Yank Speak or UK Speak

Absolutely "yank" speak.

No debate... no question... unless the product is something that shows a tremendous benefit if coming from a brit, then you go with american english every single time.

The short reason why is the rest of the world doesn't care if it's in american english or not... and american's DO care if it's not. So... in order to not alienate any segment of the audience, you do the math.

Man that's some big purple font.

And, yes, like everyone else has said:

Nobody cares about the differences except for the Americans. Americans care. And some of them will forcibly refuse to understand what you're saying if it's not in the American-style.

You know how you try to order Chicken Nuggets at McDonald's and the young gentleman gives you a blank stare... and simply has no bloody idea what you want... just because you didn't prefix it with the obligatory "Mc" (as in, McChicken McBloody McNuggets)...

It's kind of like that.

Go American.

UK speak! it really annoys me when UK marketers quote dollars instead of pounds, come on, stay true to your roots!

I have to say that I stick with "proper" English, but I usually write for UK readers.

Depends on the audience.

Having said that, if it's a general Worldwide audience then I'd go for mainly neutral language but with Americanized spelling

For this general audience, I wouldn't use American-specific phrases, nor would I use British-specific phrases.

For a UK audience, they like to know you're in the UK yourself.

Consequently, my UK clients frequently ask for British English the second they find out I can provide it (usually when I say "colour," "optimise," or "arse" in the course of casual conversation), and it only took me a couple wildly enthusiastic responses to start offering it up-front whenever a client was located in the UK.

Other clients always want US English. I recently had someone optimise an article for the UK spelling of a word, but using US English for the rest of the article. Rather a head-scratcher, but there it is.

Well, being Canadian I'm kind of lucky - we're like the step-sister of both countries. We understand the American's "English", proper UK English, and even Newfie and Australian English (which can be bloody hard sometimes, by God...)

We can say "McNuggets" as fluently as "arse" (although I will say, arse is more commonly used, but mainly just on eachother, or as in the phrase "can't be arsed.")

And I've even caught myself saying "umm" occasionally.

Here's a tip I use... Switch your spell checker to American English (if it even has a UK English option to begin with.) That's a good start, because then it'll underline half of your text in red, AND it will correct things that are gramatically incorrect in the US by underlining them in blue.

Next step, have an American (or even a Canadian who gets American cable stations) read it over and tell you where it doesn't make sense.

Basically, just use common sense, and do just as you would writing copy for the UK market - you have to dumb it down a little bit. No matter what country we're talking about, you're going to reach the widest audience if you appeal to the lowest of the average intelligence. Just dumb it down with US colloquialisms instead of dumbing it down with UK ones and such. (And try not to use the phrase "and such"...)

Just try to sound more "approachable" and less pretentious (as British & Canadian language has a tendency to sound apparently... We're too polite or something LOL) Americans will respond best to that, in my experience.

- Cherilyn

It's all about speaking in the conversational tone and not being ...boring as hell.

So, in this case, I believe that Yanks win...

Igor

OCKER ALL THE WAY

Frankly I can't see much difference (I am UK based). Certainly the language issues are minor, the mentality though is very different. For the UK crowd, mostly hyping up a product is a good reason not to buy it. Whereas, sell in the US and the more it promises to deliver immediately the better it will sell. Thus in the US say 'Make $1,000,000 by next week using my marketing system'. In the UK say 'It is possible to make $1,000,000 using this system, with a small investment and hours of work and dedication' . Both are baloney anyway, but said slightly differently.

Agreed Glide - that's why a lot of UKers love my copy, I've found. It sells to the American market, without OVER selling (being all hypey.) It seems to work pretty well.

Hope you've found your answer here, Andrew!

I wouldn't say the issues are minor, but it depends on the copy and the audience. When in Rome...

A UK friend who writes killer copy sent me a link to a new sales letter he'd written and I was LOL when I saw the word "supper." I think my grandparents were the last people I knew who used the word supper, although it may still be used in parts of the deep south. Still--that's not your typical IM crowd.

I was teasing him about it and he asked me to point out other British-isms. Most of it involved just changing prepositions. But some of my favorites (I suppose that should be favourites!) were:

No quibble money
Discover how to kit out
Stumping up masses of cash
Angrily hitting out
So switched off to the...

And yeah, if it distracts the reader or disrupts the whole "know, like & trust building" it CAN be a big deal to readers--especially if they're on the fence. But I doubt these are things an American dictionary is going to catch.

I've actually thought it would be fun to offer an "Americanizing" (not ghetto talk, mind you--regular old American speak) service but didn't know if people would pay for something like that.

Man this thread made me laugh.

Being a Canadian copywriter who writes for a strictly American market, I never really thought about it.

Although, I try to avoid the obligatory "eh" or Canadian/British spelling when I write. Man, that's tough sometimes... colour... color. You do it subconsciously.

But I can see how it would be a problem in some markets.

Eh, wat all dis kine talk 'bout de English anyway? Why no tink about da Hawai'ian pidgen 'stead? We no worry 'bout all da kine tings you talk about make da head hurt eh? Mo' bettah jis say wat you tinking, 'den know we can trus' you, okay?

...with much aloha an' respect to my Hawai'ian 'ohana...

Point being, I think this is the kind of tangent we sometimes go off on that causes us to lose our focus. I was surprised it hasn't been mentioned here (did I miss it?) that US advertisers on television and radio often hire UK spokespeople specifically because they carry the kingdom's accent. Americans seem to respond to it quite well, actually.

Regardless, if you write good copy and are effective in making your point, I think it matters much less which side of the pond your prose comes from. I know we are all always trying to get that little edge, but there are many more important things to worry about before we get to this. It certainly makes sense to appeal to the more common elements of the language, rather than regional idiosyncrasies, wherever possible. But beyond that, as long as your copy is written intelligently, most everyone will understand. Whether they respond positively will depend on whether or not they are interested in what you have to say, not where they think you might be saying it from.

Just my two pence.

Cheers,
Neil

Funniest thread on WF! I wanted to 'thank' & quote every single contibution on here. Made my unproductive morning a highly entertaining one!