What gives away that a fictional British character has been written by a non-British author?’ – 23 telltale signs
Back in 1887, Oscar Wilde said: ‘We really have everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language’. And the same is true today: we speak the same words and yet we’re not speaking the same dialect at all. Over on the AskUK subreddit, user ColossusOfChoads asked ‘What are some telltale signs that a fictional British character has been written by a non-British author?’ and followed it up with this:
On another thread, one person noted that you can tell when it’s an American comic book writer when the British character in question utters the word ‘bloody’ 10x more frequently than an actual British person ever would.
What are other such telltale signs? Too nattily dressed and too religious about afternoon tea? Too much like some weird knockoff clone of Keith Richards? Too posh by actual posh people standards? Tell us Americans how to tell!
And Brits were keen to chip in and let them know the most obvious giveaways.
1.
‘Assumptions of similarities between British & American culture. In particular schools, transport and drinking culture.
They also have British characters know far more about historical royalty and prime ministers than is normal. Because in the US, school children are taught the name and basic information about every US President.’
–Personal-Listen-4941
2.
‘Remember a book that was trying so hard to emulate Tom Clancy had a character travelling from London to Birmingham on a red-eye flight from Heathrow.
I don’t believe there’s direct flights anymore, but by the time you’ve left central London and gone through security, you’d already be walking through the Bullring if you took the train.’
–NunWithABun
3.
‘It’s the little things. Like I remember one if the Buffy books had Spike say ‘bloody me’ which is very wrong. Also if they say ‘write me’ instead of ‘write to me’. It’s a small difference but big giveaway.’
–SebastianHaff17
4.
‘I still think the real crime in Buffy was having Giles get some crumpets in a paper bag and then eat them raw. What???’
–McSheeples
5.
‘They’re extremely posh or have a Cockney accent. There often seems to be no in between.’
–MD564
6.
‘Someone offers someone a tea, they accept, and then they give their guest a camomile tea with honey and the recipient doesn’t go ‘What the fuck?’ Or they assume that Brits take their tea very seriously, so two hard blokes get in and get out the teapot and some Marquis Grey and a tea strainer – instead of bunging two teabags into mugs.’
–DameKumquat
7.
‘Medical matters are another big giveaway. I’ve read fics written by Americans where characters are badly injured yet try to drive themselves to hospital or call a friend to take them, because the idea that you can just call an ambulance and not be charged for it doesn’t occur to them at all. Our entire medical system – GP, out of hours, minor injuries, etc. – is fundamentally different, but most writers just default to what they know, and that always leaps out at me.’
–Llywela
8.
‘One that used to be more common a few decades ago, they would use ‘shag’ as a synonym for ‘fuck’ in wrong contexts, e.g. a character saying ‘shag off’.’
–ByEthanFox
9.
‘Americans are completely incapable of using twat properly. In pretty much every way. They pronounce it wrong, they put it in the wrong places in sentences, they have the wrong people say it.’
–interfail
10.
‘I was reading a book a few years ago that was meant to have a British character and she referred to her fringe as bangs.’
–Tsarinya
11.
‘They’re a duke. Thinking of historical fiction here specifically, Americans have a weird idea of how many dukes there are.’
–Valuable-Wallaby-167
12.
‘I remember I read a book where the American character visited the UK and watched a British soap. She was enthralled by all the fancy clothes the characters had and the high-rolling lives they were living. So the author had presumably watched Dynasty and gone ‘Coronation Street is probably the same’.’
–crestfallen_castle