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.

I know what a Lagonda is but what are laundry marks please?

In the days before washing machines, when many middle class households sent their sheets, shirts, (cloth) handkerchiefs etc etc to the laundry, each item would carry an individually identifying mark (sometimes though not always the householder's initials, often in red ink) so that you knew what you got back was what you had sent out

Before the peasants had washing machines, large items (sheets, towels, etc) were often sent to commercial laundries. They were marked in indelible ink with the name of the owner - laundry mark.

Thank you ☺️

But surely the point is if you don’t know, you look it up, and then you know.
It’s like those people who in one breath say “OMG you’re always reading” and then in the next breath ask why you know so much.

To be fair, the charming@FalderalderaldoSittingintheWater said this

Oh please, that would mean some thought would be required
From a nation of people who drive a block

Also to be fair, how much something pulls you out of a book or ruins your enjoyment surely has to do with how good it is otherwise and how much the crux of the book hangs on those things? I remember reading a book once, set in the US, by a British author, where they used the phrase 'made redundant' and being able to shrug it off as I was otherwise enjoying it and it was just a small thing.

Plus, we make assumptions/associations about some words and phrases that might not be accurate - sweater and flashlight are two that have come up. Someone else mentioned train 'depots' earlier. I'm American, although live in the UK, and have never heard that word used in the US.

And now, confession time - I'm a lawyer by training, but left to be a SAHM for a while. During that time, I had a few novels published by fairly large publishers (not legal or crime genres). Despite a proofreader, several reads by my agent, a copyeditor and an editor, I can think off the top of my head, of an error/inaccuracy that slipped through in one. It's not a mistake I would make again, but the truth is, you don't know what you don't know.

I have only come across that usage in the UK, never in the US. In fact, I think I saw it for the first time on Mumsnet, but see it here all the time.

You learn something new every day

As I recall, the ink was a purplish colour and usually looked a bit smudged.

Who puts a novel down to do some googling though? I would just carry on reading and hope it would either be explained later on or become obvious with context.

"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."

There are more TV series and films that way around. Think about how populous the US is.

I usually resort to Google after the third mention if the context isn't making it obvious by then!

We were always taught to look words up in a dictionary if we didn't know what they meant, so maybe people these days just can't be bothered any more, even with Google at their fingertips.

Do people really have the attention span of a flea?

Presumably they will have already bought your book by then anyway, so who cares whether they get sidetracked whilst reading it?😂

I frequently find books written by British authors and said in Britain, using American terms like sidewalk, diapers etc. I find myself wondering if it’s the editor that changed those terms because they will be promoting the book in the US. Whether it’s the author or the editor, this raises various questions;
why are American readers comfort in reading more important than that of British readers?
do they think American readers are so stupid that they couldn’t cope with a British book (that they had chosen) being written in British English?
why don’t they realise that an American reader, reading a British book, set in the UK, probably want it to be authentic?
In any event, that and errors like the one you mention, really bloody annoy me!

I read the third book in a trilogy recently. The first two weren’t written perfectly, but the storyline was interesting to me so I persevered.
In the third book the main characters were visiting York, from the USA, and the author wrote about the man pulling out a one hundred pound note to pay with… absolutely ruined it.
It’s the first thing I remember about the series now.
That really wouldn’t have taken much research at all.
The author describes the streets of York and one of the tiny alleyways and where it leads, so they obviously have some knowledge of York, but no knowledge of the currency.

I think they Americanise books so they can sell them there without editing.

I notice American spellings eg realize in so many books these days. It makes me sad (nb I love America and Americans but this homogenisation of culture is a loss for all of us).

I doubt that’s the case. Avid readers are a fussy and pedantic lot. Maybe the publishing industry just don’t realise the level of annoyance this provokes.

Also HOW annoying is it the way people say 'poop' rather than 'poo' these days, another US import. As if poo is too rude for our sensitive ears.

That one drives me mad.

Ooh, I didn’t know that. 👍

I am now concerned Cracknell is going to be filled with people expecting it to be something more exciting than it actually is.

I frequently put a novel down to Google something. I find it really useful. I usually read on my iPad which makes googling and using the dictionary more accessible.

• Authors who write about children who behave wildly younger or older than their age (doing the school run for an 18yo etc)

One of the many problems with Ginny Weasley’s characterisation in the Harry Potter series is that she first appears as a child begging to join her brothers at Hogwarts. She next turns up in the year below Harry in book 2. It’s hard to believe that this behaviour comes from a 9-10 year old rather than a 4 year old.

At the other end of the scale is the daughter in Lessons in Chemistry. Fine, she’s a bit of a prodigy, but this five year old talks more like a teenager.

You’re correct, I haven’t RTFT but this sums it up. I say this as someone who is part of the publishing industry.

It’s probably not a mistake, someone is likely to have picked these things up but they chose to run with it as the US market is huge and that’s where they can really get their sales numbers up.

why are American readers comfort in reading more important than that of British readers?

Again because it’s such a huge market.

UK publishing industry care far more about American audiences and even American authors because it’s all about the bottom line for the publishers and large chain book stores .

Slightly off topic but I find it fascinating and very telling how most prestigious American book prizes are for Americans residents only, whereas our big prizes like the Booker and even Waterstones awards are filled with American authors on the shortlist.