(no subject)

[louiselux]

I don't write much fiction, due to laziness and how hard it is, and lack of time, and all those other excuses, or at least that's what I thought. On my desk is a writing pad filled with half finished/started stories, ideas, scenes, bits of dialogue. The Remus/Sirius story that I haven't really got my head round yet, but it's waiting to get out. The Snape/Lupin thing that I want to finish. I have an idea that I want to write something about Hagrid and Remus. The Eroica story I am making notes for now. The X-files fic I have just committed myself to writing. The fest fic I want to write.

A point
'Gotten': I have seen this used so many times in Potter fic that I have almost begun to accept it as okay, but no. Now the time must come to speak out! 'Gotten' is US english, 'got' is British english. It's very jarring to read a fic and come across 'gotten', and it's a surprisingly common mistake.

Other things
iibnf, sent me a present. I LOVE MY BAKERSFIELD TAPE! It's hilarious. Thanks, honey!

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you've gotten the tape safely (I hate that word!) and that you're enjoying it. Took a long time to get to you! That's a thank you for all your hard beta work :)

[nym2.livejournal.com]

'Gotten' gets me, too. I've been thrown out of so many otherwise-fine stories by that little detail.

Glad to hear that you're writing ;-)

[ex-verdandi713.livejournal.com]

I've had graduate/leave school and faculty/staff pounded into my Yank brain, but didn't know about the gotten/got conundrum. Thanks for the heads-up. :-)

Question: The word "appetizer" is an Americanism as well, correct? I included it in a story and then realized--after posting it, of course--that I probably should have said "starter" instead.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

You're welcome:)

About appetizer: in Britain, we'd call it a starter, i.e. what you have before the main meal. You could get away with using appetizer though, but spelt with an 's' in stead of a 'z'. The 's' is often used instead of 'z' in British english spelling, for certain words anyway. Neither is more correct, but spelling with a 's' helps with the englishification(?).

[predatrix.livejournal.com]

I was surprised when I looked at Lexin's page for scouring Americanisms out of fics, because most of the ones mentioned there are words for objects.

This set me thinking, so I've put some fairly long examples in my own lj which I've recently started updating again.