Britpick - What not to call the British army

[ffutures]

Dear fanfic author,

It's the British Army, not the Royal Army, and the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, not the Royal Armed Forces. Neither the British Prime Minister or the BBC would get this wrong, and it's in the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the Army if you'd bothered to check.

No love,

Marcus

Comments

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Is that the fic where the author refers to "Lord Sir Dr. Rupert Giles"?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Don't think so - it's part of that interminable battle thing.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

And it's not as if it could be a 'why should I look up something when I (think) I know it?' situation (unless the author lives in a country with a monarchy and a 'Royal Army').

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Annoyingly, the author comment on my review was that he'll research it. Then nothing happened.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

Well, you can see how they get there: after all, it's the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, so why not the Royal Army? Stupid Brits, why can't we be consistent? ;)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Good question - I blame Cromwell, but I'm probably not entirely right.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were thinking of Oz?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It isn't the most coherent of authors, but I think not.

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

There are authors I don't bother to read any more because they've been told this sort of thing repeatedly and they refuse to get it right.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yup - and he used the abbreviation RA for Royal Army in the next bit he wrote, instead of the usual military meaning - Royal Artillary.