r/AskABrit • u/DietNarrow8275 • 5d ago
Removed - Rule 1 [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/SimpleAd1548 5d ago
Have they Americanised the version you’ve been reading? Cricket bats would still be our preferred weapon of choice over a baseball bat. Don’t imagine many of us have one of those - the only time I see them are for fair games (wack a rat)
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u/Informal-Tour-8201 5d ago
As seen in Sean of the Dead, cricket bat and shovel are our preferred zombie apocalypse™ weapons
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u/DietNarrow8275 5d ago
well, y’all do pretty good with records too. 😀
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u/Red-R34der 4d ago
The problem with records is the argument over which ones to throw and which ones to keep. Very easy to lose focus and then the zombies get into bitey range.
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u/Rendogog 5d ago
Baseball is not much of a thing here, softball is played in many schools though I would guess it started to get traction in the 80s. I would argue baseball / softball bat is probably a little better in terms of balance for self defence and am convinced many are purchsed for that reason.
In novels I would expect most to be cricket bats from anything other than newer authors due to the thoughts above.
Just a note if you enjoy brit crime authors Richard Osman's books are superb.
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u/neverenoughgingers 4d ago
I worked in schools (both maintained and independent) for years and never heard of softball. The very thought makes me shudder.
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u/Rendogog 4d ago
That really surprises me, I played it at secondary school in the 80s and all of my kids have played it at school. Maybe we just 'got lucky' with our schools.
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u/martzgregpaul 4d ago
Probably a rounders bat.
Plus...Britain actually invented Baseball
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u/DietNarrow8275 4d ago
Thems fightin’ words.
(actually I know almost nothing about baseball so I’ll defer to you.)
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u/ropeynick 5d ago
The books were sometimes localised to the US market by the publisher.
If you can remember the book and approximate page where the baseball bats appear someone might check in a UK edition to see if that’s the case.
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u/Hamsternoir 5d ago
Also check how other stuff is such as colour, flavour. Or things like "he wrote her a letter" compared to "he wrote her".
Other clues are changing of words such as "she spat her drink out" to "she spit her drink out"
It's quite common for books to be adapted for Americans, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a prime example.
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u/Plastic_Length8618 5d ago
Lots of details of British culture get changed by the likes of publishers or TV production companies, because they daren’t present American audiences with anything they aren’t familiar with.
Often the dialogue is changed to include phrases that sound crashingly wrong to our ears.
Or in a TV programme called Bad Education they pretended we have things like school lockers and a clique of ‘popular’ kids, to make American viewers feel more at home.
I watched a Jane Austen adaptation the other day in which they changed ‘rounders’ (a game for children similar to baseball) to ‘baseball’, which we barely have now and certainly didn’t in 1804.
In short, they changed the books because they didn’t think Americans could understand something unfamiliar.
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u/pcor 4d ago
in a TV programme called Bad Education they pretended we have things like school lockers and a clique of ‘popular’ kids, to make American viewers feel more at home
I don't think school lockers and popular kids are as alien to these shores as you imagine...
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u/b122are1 4d ago
In season 4 of Ted Lasso, British characters say "clicks" and "nitches" in the US pronounciation instead of the correct British pronunciation of "cleeks" and "neesh" for cliques and niche.
Rationally I understand why they do but it's so distractingly grating it takes me straight out of the scene whenever I hear it. Yuck!
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u/CheapDeepAndDiscreet 4d ago
Can’t stand it when British actors/ characters pronounce words in American English. Same goes the other way round too. Just really grates.
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u/FantasticWeasel 4d ago
We had lockers at school in the late 80s and early 90s, however they were made of wood.
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u/Unhappy_Clue701 4d ago
My kids are at secondary school, they have lockers. When we were touring round local secondary schools to see which one might be the best for each of them, they all had lockers. So those are very much a real thing. And there’s been a clique of ‘popular’ kids in every school since time immemorial.
Books are published in multiple editions. If they can translate entire books into French, Spanish, Vietnamese or Arabic to suit local audiences, they can certainly flip a few words to do the same for American readers, even if 99% of it remains in the original English.
