I think the sort of people who read books can probably cope. It sounds like the publishers are making allowances for the sort of people who don’t do much reading anyway.
- can’t hear the differences in spelling between American and British English
- are listening to someone read. That person probably is able to read either American or British English.
That said, some words really are different and could cause confusion/disconnect so probably are potential candidates for being changed even in audio books.
- the one he gave “apartment” vs “flat” is a good example. I think British people would all be fine with “apartment” whereas I think “flat” might confuse some Americans who hadn’t heard that usage.
- “pavement” means the road surface in the US vs it means the pedestrian path on the side of the road in the UK (that in the US you would call a “sidewalk”). “Sidewalk” wouldn’t confuse a British person but it’s not a word a British person would use. “Pavement” meaning the road surface does confuse British people.
I'm not having that though - it's all one way in favour of keeping Americanisms because we're familiar enough with them to understand them. No thanks.
On the flipside, I was delighted to hear stories of US kids confusing their parents with British English because they'd watched so much Peppa Pig during lockdown. Very good.
I basically agree and wouldn't want things to be changed in general. That being said, the choice of words in a novel should generally be governed by the artistic intent of the author rather than the desire to teach people stuff.
But here's an example that's worth thinking through. This movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110428/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 was called "The Madness of King George". It's based on a play called "The Madness of George III". They changed the name when producing the movie because of the difference between Britain and the US.
In Britain pretty much everyone would know that George III refers to King George III. However when they first started discussing this project in the US, a common reaction was "I haven't seen "The Madness of George 1 and 2". Now the differences between the titles wasn't that important and clearly this was just an impediment to understanding with no benefit.
Now you could say "Well the people could go on wikipedia and find out that there was a King George and a King George II and then this guy, George III" and that's true but the problem is negative self-selection. People who don't know that don't realise that's what's at play here and so won't do that search so nobody learns anything.
It's not particularly reassuring that "George III" (spoken aloud as "George the Third" ), and "George 3" (spoken aloud as "George Three" ) are apparently thought to be interchangeable in the US.
This! One of the things that used to happen is you'd pick up a book, and encounter a word or phrase you don't know or understand, and you'd go look it up. This is easier than ever with the internet.
Don't know why someone would "rent a flat?" You go look the phrase up and discover that it's British usage. Confusion over... because you learned. Reading Moby Dick and don't know what "scraggy scoria" is? You look the words up and learn they're the perfect fit for the landscape Melville is painting.
My favourite anecdote is when an english bloke goes to the U.S. and asks if he can "bum a fag" from someone, meaning "ask for a free cigarette" in British.
