How to convert from Australian English to US English

I wrote this post when I signed with my first publisher for The Godfather of Dance, Wings ePress. They were in the US, so I needed to update my novel from Australian English to US English. The differences were even greater than I’d realised (realized). I’ve noted these changes to help other authors and to show the differences to my non-US friends, so they don’t think I’ve published a book full of errors!

Of course, authors can use the list in reverse to go from US to AUS English, or UK English, which is pretty close to AUS English, and that’s exactly what needed to do for my second publisher, Next Chapter Publishing, after Wings announced they are closing down and I signed a new deal for the Jade Riley Mysteries.

Please let me know if you pick up anything major I’ve missed, and I’ll add it to the list.

Punctuation

The following lists the main punctuation differences between AUS and US English that I’ve encountered. Some of these vary with a publisher’s house style, but this is a good starting point:

• For dialogue, single quotes are often used in AUS English, but these should be double quotes in US. Note when you do a search-replace, you will also change all apostrophes to double quotes, so then you’ll have to go through and fix all of those. Also, keep an eye out for quotes within quotes, which should be the opposite of the original quote.
  eg. ‘I told you, she said, “No.”‘ ⇒ “I told you, she said, ‘No.'”
• Dashes to insert a thought or aside – or to define something more fully – are spaced en-dashes in AUS, but unspaced em-dashes in US.
  eg. I wondered – for the fifth time – why I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. ⇒ US. eg. I wondered—for the fifth time—why I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
• In AUS English the full stops (periods) used for common abbreviations are eliminated, but they need to be used for US English.
  eg. US English ⇒ U.S. English.
• The Oxford comma is used in US English, but not in AUS English. i.e. there should be a comma before the ‘and’ in a list of items.
  eg. Red, white and blue. ⇒ Red, white, and blue.
• When quote marks are used outside dialogue, eg. for song titles, the punctuation is outside the quote marks in AUS, but not in US.
  eg. One of their songs, ‘We Are Family’, makes me want to dance. ⇒ One of their songs, “We Are Family,” makes me want to dance.

Spelling

MS Word can help identify spelling errors, and to pick up the errors in US English, make sure you switch the language to US English. Unfortunately, this won’t magically make the conversions for you, but it will identify the spelling errors for you.

• Many verbs ending in ‘se’, are spelt (spelled) with a ‘ze’.
  eg. realise ⇒ realize. organising ⇒ organizing.
• Words with ‘our’ become ‘or’.
  eg, colour ⇒ color, favourite ⇒ favorite.
• leant, learnt, burnt ⇒ leaned, learned, burned, etc.
• Many verbs that double the final consonant in past tense for UK don’t in US.
  eg.dialled, travelling ⇒ dialed, traveling
• Jewellery ⇒ jewelry
• Metre ⇒ meter, centimetre ⇒ centimeter, etc.
• Theatre ⇒ theater
• Tyre ⇒ tire

Words

Many words carry a slightly different meaning, or alternative words are used for the same thing. I can’t capture them all here, but here are a few:

• The boot of a car is a trunk.
• Garbage or rubbish is trash.
• People don’t queue up for things, they line up.
• Thongs should be flip-flops, or people will think you’re talking about a g-string.
• Towards, backwards ⇒ toward, backward
• In UK English, among or amongst are used interchangeably, in US, it’s almost exclusively among.
• University ⇒ college
• If you down a drink, you can scull it in Australia, but you chugg it in America.
• A rubber is an eraser (as well as slang for a condom).
• A serviette is a napkin.
• There are a number of foods called something different (thanks to Angela Aroozoo for pointing these out):
  rocket ⇒ arugula
  spring onions ⇒ scallions
  prawns ⇒ shrimp
  scones ⇒ biscuits
  biscuit ⇒ cookie

There are many other nuances, particularly when using colloquialisms, but I hope you find this a useful starting point. I’ll update this as I get more information. Good luck!

Next time: an interview with Karien Van Ditzhuijzen, the Nomad who Loves Houses, about her latest novel, The Black and White House.
Next post about writing: Research is important in writing fiction. Here’s Five Learnings from Firing a Shotgun.