An appendix to my style guide for the newspaper about to be launched in Abu Dhabi offers ample proof that neither snobbery nor racism lies at the root of a declared preference for British English.
Due allowance is made for words and phrases that have become so commonly used on both sides of the Atlantic that to ban them would be absurd. Correction: due allowance has been made for some of them. Flats/apartments is a good example.
But am I supposed to feel snobbish or worse for insisting that no one so much as thinks of writing awesome to describe some mildly impressive experience or an interesting piece of electrical equipment as opposed, say, to the power of the sea?
There are those who look down their noses at American use of English. I take a more philosophical view, though I did at one stage consider adding the words "they know not what they do" to a ruling that where a misspelling forms part of a proper noun, the World Trade Center for example, we should not correct it.
And it would be wrong to suggest that I am inflexible in my approach. There will be every opportunity to fill the paper with diapers, trunks (as in car boots) and hoods (for car bonnets). Every opportunity, that is to say, in direct speech. People who speak fluent American will not find their quotes massaged to conform to my style preferences.
It is also interesting to note that the appendix, which naturally borrows from George Bernard Shaw for its title, Two Countries Divided By A Common Language, was prepared with some assistance from two colleagues who go about their daily work without the least objection from me that they are known as page editors rather than subs.
Both entered into the spirit of the exercise with enthusiasm and humour. One is British, the other American. If they can see why a newspaper needs to adopt a uniform style, then so should Bill Taylor. I just happen to have won the argument over whether that style should be British or American English.
But this is how, in this context, I summed up the debate:
North Americans should take no offence at our decision to use the English version. There is not necessarily a right way and a wrong way but a choice had to be made and the preference reflects the history and traditions of the region.
The good news is that some of my colleagues from Canada and America are already trying their hardest to recognise that when someone is "good", he or she is virtuous, meritorious or well-behaved and that the term should not be used to signify that the speaker is feeling well or wants no more food.
See also:
* Mummy dearest.....Petite Anglaise's struggles with the editors of the American edition of her book.
* Minding the language...when the Queen's English Society asked me to lunch
* Telegraph tales.....A brave new broadsheet world, or dumbed down and nasty?
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