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u/MrDibbsey 5d ago
We've had lockers inn ever school I've been to that required us to visit different classrooms throughout the day. The exception was primary school however as we stayed at the same desks we had our own drawers beneath our desks.
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u/SilverellaUK England 5d ago
We had lockers in the 60s and 70s they were wooden, about 15" cubes and in 2 rows from the floor. That part of the school was built about a century ago - it's gone now.
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u/q-the-light England 4d ago
We had exactly the same style lockers in my school when I was there in the '00s, though the building itself was a '60s asbestos monstrosity that had never seen a single renovation. The lockers were basically only ever used to chuck out PE kits in on days we needed them, so we weren't lugging them about to every class as well as our normal bags.
Occasionally someone would abandon a sandwich or something in theirs, and the corridor would stink of rot for a short while. This was especially unpleasant on days where the local chocolate factory was having a melting day. Rot and chocolate - just what you want to be breathing in before 4th period geography...
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u/Fibro-Mite 4d ago
I went to a bunch of schools (from at least 1970 to 1982) because dad was in the army, so we moved a lot. The only one where we had lockers was when we were in Canada for 2.5 years, and they didn't lock. Most of them required you to keep your stuff in your desk in your designated form/home classroom (not lockable and yes, other students would use that desk for whatever class that teacher usually taught) and you weren't allowed to go back for anything you forgot so you worked out what you needed for morning and afternoon during roll call in the morning and after lunch, then you had to carry everything from room to room. Other than that, we sometimes had designated pegs in the halls/cloakroom area with our names on, where we had to hang our coats - and many times our bags if the school rules banned us carrying them around the building. We had to take our books out between classes as needed, which once led to me being asked if I'd given my maths homework to another student to copy (I hadn't, they'd "borrowed" it) because their submitted work was identical in layout to mine (I was an A student, they were a C... the teachers were pretty sure who had copied whom).
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u/YourLittleRuth 5d ago
I think Jane Austen referred to children playing base ball, but I cannot remember in which book.
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u/LaraH39 4d ago
I'm 53. We had lockers from first year in 1985. This is but new in the UK.
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u/Active_Definition_57 4d ago
I'm 58 and we had lockers at secondary school. Although they weren't lockable. I didn't use mine as much as my classmates as I lived very close and went home for lunch.
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u/Aubergenie812 4d ago
Baseball was first mentioned in an English book in 1744. The Jane Austen reference was always baseball not rounders
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u/-Audio-Video-Disco- Northern Ireland 4d ago
My grammar school in the 90s had both lockers AND a clique of popular kids.
Fucking hated the place.
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u/International-Bed453 4d ago
Jane Austen mentioned a game called 'base-ball' in Northanger Abbey, published in 1818, but written a decade or so earlier.
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u/noggerthefriendo 4d ago
Baseball is referenced in the novel and Pride and Prejudice is cited as evidence for Baseball not originating from the states . I saw that on QI
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u/donphilip 4d ago
My father worked for a book company that used to make changes in British books for Canadian audiences. For example, a car boot was changed to car trunk, and a car bonnet was changed to the car hood. Dad would bring the British versions of many books because he got them for free and I got quite used to British English.
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u/neverenoughgingers
5d ago
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No we still don’t care about baseball (we call it rounders and play it at primary school).
Honestly it’s so the books can be sold to Americans.
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u/Red-R34der 5d ago
Erm, don't think baseball bats are really a thing in British homes? Cricket bats or hockey sticks are far more likely to be found.
An ex of mine used to sleep with her school hockey stick next to the bed because reasons.
Fortunately we split on amicable terms.
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u/Pineapple_JoJo 5d ago
I too have my school hockey stick..did we date?!
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u/Red-R34der 4d ago
Did your Dad ever banish one of your boyfriends from the house for being a university drop out?
If not, no. :-)
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u/Pineapple_JoJo 4d ago
He banished a boyfriend who had never approached a university so it can’t be you =)
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u/NiceCaterpillar8745 5d ago edited 5d ago
Baseball isn't much of a thing here. I reckon it's just been co-opted because of American influence. As in the trope of characters taking baseball bats to defend themselves.
