Two countries separated by a common language...

[graculus]

One of my favourite pastimes is mocking books written by American writers ostensibly set in England, in particular crime and mystery series - you can discover all sorts of things about what people outside England think goes on over here, usually wrongly.

For example, I just picked up the first book of a series (published in 2005) with the following obvious errors:

Given that this is supposed to be England, what exactly are you doing talking about 'murder one'?

We don't have 'prosecuting attorneys', we have the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

What is this obsession with 'popovers' at meals? What the hell are they anyway and why are you serving them with steak & kidney pie? And just what is a 'stuffed potato'?

Food is always a good place for all sorts of issues to creep in, as the obsession of the HP fandom with 'bangers' can testify. ;)

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I also spent a chunk of time trying to decide when the book was set - they have computers, but one of the main characters can take his dog everywhere without any problems and can smoke in the pub. Meanwhile the police are driving Rovers, which they pretty much stopped doing in the 1990's.