Wicked Incognito Now’s Reviews > Take on Me > Status Update

To be fair, the "flog" thing was a different book by a different Australian author writing about an American, but STILL! I had to get it off my chest.

Haha, yes, I'm glad you got that rant off your chest!

That is exactly why I would never try to write from the perspective of someone from another culture. The slang is just too ingrained in us to recognize when it's not used by others. I know I would get it all wrong.

This is all little nit-picky stuff that would've been easily solved by a read-through from an American.

The other book was "What the Librarian Wants" by Karina Bliss. It was another category romance, and actually, I think she's from New Zealand.

I'd say a lot of British English gets used here in the Northeast. "Naughty bits" for "private parts," "get on with" for "get along with," and so on.

Australian slang, though? Not so much. I had an Australian co-worker a while back and her slang was so different.

Slang's just so regional. Different parts of tiny eastern MA have different words for things. I'd be wary of writing a character from elsewhere in the US, never mind from another country.

I had an amusing moment in Dublin a few years back in a McDonald's. I was drunk and wanted fries and it was the only place open in the vicinity. Unfortunately the Chinese immigrant cashier and I were quickly at an impasse as my "french fries" meant nothing to her and she was speaking in two accents - Irish and Chinese - to my American ears.

Frenzied pointing ensued, she picked the correct change out of my pile of Euros, and I had my salty fat. It was good times.

Ridley, I've noticed New Englanders speak more closely to Brit than most Americans. Strangely, people in the deep south use some expressions that I've come across in the UK, "reckon" is one.

We're a military family and have lived all over the world, so I never know where I've heard people use WHAT expression.

I've used naughty bits before, but it was always as a joke, and I admit it-I stole the expression from Spike....

April, where are you originally from?

I grew up in New Mexico. My childhood self wants to says things like "I'm fixin' ta!" or "ya'll" a lot. But my grown up self has a weird way with words!! I lived in Northern New York for many years, and my best friend was from Mass. I picked up a lot of her "wicked retarded" sayings. I live in Belgium now, and we have satellite TV from the UK, so I hear a lot of British English (so I also use naughty bits a lot, but I picked it up from British TV).

But my BIGGEST influence for language has to come from all the reading I do. I can't think of an example right now, but I come out with some phrases I've picked up from historical romances that has my family looking at me like I just sprouted a second head.

Ah, "wicked retarded." That's a tough one for us.

On the one hand, it's pretty mean and fairly offensive. On the other, it's so totally reflexive that we neither mean any insult nor can we stop saying it.

I know--it's like referring to something as "so gay." It's offensive, but kind of knee-jerk sometimes.

Give it a couple decades and pretty soon people won't even know where it came from. They'll just use it by habit. That's what always happens with language.

How many everyday people associate the word gypped with something bad?

Lol, don't you mean wicked retahded? I love the Boston accent!

You know, pulling sayings and words from HRs isn't so bad, but if you started saying BDB phrases and such I'm sure your family will think you went off the deep end, you feelin' me, true?

I'm fond of our accent too, though it's dying out. It's always been a predominantly working class white person accent, and there's not too many communities of us left. It's a big part of why I rarely enjoy books set here. The way people speak is such a part of who they are here. Race, class and neighborhood all make themselves apparent in our speech. I grew up maybe 40 miles from my husband, but we have totally different accents and slang vocabularies.

Few authors manage to get the dialog right, and since Boston's so familiar to me (I've never lived more than an hour away from the hospital I was born in) it just prompts that "uncanny valley" sort of response in me. Like, it's superficially Boston, but what's with the creepy robots?

Man, I'm threadjacking like a demon here. Sorry, April!

Shannon--I can't for the life of me figure out what BDB is!!! I'm pretty sure when you tell me it will be a "doh!" moment.

Ridley--what do you think of Dennis Lehane? Does he it get it right?

When went to a wedding once near Concord. When one of the wedding guests asked if we had done much sight seeing, I said I wanted to visit Concord (CON CORD) and if it was close. He must've asked me 15 times to repeat myself, finally he said "OH! Concord!" but he said it more like one syllable cuncerd. I was so frustrated!

We're going on vacation in England in two weeks and we'll be staying in all of these out of the way, non-touristy B&Bs. I just know we're going to have a hell of a time communicating.

But I know what you mean, unless an author is just really dedicated to getting a regional setting correct (with the help of locals and a lot of research) that author should stick to a setting that they are very familiar with.

It must drive the Brits nuts when Americans make movies set in London or historical England and all the actors are Americans with horrible accents. I was watching Sherlock Holmes last night, I think Robert Downey Jr. did a fair job with the accent, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the other details were off. For instance, I KNOW that Parliament is not close to Tower Bridge, so how did they start out in the basement of Parliament, and somehow end up on Tower Bridge? Makes no sense.

April, I think Shannon is referencing the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward.

Yeah, sorry, BDB is Black Dagger Brotherhood. I noticed you hated Dark Lover, April, so I don't fault you for not knowing what I meant. I'm lazy and use acronyms when I can!

Concord = Conkid

I've actually never read any Lehane, so I couldn't say.