American-to-Queen's English

[aruan]

Tonight's bit of hilarity: The deputy desk editors looked at me (and, it should be noted, the paper's deputy editor, a former New York Times writer) as though we were illiterate at the suggestion of acclimation. It seems Brits and Australians exclusively use acclimatisation (yes, with an S - it's been a grammatical rollercoaster since we've stepped off the plane).

Comments

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

All else aside, who needs to be putting those extra letters in acclimatisation into news copy?

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

We the page editors do, because there was an epic battle not unlike the Revolutionary War fought over whether The National would use British or American style. Largely due to the style editor being British, I suspect, the editors went his way. Hence, the avalanche of vowels and dearth of Zs (excuse me, Zeds).

[marythefan.livejournal.com]

But. But. Less space!

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

With the airiness of our design (gigantic gutters, five-column photos, maximum five stories on a page and even that's rare) a few extra letters are really not going to dent the budget.

[copracat]

Hee! You get used to it. I use Australian spelling when I am talking to my US colleagues via textual means but US spelling when I am writing documents for them. Of course, the omnipresent US-centrism of online spell-checkers helps me!

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I'm learning it piece by piece. There was another incident when I used "stingy" in a headline, and the style editor said change it to "mean," which was entirely not my meaning as he was not abusive, but apparently does in Britain characterize a man who buys chocolates but not jewelry on Valentine's Day. Those rascally colonists!