Convert to US English?

Dave,
I can't answer that question, but congrats on the full request!

No, don't bother for agents. After all, what if you get one and he or she sells it to the UK market first?

Assuming you're writing in Word, if you want some pointers on how most efficiently to convert, let me know. I've had to do it for sold manuscripts and can maybe help you with some shortcuts. PM me if interested.

Terie, this would be interesting to read, apart from Dave's question. I never really understand why they do that. Do they think we can't read each other's spelling? That we'll get all confused over the sweater/jumper thing? That we're thrown off by single/double quotation marks?

I've seen a children's book in which an American girl visiting Ireland is made to call her mother, Mum, and another in which an obviously English story was wrenched to the US, with the kid taking the train to his obviously English school.

Oh, dear, I'm ranting.

bonitakale said:

Terie, this would be interesting to read, apart from Dave's question. I never really understand why they do that. Do they think we can't read each other's spelling? That we'll get all confused over the sweater/jumper thing? That we're thrown off by single/double quotation marks?

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I don't change words, just spellings and punctuation. It's a string of global search-and-replaces, followed by a spell-check. I can certainly stick it here if folks are interested, but to some extent, the values to search-and-replace will vary from writer to writer.

As far as words go, I leave that to the publisher. In some cases, where a British English word has a substantially different meaning in American English, it makes sense to make the change. For example, the following sentence would be interpreted differently, and therefore the interpretation of the character would be different, if you didn't change the word:

'After eating her ice cream bar, she wiped her mouth with her flannel.'

In the US, that would mean she wiped her mouth with a shirt, which could indicate the child was a bit sloppy, while in the UK, it would mean she wiped her mouth with a facecloth, which could indicate that the child was rather tidy.

Also, when making similes, the object to which the comparison is being made needs to be familiar to the reader. For example:

'It was about the size and shape of a cricket bat.'

I wouldn't expect a child (or an adult, for that matter) to put the book down to go find out what a cricket bat looks like. I'd rather change it to 'baseball bat'.

But when all is said and done, I'd rather Americanise my manuscript (other than word changes) myself as much as possible for one simple reason: to make sure it's right.

For my first US book, the acquisitions editor said not to bother, that they had scripts they'd run to make the changes. HA! They didn't; they made them manually, and they missed probably 1/4 of them. It took HOURS to check and correct in copyedit. So for the rest of the books, I did the changes myself in about 15-30 minutes per manuscript.

However, I don't see any reason to convert an unsold manuscript from one version of English to the other.

Much congrats on the request.

Do NOT convert.

bonitakale said:

That we're thrown off by single/double quotation marks?

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What is the deal with quotation marks?

I use the single ' for dialogue. I find the double " chunky and, for some reason, old fashioned Someone told me to go through my entire manuscript and convert all the dialogue to the double " (which I haven't...)

Is it an american vs aussie/uk thing?

dgaughran said:

Hi,

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but I just wanted to triplecheck.

For the last couple of weeks I have been querying agents in the US and the UK (I am based in Ireland), and have received three requests for partials. Last night, I got my first request for a full from a New York agent. The book is written in UK English. I presume I will have to convert to US English before submitting.

Is this correct? Is this a very stupid question?

Dave

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sorry, diverted in the above post

A friend of mine had to go through her MS and "Americanise" it - preparing it for sale in the US, this was after her book was already out in Australia. She said it was a HUGE job, much bigger than you'd imagine. I wouldn't imagine you would have to do this for agents though?

Although, I read heaps of american books here that haven't been changed to suit us Australians...

And, no, not a stupid question

If it's just spelling and stuff, then I'd do it, but there's more to it than that which is why I would hesitate to advice any conversion.

A simple, off-the-top-of-me-head-example:

'I'll go meet Bob', Sheila said. (UK)

"I'll go meet with Bob," Sheila said. (US)

Maxinquaye said:

'I'll go meet Bob', Sheila said. (UK)

"I'll go meet with Bob," Sheila said. (US)

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That's not correct. With dialogue, UK and US punctuation are the same. The comma goes before the quote/inverted comma. (You can confirm this by checking any UK-published book to hand.)

It's only with quoted phrases that aren't dialogue where the comma goes outside in UK English:

Americans call it a 'washcloth', while Brits call it a 'flannel'. (UK)

Americans call it a "washcloth," while Brits call it a "flannel." (US)

dgaughran said:

Slightly tempted just to switch the 'Language' in Word to US English and then run a spell-check, but doing nothing is even more tempting...

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Seriously, doing nothing is what you should do. There is so much that can go wrong, it's just not worth risking bollocksing up your manuscript.

(In case you're wondering on what authority I base this stuff, I'm an American technical writer living in the UK. For work I have to write in both US and UK English. My novels have been published in the US, and I co-ghostwrote a memoir published in the UK. So I have considerable paid experience writing for both sides of the pond.)

Before I subbed my first MS to the US, I e-mailed and asked if UK English was ok or if they'd like it changed.


Can't hurt to ask for their preference.

I did not change anything in my MS for submission to US agents.

Congratulations on the full request

DrummerGirl said:

What is the deal with quotation marks?

I use the single ' for dialogue. I find the double " chunky and, for some reason, old fashioned Someone told me to go through my entire manuscript and convert all the dialogue to the double " (which I haven't...)

Is it an american vs aussie/uk thing?

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The BIG problem with using single quote marks for dialogue is that you then have nothing to use for dialogue within dialgoue, which is the intended purpose of single quote marks.

This is the case everywhere, as far as I know. There's just no reason at all not to use double quote marks. That's what they're for.

How you feel about double quote makes doesn't matter to agents and editors. It's how they want them that matters, and they want double for dialogue, single for dialogue within dialogue.

Jamesaritchie said:

The BIG problem with using single quote marks for dialogue is that you then have nothing to use for dialogue within dialgoue, which is the intended purpose of single quote marks.

This is the case everywhere, as far as I know. There's just no reason at all not to use double quote marks. That's what they're for.

How you feel about double quote makes doesn't matter to agents and editors. It's how they want them that matters, and they want double for dialogue, single for dialogue within dialogue.

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No. In British English, the use of single and double quotes is reversed from American English. You start with single quotes (also called 'inverted commas') and if you need a quote within the quote, you use double quotes.

Thus, there is a very good reason for using single quotes if you're writing in or for markets that use British punctuation. This includes the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and most (if not all) other current and former Commonwealth nations except maybe Canada.

Neither my US publisher nor my US agent has ever asked me to Americanise a manuscript. I did so for my publisher as explained upstream.