tj_rowe | Why should American be considered the default version of English?

I just got a review. (It's always sparked by that, isn't it?)

Only thing I see is saying that Raimundo was bouncing a football on his knee. Either you meant that he was bouncing a soccerball on his knee, or you were mixing spanish with english...(football means soccer in spanish, unless you say 'american football,' then it means...well, football. I don't think I explained that very wel...)

My reply: I think you mean that I was confusing English and -American-. I am English, therefore I use the English words. From England. It should be made plain by the abundance of 'u's scattered around which variation of the language I am using. If I meant 'american football' I would say 'Rugby ball' (refering to the balls. If it was the game, it would just be Rugby).

Ugh, sorry to be snarky. But this sort of thing really gets on my nerves.

Am I being fair? After all, the majority of ff.net fanthings *are* American, but targeting an audience of American teenagers who don't even know the variations in their own language does seem to be selling out more-than-a-little-bit.

And really: Does it make that much difference for a fanthing to be picturing a rugger ball rather than a football? Generally I try to use non-ambiguous words anyway, and I don't want to lecture on 'Football is a game played by two teams, both of which are trying to get the ball to the other end' and that the variations are 'soccer football' with a round ball and 'rugby football' with a rugger ball and one country decided to shorten one one way and one the other and the other country did it the opposite way around, because I have no interest in football of any description and he knows what kind of balls Raimundo plays with and that I'm British so is it really that hard to figure out what's meant?

*deep breath*

Bah Humbug.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

we had a british substitute teacher and she was using british terms. later on, some little brat threw a hissy fit and got sent up to the office, so some kid in the front row was screaming that she was a racist and that she's just p.o'd because of the american revolution.

O_o That line always confuses me: We may have lost some good land with that, but it doesn't impact anything at all nowadays.

That's not even cool. Most of us aren't like that, but a good number of us are, unfortunately.

*pats* It's just the '90% of everything is crap' rule. There are more Americans, so more are daft and loud about it.

i know. i wanted to slap him and the 2 kids agreeing with him. it's just blatant bigotry and then he wonders why the teacher disliked him. luckily, it's still a kind of low number because it's mostly kids saying rude comments like that. most people grow out of bigotry, i think.

I think you're being fair. I'm American but I wasn't offended by your reply or anything. Sometimes I get confused when I read other stories because I see things spelled differently than I would (if it's the u's then I know right away, but sometimes it's the difference between s's and z's) or words, like football, used differently. But usually after thinking about it (and thinking before speaking) I figure out that the author's not where I'm from.

I've had people try to guess where I'm from by my writing style. They're usually wrong and don't think I'm American. Strange because I use the American phrases and spellings and whatnot. *shrugs* Maybe talking to Jadebell and EvilDiva's rubbed off on me.

*g* I remember guessing at your nationality back in my first review to one of your stories. I was all 'Love the Brithumour!' and you were all 'Um, no. I'm American' and then I was all 'Oh. How odd.' XD

Hee hee.

Is that what footballs are called in America? Soccerballs? The soccerball World Cup?

*gigglesnort*

=P

Soccer Ball.

And I think we just call it the world cup...

We being the in-between crowd. ;_;

How irritating. There's always one, isn't there?

I... use a mixture, I think. I use Americanisms sometimes in dialogue (Jack would call football soccer, I suspect) but Britishness in all other areas. I'm not sure whether that's the best way to go about it, but I'm not sure how else to not have the characters go OOC - it's an American show, after all.

But I think you're being fair. Why on earth would Raimundo be playing with a rugby-shaped ball? Brazil's most popular sport is football of the spherical kind.

I'm the same, I think. I'm very glad that the canonly-used words for 'Mum and Dad' are more internationalised for dialogue: I can type the words 'Mama and Papa' without wincing too much.

*sigh* I'm all for being understandable, but fanfiction shouldn't be an exercise in foreign language unless you want it to be.

Never trust anyone who only puts one l in 'wel' when it comes to spelling and grammatical matters.

YAY. Celebrate the 'u's of our culture!

Yay!

Eh. You were polite enough.

Getting angry only exaserbates (I so spelled that right... >_>) the ploblem.

Why should American be considered the default version of English?

eh, some americans are jerks.

Re: eh, some americans are jerks.

Re: eh, some americans are jerks.

Re: eh, some americans are jerks.

Re: eh, some americans are jerks.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject