US spellings

[desperance]

My remarkably good friend moshui finds himself quandarised caught on the horns of a quandary, and you know how uncomfortable that can be.

His copy-editor has recast his new fantasy novel in American spelling; which is not unreasonable on the face of it, its having an American publisher and hence inevitably a largely American audience. But Dan is a Brit to his boots, and his English is exceedingly British, and he's just not comfortable with this strange accent it's been pressed into.

But of course, being brighter than me, his first concern is sales. If he asked for the spellings to revert to English English, will potential readers be put off? He asks, and I don't know the answer; so I thought I'd ask you on his behalf. Go on over here and give him the benefit of your wisdom, for I have none.

(NB - it's a fantasy novel in a secondary world, sorta Chinese but not; no variety of English would be anybody's mother tongue, if that makes a difference...)

Comments

[woodrunner.livejournal.com]

It's a blend of British and US English. I've had arguments with both native British and native US gentlemen over proper spelling, both of them telling me that my spelling was wrong.

For example, we use "colour", "favour", and so on. But we'll also use "realize", "notarize".

Wouldn't it be a perfect solution to just use Canadian English? There's a little bit of both... ;)

[moshui.livejournal.com]

Hee. You'd need a special note on the copyright page, "This book printed in Canadian throughout." And you'd still get outraged letters from both sides of the Atlantic.