English is not my mother tongue. I am completely fluent in English though, and I write my fiction in English.
Here's the problem: I live in neither the UK nor the US (nor any other English-speaking country), so I am exposed to both in equal measure (through literature, film, etc.) I spell the British way (American "looks misspelt" to me), but my intuitive use of vocabulary and idioms is mixed.
For example, I would naturally use 'lift' (British), 'cookies' (American), 'football' (British), 'throw pillow' (American), etc.
Most of the time, I'm not even consciously aware which side of the pond a word belongs to - they're just synonyms in my mind, so I reach out for whichever feels "more common" (a.k.a whichever I have encountered more often).
How much of a problem is it, considering neither of the novels I am working on is set in either the US or the UK? (One is a fantasy set in something inspired by 5th century Persia, the other is a sci-fi set mostly on another planet.) Would narration that mixes British and American vocabulary sound "wrong" to a native speaker? Is there any way for me to catch those errors (if errors they are), other than finding a native speaker beta reader? (I will do that anyway, but I would prefer not to rely on beta readers for vocabulary edits.)
Answer
I'm a native speaker of American English and my reaction to various British expressions can vary considerably on the expression:
- There are some words and expressions that don't sound British, at least to me (despite people saying they are). They sound normal and therefore are easily understood. For example: autumn, kerfuffle, wonky.
- Some British expressions sound British, though they are easy to understand. Some examples are: blimey, bloody, bollocks, rubbish.
- Likewise there are some American expressions that most Americans should recognize as being American: y'all, dude, man (as an exclamation).
- With some British expressions (either in general or in a specific context), I just don't know the meaning. For example, "in the skip" or "scarper". The context might be enough to work out the expression. It might not. All I know is that practically nobody is going to be reaching for a dictionary when they want to be reading, especially not native speakers.
- The metric system is similar; I know what type of measurement a unit is, but not how to translate it exactly into units I understand. This is particularly true for kilograms but I'm a little better with meters.
- And then there are your false friends. These are the expressions that are used in the same contexts in both dialects, yet mean different things. "Tabling a discussion", "football", and "pudding" are all examples. I would also include shorthand dates (e.g. 12/7/13) in here. I've found that even when I know that British people never talk about (for example) American Football, I always jump to that conclusion when I hear "football".
- Some British expressions sound ungrammatical (enough to make me question if it's a native speaker's writing), maybe because they are not used often enough for me to have ever heard it. For example, "have a walk" sounds weird to me. As does "in future".
- And then there are words which are acceptable in one dialect that are very offensive in the other (e.g. fanny, fag). There aren't too many expressions that fall into this category though.
My suggestion is to write so that nobody notices the language you're using; nothing should stick out in the way of language unless it absolutely has to (e.g. no getting around spelling). My other suggestion is to stay away from slang and overly informal language as much as possible.
Recognizably American or British expressions will look out of place in your setting. Whether they're recognizable as such depends on who's reading. Unfortunately (as my mostly one sided examples imply) not even native speakers are very good at realizing what dialect specific parts of their dialect there are.
You could always try doing research (the list of words given by Wikipedia would be a good start) but after some amount of time the returns are gong to be diminishing. Remember, the differences are not just vocabulary: it's also grammar. You will likely need both an American and a British beta reader.
In practice, sometimes the differences are significant enough that a publisher will invest time in localizing from one dialect to another. This could also be an option for you.
Probably one of the most famous examples is Harry Potter: it was originally written in British English and was later localized into American English. A pretty good list of the changes made between the versions can be found here, which is worth checking out. What I've noticed is that British expressions are really only retained in dialogue, which makes sense because the characters are British. This also includes the British accents, which don't really mean much to an American.
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