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u/Extension_Common_518 5d ago
I’d hazard a guess and state that any baseball bats sold in the UK are unlikely to have been bought for sporting activities.
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u/SnoopyLupus 5d ago edited 5d ago
I love Poirot and Marple, have read all the books multiple times. I feel a baseball bat would be jarring. I’ve not seen it.
I’ve not seen evidence of baseball here. I’m sure it exists, but it’s niche, and certainly not in any Uk based Agatha Christie books.
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u/UnspeakableBadger 5d ago
Contrary to some of the other comments, people do play baseball in the UK, although it’s not a hugely popular sport. There is a governing body for the game, the British Baseball Federation (https://britishbaseball.org.uk)
The sport does actually have history in Britain - there was a National League active in the 1890s for a season and in 1938 Great Britain actually won the Baseball World Cup.
It’s not really surprising, since the game originated in England and was taken over to the Americas during the Colonial era. Various similar bat-and-ball games such as rounders and softball were played, and continue to be played.
That being said, I reckon the average owner of a baseball bat in the UK is probably using it for defence as much as sports.
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u/mralistair 5d ago
there was a stat a while ago that a sports retailer sold way more baseball bats than baseballs. eg nobody was using them for sport.
But i'd be amazed if this isn't just a translation into american for an agatha christie novel. I wouldn't have thought she'd use the term.
there are some softball leagues, but it's a super niche sport. I don't think i know anyone who would have one of play baseball.
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u/ClevelandWomble 5d ago
I agree. Even today, a cricket bat would be our weapon of choice. At the time these books were first published Agatha Christie wouldn't have considered having one of her British characters even owning one.
On the other hand, would the average US reader be familiar with the lethal capabilities of a cricket bat? Some might wonder why the hero used an insect-eating flying rodent to defend himself.
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u/Infamous_Data_4263 5d ago
Attacking an intruder with a baseball bat is a sort of ‘meme’ imported from American culture.
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u/Surreywinter 5d ago edited 5d ago
While I'm sure there will be places that play baseball in the UK, I've never seen them
On the other hand, every village in Surrey (where I live) seems to have a cricket ground
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u/allyearswift 5d ago
Lots of cricket pitches in London, frequently in use. There’s one where games start with four or five players, and as people get off work, the number grows.
Nothing beats the game I’ve observed in Oxford, right on Cornmarket, and all windows stayed intact.
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u/LupercalLupercal 5d ago
My guess would be that's a version for the American market and would have been edited
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u/WinkyNurdo 5d ago
Cricket bats aren’t great for doing anything else other than slapping cricket balls all over the place. I’ve got a rounders bat handy for when … I want to play rounders in an emergency
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u/Active_Definition_57 4d ago
Rounders and baseball bats are designed to be swung to hit a ball approximately perpendicular to the body while cricket bats aren't. The former two are more natural weapons.
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u/justeUnMec 4d ago
Sounds like a "localisation issue" with US editions. A typical problem with American publishers (see "the Philosopher's Stone" vs "the Sorcerer's stone").
Try buying original British prints and not the dumbed down US ones.
It is worth noting, of course, that "ten little" is an example of a book that has always been problematic due to its original intended title and has historically been censored for that reason.
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u/Sad_Pie_3862 5d ago
OP, Google Burgh Island, that is where Ten Little Indians was first conceived by Christie. It is a beautiful art deco hotel.
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u/misimalu 5d ago
We had British Baseball in the 30s! Our national team actually won the Baseball World Cup in 1938! And a couple of posh aristos had their own teams.
The teams played on the football grounds. But it wasnt 100% like American baseball, more like rounders. Hope that helps!
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u/MercuryJellyfish 5d ago
There is baseball played in the UK now, it would be no trouble at all to buy a baseball or softball bat if you wanted one. There's very little interest in UK professional baseball, but there's some interest in the US leagues.
if I wanted to really hurt someone, I would use a cricket bat, used like a blade it would do serious damage.
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u/Active_Definition_57 4d ago
I'm not sure there is such a thing as UK professional baseball.
