British person -- word choice help, please?

[chicken]

I'm writing my ats_endofdays story at the last second, and need a beta. Anyone? Pretty please? I'll beta anything back for you if that helps.

Also, I need a British person to give me advice on word choice (this is for something Wesley would say). Americans would say something like, "Of course there will be a pay RAISE," but I thought I heard a British person say in some movie a phrase more like, "Of course there will be a pay RISE."

Is this right? Or is there some third option?

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

It would be 'rise'. If you have the word 'pay' it would almost always be 'rise', 'raise' would only be used if the word 'pay' was absent.

'Raise' is occasionally used, but it's the more modern version, for example:

"If I'm going to be doing extra work, I want a pay rise."

or

"If I'm going to be doing extra work, I want a raise."

Wes tends to be very traditional in his word choices, so he'd probably use the first version.

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I almost forgot. I don't beta, but I do offer a Britishing service, for writers who have a British character and want to be sure the dialogue is accurate.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Go to http://carole.fates.org/harmony.html.

It's mostly all Harmony's internal thoughts, almost no dialogue at all, but Wesley does have a few lines here and there. I'd be grateful if you were to correct his speech.

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

Yup, it all looks good. You've even managed to get that slightly stilted speech pattern that the upper classes have. Well done.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much, although the slightly stilted is probably an accident, a result of the fact that I myself speak in a sadly stilted manner. !

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. That is pretty much what I suspected, but I wanted proof. :-)