English is a language, right? It’s all the same everywhere. People who speak English can talk to each other, right? Well, sort of. There are, at least, two major dialects that I know of and there could be more. The two that I’m thinking of are British English, which some will call Oxford English, and American English. Each scanlation group has to decide which dialect they are going to use for any given project, and the proofreader needs to be familiar with the chosen dialect.
I’m going to go a step further and suggest that the proofreader needs to have some familiarity with the other style, too. The translator could be American or international, what punctuation and spelling they use will be what they learned. Knowing that the translator wasn’t trying to make your life difficult but was just writing what they were taught is nice. Knowing the differences will also make spotting them easier. So what are some of the differences?
The most famous spelling difference is the American -or and the Oxford -our as seen in words like “color/colour” and “armor/armour.” However, there are many other differences, usually seen as word endings. There is the American -er (“center, fiber”) and the Oxford -re (“centre, fibre”). The American -ize (“organize, realize”) and the pseudo-British -ise (“organise, realise”). I say “pseudo” because -ize has been used in the UK for centuries but in the last 40 years has been looked up as “an Americanism” by some, and they encourage the use of -ise instead. There is the -yse/-yze as in the American “analyze” and the British “analyse” and -log/-logue as in the American “catalog” and the British “catalogue.” There are many more examples that can be found here on Wikipedia.
One final note on American and British English differences is in the area of punctuation and where sentence stops are placed in relation to a quote mark. What I mean is: if a sentence has quoted text that is followed by a comma or a period, does it go before or after the quote mark? That depends on the dialect. Americans put the stop mark inside the quote every time, and British put the stop mark outside the quote most of the time. So
“I don’t want to go,” Mary said.
I don’t want to use the “blower machine.”
American punctuation
“I don’t want to go”, Mary said.
I don’t want to use the “blower machine”.
British punctuation
This is the biggest point where I see proofreaders differ when it comes to British vs American usage. Personally, I favor a mixing of the two. I prefer American spellings and British punctuation. The American punctuation never made sense to me.
やもり