Lost in translation? It’s a fair cop.

I just read in The Daily Telegraph about JK Rowling and the so-called ‘sensitivity police’. It seems my Edinburgh neighbour ruffled a few feathers when writing about Native Americans in her ‘History of Magic in North America’.

The gist of the article was that writers would be well advised to employ a ‘sensitivity reader’ – a new industry springing up to help authors avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, sex or religion.

Recently a reader asked me if I would refrain from taking the Lord’s name in vain – ie. using versions of it in exclamations. (She also commended me on only doing it once in each of my books that she had read.) I must admit – these had slipped through the net, for it was my intention not to do so – but the request did make me reassess the principle.

Of course, it is possible to argue that when the author is representing a fictional character, the writer should be true to that character – indeed without certain language they cannot properly be portrayed. But when I revisited the offending sentences, I found it easy enough to substitute ‘crikey’ or ‘gosh’ (which I think are acceptable).

Moreover, I’ve long known that readers of the Inspector Skelgill series don’t appreciate profanities. So there aren’t any. Skelgill is a tough cookie from a poor background – but he has found a way around his natural inclination.

The situation becomes slightly more complex when a word is authentic in the context of the writing, but may still offend the reader. In Britain (I’m not sure about North America) the word ‘twit’ spelled with an ‘a’ is considered impolite. But in Cumbria, from where Skelgill hails, it simply means ‘to hit’.

Then there is the old classic. As a TV anchor enthused at the close of one of the legendary Mrs Craddock’s cooking demonstrations, “May all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny’s” – which has variously uncomfortable interpretations depending upon which side of the pond the audience resides.