Wednesday, August 10, 2011

British Words/ Colloquialism (Chapter 10/ Pages 115-125)

"That's how I realised that this "Gawd help us" stuff came from an American series..."

~ Never Let Me Go, page 121

Throughout this book, British slang and words have been used plenty of times. Besides reaffirming the accents of  the characters in my mind, the colloquialism effects the reader in other ways too. If one did not know the location, the diction would help the reader place the novel in England. It also made me realize how differently cultures spell things, even while speaking the same language. For example, the Brits use "s" instead of "z" (realise as opposed to realize), "our" instead of simply "or" (favourite as opposed to favorite), and "re" instead of "er" (theatre as opposed to theater). There were a lot of terms repeated that we Americans don't really use (like daft). There were also a couple forms of slang used (for example, snogging). Overall, I really like British colloquialism; it spices up the experience of reading the novel for me.

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