialects. For example, in the south east continental US a cart is often called a buggy. In some parts of he country it is soda, in others pop and in Kentucky and Tennessee it’s Cola.

I get that, regional dialects are often lost and I can imagine that’s pretty freaking irritating too.

If I knew a character was from a particular place, I’d do my best to figure out their dialects.

It’s just the lack of respect that bothers me. Just… Do your research, it’s not gonna take you more than a few minutes!

I’m ageeing with you. I have friends from very where with so many lexicons that I get annoyed when characters all have the same voice.

DO YOUR RESEARCH!