Why do British authors keep making this very obvious mistake?

[YaWeeFurryBastard]

Yet again I’m reading an otherwise good book which refers to a character being unable to put up the money to make bail. This is set in England, bail in England does not require a surety payment except in very limited circumstances. Why do authors or editors not check this to make sure it’s factually accurate?!

See also characters being bailed after they’ve been charged with murder, something which is particularly unheard of in England. Magistrates don’t have the power to grant bail for murder charges.

Surely at some point pre publishing, someone with a basic knowledge of the English legal system reads the book, or do they just not care?

I’m probably very over invested but it’s bloody annoying and almost undermines an otherwise believable story.

"How many under-40s now know what laundry marks are, or gaspers, or a Lagonda?"

I'm closer to 50 and don't know what any of those things are.
Antimacassars are still in use though aren't they, even if old fashioned now.

I gave up on Broadchurch - so many plot holes!

Peter Wimsey drove a Lagonda & PG Wodehouse makes reference to housemaids smoking gaspers.

I’ve just remembered the funniest incorrect word usage of the lot in these books - an angry Irish character called someone a wanker. I have absolutely no idea whether the author knew what the word meant.

"Visiting with" someone means sitting with them and having a chat. You can "visit with" your elderly pew-mate after church or your neighbour in a coffee shop or over the garden fence. It's not the same as "visiting" someone.

Wrote/wrote to are equivalent.

If you want hilarious examples of the former, have a look at the Southern Subtext series on tiktok/FB reels.

My father had a Lagonda so I know what that is.

I could take an educated guess on laundry marks but had no idea what gaspers were until my husband enlightened me.

Laundry marks etc… all figured in Dorothy Sayers (can’t recall them in Christie) as component parts of the mystery. Of course if they aren’t necessary they aren’t necessary but they do add something. If I want to read a period piece I do want to grasp the difference between then and now.

Aren't you thinking of Campion? Wimsey drove a Daimler IIRC

The point is, you wouldn't know unless you'd read those books. It's fallen out of the"general knowledge" category.

Yes, it does add something and that's part of why I love the 1930s mysteries myself. But it can also take away from your enjoyment of the story. There's one Sayers short story that relies entirely on the intricacies of which telephones in the house are "connected to the exchange" - it's really hard to follow, to modern eyes.

I remember being baffled as a 12-year-old by an Agatha Christie in which someone was poisoned by accidentally drinking from a bottle of hat paint. (The Pale Horse, maybe?) I mean - they painted hats?! And wouldn't it taste funny, like paint? The story still made sense, but it was distracting to have all these questions about what a contemporary reader would have taken for granted.

The point is that it is necessary for these items of material culture to be referenced casually but accurately in order to set the scene. Things like cigarette or car culture tell the reader a lot about class and social interactions.

So he did. I think they might have had him in a Lagonda in the TV version but I’d have to watch it to check.

That's the terminology I'd use, although I've realised I wouldn't call a sweatshirt a sweater.

I do find it odd that it is assumed that British people can translate americasnisms, but Americans can't translate Britishisms. (If there is such a word!)

You have completely missed the point of the thread.

Oh and by the way, we invented the language - your lot has adapted it, and not necessarily for the better.

Anyone with the slightest interest in cars would know what a Lagonda is. And there is the more recent Aston Martin Lagonda as well.

Everyone else who is unfamiliar can surely look it up, like they would with any other unknown word.

In the English school I attended in the 1960s it was mildly interesting to us (I think the teacher was introducing the concept of different words for the same thing) that sweaters, jumpers, woollies, pullovers, and jerseys were all the same thing.

A lot of what you class as errors are writers realising there is life outside of Britain and they need to be a little less authentically English/British to appeal to other English speaking countries´readers.

Reading a lot helps teenagers know about other words and times and countries - I think a vast number of things about the past I know because of books I read.

Some Americanisms are English English from the 1500s and sometimes it is we the British who changed not the Americans - "gotten" (US) rather than "got" (UK).

My SIL is Canadian so would say “toMAYto” and “wadder” instead of water - she’s never had any problems being served in the UK but when I’ve been in the US they look blank when you say tomARto or water with a t - I mean, they’re asking what you want to drink, it starts with a w and ends with er…work it out! You have to assume a cod American accent to get them to understand. Yet we understand a US/Canadian accent just fine. I don’t get that.

Selection bias? They didn’t like you? Same phenomenon in India where I lived for a while. People spoke English but often could not understand an American English accent so you would switch to an Indian English accent (different stress and intonation) and then everything would go swimmingly.

As an author, though, you want to avoid that, or at least minimise it. Because how do they go and look it up? They pick up their phone. And what happens then? Ooh, I've got a message ... aaaaaand you've lost them.

You've missed the point. If a novel is set in Britain, with British characters speaking British English, then Americanisms and American or other English speaking countries' cultural references shouldn't be entering the book at all. In those cases inauthentic language and behaviour certainly are errors.

I'm British and have read many many American or Canadian or Australian books in my life, starting as a child with books like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables and moving on to many great American writers. It wouldn't have occurred to me to expect them to change their language so that it was more appealing to me, that would be ridiculous.

Surely part of the appeal is the different culture and language? Why should British writers have to change things to appeal to Americans or other English speakers, are they not capable of reading a book without needing to feel they could be in America etc.

I find continuity errors much more frustrating. It really takes you out of a story to have to check back and then discover something that isn’t doesn’t make sense.
Also.. sweater (knitted) and sweatshirt (jersey) are both subsets of jumpers, but not synonymous in my mind. It also took me many years to learn that what Americans call overalls we would call dungarees! (I was picturing people walking around in boiler suits lol) and a denim jumper is not a very odd sweater but a denim pinafore dress (I think a PP also mentioned that one).

It took me a while to work out that cot was American for camp bed. I was wondering why so many adults were sleeping in baby beds & whether they took the rails off first.

Are you sure they're British authors? I've read loads of books by American authors, some actually live in the UK, and they write really annoying things that are basically American and absolutely nothing to do with the UK.

And it’s surprising how many people think that British judges use a gavel.