Ordinary Gweilo

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We call it a term – get over it!

In Hong Kong, you often find the UK and US versions of books sitting next to each each on the shelves.  And generally the US version is significantly cheaper, but for many books from the UK I don't want the US version.

Because they change stuff. 

I remember reading the first of the Charlie Bone books and being really confused because it seemed to be set in the UK and yet it talked about semesters rather than terms.  Had I really got the wrong idea?  No, the US publisher had employed someone to go through the book and change all those pesky UK English words to their American English equivalents.

Is this really necessary?  Wouldn't it be possible to have a brief glossary to explain a few of the terms that are different?

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5 responses to “We call it a term – get over it!”

  1. Sword of Truth avatar
    Sword of Truth

    You’ll live.

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  2. Todd Christensen avatar
    Todd Christensen

    From a worldly American: It isn’t that Americans are dumb, despite what the world would have you think of us, it is merely that Americans are arrogant, more so than even the French. This has little to do with needing a dictionary and everything to do with appealing to wallets. America, being the melting pot, does not assimilate cultures as much as it negates them. Sure we celebrate every holiday and festival that is celebrated worldwide but the resulting new culture is one of capitalism (or at least I should say it was, ugh, in comes socialism, thanks Obamunism – sarcasm of course). This means that the American demands to be marketed to… If a man is taking a lift instead of an elevator, smoking a fag instead of a cig, or , in this case, attending a term instead of a semester (which for the record, we DO call it a term here too, the words are interchangeable), Americans feel the marketer has not made the effort to sell AMERICANS the product and therefore is not worth our dollars. This is perhaps why companies have catered to the American consumer for so long. We have the money and we use it strategically to get companies, worldwide, to cater to us, regardless of who this screws in the process, thus our arrogance… But give us credit, we certainly know how to get marketers to pay attention to us :::waving dollar bills::: Fear not, however, the fall of the American dollar is virtually imminent, so this culture will most likely change 😦

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  3. Sword of Truth avatar
    Sword of Truth

    Speak for yourself, Cockroach. No doubt your Eurofriends find your self-loathing oh-so-charming.

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  4. the Bromgrev avatar
    the Bromgrev

    So, do they do the same with British science fiction books? Do ‘rockets’ become ‘cadillacs’and ‘robots’ become ‘colored folks’?

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  5. avatar
    Anonymous

    Ha! I’d like to see US version of an Irvine Welsh book.

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