I am reading a couple of great YAs which are part of a series. As I read, it got me thinking a bit about copy edits and regionalisms in language. I have one more round of line edits before Restoring Harmony goes into copy edits, but they’re on my mind.
My editor and I have discussed the fact that my main character is a Canadian and therefore, there are things that she would say a certain way that an American would not say. While you will hear a Canadian say “bathroom”, it’s much more common to say “washroom”. Things like that. What I’ve tried to do is leave out as many of those things as I can, and only keep the ones that really need to be there. I also have a couple of Canadian teens who are reading RH and specifically looking for mistakes that I might have made (because while I live here in Canada, I am relatively new) and they found a couple.
In these books, which are set in Seattle (I was raised in Portland, so it’s pretty much the same region), the author has her characters “wait on lines for tickets” or “wait on line for lunch”.We don’t wait on line out here though. We wait in line.Waiting on line is an east coast thing. I checked with my southern husband and he’d never even heard on line and thought I was crazy!
So, because I couldn’t help wondering if the copy editor had changed it or what, I checked the author’s bio (and by the way, we could be BFF*) and found out that she was raised at least part of the time in Seattle. So it seems to me that one of two things happened. Either she’s forgotten that we’re all out here in line because she now lives in New York, or she had it as “in line” and the copy editor changed it.
Obviously, this is not a big deal, but it does make me think about a great story that I am pretty sure Janet Reid told about one of her writers on her blog. If you are worried that someone from another region will change something and you’ll miss it, you could always take this route. When the writer got his copy edits, he wrote across the first page, “STET the whole F*&^*%G thing!”
That always makes me laugh! I won’t be doing that, for sure, but it is funny. I wanted to find you the link, but I couldn’t, so if Janet’s reading this, maybe she’ll leave it in the comments.
*Me & the author = BFF because we love to cook, we’re vegetarians, former actresses, started writing when we were 22, love guacamole, live(d) on the West Coast, and more…)
Editors, get in line and read this: Trust your writers. STET the whole f***ing thing indeed. It’s a good thing I’m not a writer ’cause being a native of the American South, there would be all kinds of stuff in my manuscripts that a NY editor wouldn’t understand. I sometimes need a translator here in BC. But if I were writing about my home turf or had a Southern character in my book, your can bet your stash of Jack Daniels that I’d have that person talking like a Southerner would really talk, not how an editor might THINK a Southerner ought to talk. Y’all got that?
When I lived in Baltimore, I heard people saying all kinds of weird things, like, “cut the light on,” instead of “turn the light on.” But I never heard waiting “on line.” It’s fun to talk to people from other regions. I never knew I said strange things until I moved away from my little secluded community in the mountains and started talking about “borrow pits” and “cricks” (roadsides and creeks). Do you think these little oddities can add flavor to a novel? I think that in the case of the “on line” thing you mentioned, that doesn’t add flavor–it’s just weird–but in other circumstances, aren’t the bits of dialect charming? I think of Marmite & Tea’s “queue.” I love it! Very British! 🙂 Or Deborah Wiles lovely use of regional language (“tuner fish” instead of “tuna fish,” for example, in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS.).
It’s not a line, it’s a queue 😉
Another thought on the bathroom vs washroom thing. I think Canadians are more prone to say washroom if it is in a public place, maybe a restaurant, or even if you’re asking the location of the facilities in someone else’s house. In one’s own house, I think it’s more likely to be called the bathroom. It’s a bit of a weird distinction, come to think of it.
I grew up in Ontario and now live in New Brunswick, and it’s definitely IN line in both places. Never heard anyone say ON line in my life, unless they are talking about computers!
I live in New Hampshire and we wait IN line, too. I don’t know about New Yorkers, but it’s definitely not an East Coast thing.