Goodbye, pudding ... hello,
Jell-O. That's what millions of children recited as
the battle over packaging Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone for the American market flared a few years
back. In the stateside edition, gelatin prevailed, while
"crooked" morphed into "wonky," school "holidays" became
"vacations," and "bobbles" were no match for "puff balls."
Blasted for its heavy hand, Scholastic went easier
on the subsequent Potter books.
Though Americans are still airbrushing
the nipples out of illustrated U.K. children's trade
titles -- and though many editors still disrespect "Mum,"
putting "Mom" in her place -- the days of loutish Americanization
seem to be waning. As British books invade our best-seller
lists and Web-savvy American kids hit U.K. book-selling
sites, U.S. houses are printing locutions formerly deemed
outré.
"The early '90s heralded a politically
correct era, in which editors strong-armed racist or
loaded terms," says Susan Van Metre, senior editor
at Penguin Putnam. "The trend now is toward Americanizing
the spelling and punctuation, and changing only those
words that lead to potential misunderstanding." So although
U.S. youngsters may have seen the last of "hooter,"
when a British usage is authentic and intelligible in
context, Van Metre leaves it in.
That's a good thing, because
if the wildfire sales of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal
Snogging are any indication, teens (or even tweens,
as the sub-teen market is known) are coping just fine.
No matter that most Americans don't know a snog from
a snivel, Louise Rennison's novel has stormed
U.S. young adult best-seller lists, suggesting a teenage
Bridget Jones' Diary. Teeming with references
to spots, blokes and breastiness, the book is an unabridged
lexicon of British slang: words like "swiz," "wally"
and "prat" are thick on the page. "Snogging," of course,
means kissing, and that's what American teens want most
of all.
"Competition to sound more British
than their friends is so fierce that thousands of teenagers
in the U.S. are writing to Ms. Rennison demanding more
Brit slang," reports the London newspaper Express.
As Rennison tells the paper, "American teenagers just
cannot get enough of these old-fashioned English expressions,
and I think it's probably because they are a bit rude."
Yet teens aren't the only ones
catching the craze. In the adult trade market, even
the Americanizing of spellings is no longer obligatory.
"Most readers here are sophisticated enough," says Robin
Straus of the Robin Straus Literary Agency, which
represents Andrew Nurnberg & Associates in the
U.S. "Look at the success of Zadie Smith or Nick
Hornby. Sometimes an editor will say a book's 'too
English,' but that has more to do with its setting and
sensibility than the language."
Foreign markets vary in their
preferred version of the language. British English naturally
monopolizes former Commonwealth domains such as the
Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. American English
is meanwhile dominant in Northern Asia (particularly
Japan, Korea and Taiwan), the Philippines, Central and
Latin America, and any other locale conveniently located
near a U.S. military base. "Getting the right English
into the right market is determined by a combination
of tradition, history, and current demand," says Cyrus
Kheradi, VP and Group Sales Director of the US,
UK and Australia, for Simon & Schuster, "which
in turn are affected by other factors, such as the rising
dollar and the more stable pound."
In parallel import markets such
as continental Europe, packaging and genre also play
significant roles, Kheradi notes. "A tie-in book for
a Hollywood movie will be in much higher demand in American
English than in British English," he says, "as will
a product linked to American holidays and Hallmark marketing,
such as Halloween." However, because buyers often base
purchasing decisions on the aesthetics of packaging,
U.S. and U.K. editions of the same title can be found
side by side on the shelves. "Ten years ago, British
publishers had a monopoly on sophisticated packaging,
and American covers were more garish and text-heavy,"
Kheradi adds. "We are now moving towards a blending
of best practices in packaging books, particularly for
those with world rights."
Nonetheless, American English
may be capturing a larger piece of the global pie. Last
year a Dutch study found that one-third of the commercials
on Dutch television contained English words and phrases
based on American English. And in Taiwan, language students
will tell you they're not studying English -- they're
learning American. In the good old U.S.A, however, things
aren't so simple anymore. The proof, as any Harry Potter
fan knows, is in the pudding.
