The Problems of Updating and Translation, by Elizabeth Kay
These days, we can all update our online books, and customers will get the newest version free of charge. However, when do you do it? Those writing for young people probably have the hardest job, as slang changes year on year, and you can sound like the fustiest old has-been very quickly and a laughing-stock amongst the super-trendy. Do people still use the word trendy anyway? The other big issues are contemporary settings (remember when mobile phones looked like bricks?) and scientific discoveries. When I was a kid, no one thought for a moment that dinosaurs had feathers, or that women guards on the Underground should be paid the same as men. Climate change is going to present even more problems, I suspect. I haven’t actually updated any of my books, as I’ve always been very careful to make the date in which they’re set a bit ambiguous. This means stating that something costs the same as a four bedroom house in Surrey, rather than the £60,000 it would have cost thir...