tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post3934413720348448116..comments2024-03-14T18:09:09.667-05:00Comments on Do Some Damage: TITLE FIGHTUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-14608572699694236902011-04-30T01:44:14.734-05:002011-04-30T01:44:14.734-05:00"And it has to be better than the reason Ian ..."<i>And it has to be better than the reason Ian Rankin’s FLESHMARKET CLOSE (the name of a real street) became FLESHMARKET ALLEY.</i>"<br /><br />That one always comes up in discussions of titles (and I've made a number of posts about title changes and reasons for them). The Edinburgh street is Fleshmarket Close, pronounced, as far as I know, <i>klohs</i>, with a hissing s-sound. Trouble is, an American reader is likely to pronounce it <i>kloze</i>, and the U.K. title would conjure all sorts of misleasing associations with the verb <i>to close</i>. Ordinarily I'd roll my eyes at dumbing down of vocabulary; I like to learn new words from beyond borders. But in this case the American publishers may have made the right decision.<br /><br />A few years ago I thought I spotted a trend in which U.K. publishers went for generic thriller titles of the form <i>(The)+adjective+noun</i>. The Åsa Larsson novel called <i>Sun Storm</i> in the U.S., for instance (a literal translation of its Swedish title), was called <i>Savage Altar</i> in the U.K. In this case, the U.S. title was far more evocative, to my mind. (The French title, <i>Horreur boréale</i>, is a play on <i>aurore boréale</i>, French for <i>aurora borealis</i>, or Northern lights, which are the sun storm of the Swedish and American titles. Consider that the h is silent in French, and you have one of the cleverer changes in book titledom.)<br /><br />Oddest U.K./U.S. title difference for me is in the English-language editions of Andrea Camilleri's <i>L'odore della notte</i>. It was <i>The <b>Smell</b> of the Night</i> in the U.S., <i>The <b>Scent</b> of the Night</i> in the U.K. Cripes, you guys are delicate.<br /> ======================<br /> Detectives Beyond Borders<br />"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"<br /> <a href="http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/</a>Peter Rozovskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09977933481463759162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7119990365479009764.post-12282057647141057952011-04-29T08:38:47.109-05:002011-04-29T08:38:47.109-05:00This seems to happen to Canadian books a lot. Loui...This seems to happen to Canadian books a lot. Louise Penny has had novels published with different titles in Canada, the US and the UK. iles Blunt has had different titles in the UK and Canada and I've had a title chsnged by a US publisher. It was a disaster (but maybe it;s just a bad book).<br /><br />Maybe this is something that will change as more books get sold online and at the same time everywhere in the world.John McFetridgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09442198820998606682noreply@blogger.com