Linguistics

[resonant]

I'm compiling an American-to-British phrasebook (because reasons Sherlock). You can find decent dictionaries online (nappy, lorry, etc., etc.) but I'm not so much finding speech patterns -- word choices, syntax, where an American says 'on' and a Brit says 'in,' that kind of thing.

Oddly enough, most of what I've got here (that didn't come from Arctic Monkeys songs) came to my attention because I'd be reading a story in a fandom with an American canon, and I'd hit a phrase that made me go, "This author must be British." (The drawback of this is that some of it might be Australian or something.)

Anybody want to offer input? Here's what I've got (American on the left, British on the right).

Brits use a lot of 'got,' but I can't quite formulate a rule.

to see if you had my number -----> to see if you'd got my number

(also Americans say 'gotten')

Brits don't like to let helping verbs hang out alone.

"You'd eat a horse." "I have." ---> "You'd eat a horse." "I have done."

"That joke gets old." "It must." ---> "That joke gets old." "It must do."

The two dialects handle prepositions differently.

"in the hospital" ---> "in hospital"

"lives on Baker Street" ---> "lives in Baker Street"

Different vocabulary.

"we went to college together" ---> "we went to uni together"

"toss it" or "throw it away" ---> "bin it"

There are a number of things that Brits treat as plural that Americans treat as singular.

"the band wasn't very good" ---> "the band weren't very good"

"I'm no good at math" ---> "I'm rubbish at maths"

"the jury wasn't paying attention" ---> "the jury weren't paying attention"

Comments

[dafna]

As an American who writes mostly in UK fandoms, these are the ones I find myself having to consciously look out for:

1) "Very" alternates
Brits don't use "really" as much as Americans do. Instead, "rather" and "quite" are more common

2) "Got hold of" (UK)
Follows your "got" rule, but the whole phrase is used a lot

3) "Ring" or "Rang" (UK) instead of "Call" or "Called" (US)

4) "Right" (UK) instead of "OK" (US)
I don't mean that Brits don't use OK at all, but when Americans use OK as a sort of conversational clearing of the throat, Brits are more likely to use "Right". As in, "Right. Moving on." where an American would say "OK. Moving on."

5) Common UK slang terms (other than the obvious bloody, bugger, wanker etc)
"Knob" -- John definitely calls Sherlock this at least once a week
"Balls' up" -- A fuck up, but less rude than the American version
"In there" -- have a chance at sex, as in "I'm definitely in there"
"Fit" -- hot
"Innit" -- Isn't it, but used at the end of sentences where an American would say "right?" and often used ironically by upper class speakers as it's associated with lower-class speech.
"Bloke" -- used where Americans would use "guy", as in "he's a good bloke"

6) Cultural things appropriate to the character
For ex., most UK men are likely to be fans of "Top Gear" and so references from that show are likely, e.g. "Cock." "The best/worst XXXX in ... the ... world." And younger characters might use a lot of TOWIE slang such as "well jel" or "reem", but John wouldn't.

[lobelia321]

I have not heard 'well jel' or 'reem' or any Top Gear lingo so I suppose that makes me a) old and b) TV-resistant (and definitely Clarkson-resistant...!).

Re innit: I've started to notice this around a lot in fic written by non-Brits as if it were a normal English thing to say is. But it isn't. And non-AU Sherlock and Watson would never use this (unless ironically or in disguise). I wonder if it crept into the fandom via Delires' chav verse but come to think of it, that's actually Inception (argh! too many transatlantic fandoms iz confuzzling the brain...)

Ignore all I say.

[dafna]

I should say that I write "Peep Show" and Britcom RPF so slang is more common there than it would be in Sherlock.

[petra]

I have thankfully not found any misplaced "innit"s in my UK fandoms, which is just as well, as it would seem as wrong as Armstrong and Miller's RAF sketches written in modern slang and delivered in RP.

[resonant]

The 'ring' thing made me think of something I see a lot on "Not Always Right" -- call-center calls that begin, "Good morning, you're through to X Company." Where an American would say, "You've reached X company."

And I've noticed that British slang uses sexual terms much more casually than American slang does. Like, you might call someone a 'cunt' in America, but that's a really serious insult and also your grandma would wash your mouth out with soap, and 'twat' wouldn't be used at all (though I suppose 'dick' is roughly equivalent to 'knob' and 'jagoff' to 'wanker').

I was really confused the first time I encountered 'well' in the sense of 'very' ('he's well fit') -- took me quite a while to figure out what even was its grammatical function in the sentence.

[dafna]

And I've noticed that British slang uses sexual terms much more casually than American slang does.

Yeah, definitely. They're also more likely to make jokes about sex in general that Americans wouldn't (or not in the same circs).