We know when we’re writing for an internet audience that, in theory, that audience speaks, understands and uses a multiplicity of languages and that we may be losing out on potential customers if we only use one language and don’t get our ads, articles and web sites translated.
In practice, both because we’re busy and because we don’t have spare funds, we use English and assume that all our readers will understand us – and by and large, fortunately for us, they probably do. Nevertheless, because we’re writing in English, our biggest potential markets are those in the United States and Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Now on the whole, people on both sides of the Atlantic speak the same English – if not all of the time, at least when we’re doing e-mails and internet speak’. We Brits (I live in London, UK) are just about used to the idea that American English dominates the web, and on the whole we don’t mind and we join in with it. Occasionally we still sound a bit more formal than our friends across the pond – but, by and large, we speak the same language. When I did some work for Microsoft, for instance, I got used to being addressed as you guys’, even though previously my English sensibility had told me that a guy’ was male (and I’m not). (I was working on localizing’ Microsoft Money for the UK market, if you’re interested – a very entertaining way of spending a few months, turning American English’ into English English’. I think at times our little team of Brits sounded very stuffy. For instance, when you Americans successfully instal Money, the dialogue box says You’re done!’ In our uptight British version, it says You have finished!’ Ah well – maybe we’re still rather attached to the bowler hat and the rolled up umbrella)
Anyway, most of the time we do speak the same language on the internet. Just occasionally it goes a bit adrift, however. I have a great respect for the e-books and e-courses produced by Jimmy D. Brown, for instance (I must have – I sell them off my web site), but I must admit that I’m always amused when I read his slogan at the top of his e-books: In less than three minutes – without spending a penny – you can be receiving your first lesson of this powerful 7-day eCourse’
Why does this amuse me, every time? Because spending a penny’ is the well-loved euphemism of my parents’ generation for what Americans might call going to the bathroom’ or restroom’ or, less euphemistically (if Donesia will forgive me for being so vulgar in her wonderful ezine), taking a pee’. When I was a child, in most public conveniences in the UK you had to put a penny in the slot to open the door of a cubicle – hence Excuse me – I must just go and spend a penny’. And I presume that Jimmy D. Brown does not mean that I can receive his e-Course without having to go to the loo first If he were to say without spending a dime’, I’d know just what he meant and wouldn’t feel at all insulted that he was using American currency.
So, my point behind this light-hearted observation is that you never know what you might inadvertently be saying to amuse, instead of impress, your potential transatlantic customers. And given that we’re the biggest market for one another – and there’s a lot of potential in the UK as we always seem to be one step behind the Americans in these internet things – it’s worth getting a contact on the other side of the pond to cast his or her eye over your ad, article or e-book before you unleash it on an expectant world.
If you’re American and you’d like an English eye cast over anything you’ve written, feel free to contact me at webmaster@virginiarounding.com. And, if you’d like to receive that really valuable e-Course without spending a penny’, then send a blank e-mail to vrounding@followup101.com. Could save you a few trips to the bathroom.
Virginia Rounding is a published writer whose website of
Internet Resources for Writers looks at additional ways for
writers to earn money, in the hope of making it possible
for them to keep writing without having to resort either to
full-time employment or to destitution. For a selection of
free resources or to subscribe to her new ezine Poetry
Competition Updates, go to
http://www.virginiarounding.com/links.html