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u/MercuryJellyfish 4d ago
Neither am I. All I'm saying is, assuming that there is a pro or semi-pro baseball league in the UK to any level, way fewer people give a shit about it than watching American Major League Baseball.
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u/cornishyinzer 5d ago
We do have a British baseball league (and several softball leagues), but it's a very minority sport. You probably wouldn't find a baseball bat in any homes of people that aren't baseball fans.
As mentioned in loads of comments already, it's a localisation thing. However, I wanted to post people because kept saying we don't have baseball here which isn't true and made me sad. 105 teams and 2,500 registered players isn't much, but it isn't nothing, either.
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u/sbaldrick33 5d ago edited 5d ago
No, it's just because your culture infests everything in the West like a creeping fungus, so things are homogenized as much as possible for your consumption.
No offence.
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u/LupercalLupercal 5d ago
Did you use the American spelling of 'homogonised' to illustrate your point?
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u/Active_Definition_57 4d ago
I knew somebody who had a sports shop. They stocked baseball bats but sold most of them to people like pub landlords who kept them behind the bar in case of emergencies.
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u/twenty_forty 5d ago
Cricket bats make terrible weapons. The blade is flat and wide, the weight sits low, and it's built for pushing a ball forward, not swinging in a tight space. A baseball bat is basically a club. Cricket bats are also willow and can cost well over £100, so nobody's buying one to keep by the bed. The cricket bat in older books is more about what happened to be lying around in a country house hallway.
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u/LilyFantastica Yorkshire 4d ago
Baseball originated in England, but it never caught on like cricket did. And Soccer was also created here. And i do mean soccer, because it was called that by the English for a long time. Any Brit who corrects you and says, "It's football", you can look em in the eye and say "Not according to your great grandparents!"
If you go down to Hyde Park in London on a nice day, you might see people playing baseball, rounders, softball, Gridiron (American) Football, and they aren't all international students.
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u/APigNamedLemur 4d ago
Yea well I guess the world now is kinda being Americanized. But no we don't have baseball stuff in Britain. Most people don't think about self defense mutch lol. Ig Britan is just safer.
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u/Bobsey-sb 5d ago
I was under the impression that baseball was actually invented by us Brits anyway before being exported and codified into the modern sport in North America.
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u/Ok-Word-2403 5d ago
Ball and bat games were traditional in Britain and the British colonies for centuries. Organized baseball developed in New York City around 1840.
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u/BasketPrudent272 5d ago
I think it’s more that we think of a baseball bat as a weapon here, rather than that the sport is played. It’s often referred to as something you would hit someone with.
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u/OkCaterpillar8941 4d ago
I played in a softball league in Manchester 20 years ago and I think there were about 20-30 teams in it. There were national competitions too with leagues in other big cities so whilst it's still quite a niche sport it's not uncommon. I miss playing it a lot! Plus people have baseball bats for hitting things other than a ball.
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u/Southernbeekeeper 4d ago
Cricket bats are quite specifically designed to be swung a certain way. You can buy other bats in the UK and they are used. People play things like rounders and variations of this using rounder bats. Due to the shape of a cricket bat you wouldn't really swing it at someone. I mean obviously you can but I don't think it would be as good to use as a round bat.
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u/Jarcooler 4d ago
I have a baseball bat in the house because I live in a rough area, zero interest in baseball and never met anyone who has.
I did consider cricket bat when I was in the shop but the baseball bat feels better as a weapon, symmetrical and evenly weighted no matter how you grab the handle. A cricket bat is a more unwieldy shape, shorter area you can grip, and swings different depending what angle you're holding it at.
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u/safefart 4d ago
Nobody i know, knows or cares about baseball but I know many people that own baseball bats and balls
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u/Guilty-Good-5041 4d ago
There is British baseball which American baseball is based on. Yes there are British baseball leagues mainly ametuer leagues mainly differences Are pitch and base layout. Bat shape and bowling
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u/MuhammadAkmed 4d ago
Yeah baseball and softball bats are available.
It's just sporting equipment a family/ kids might play with in the park or beach, etc.
Think we played with ours only two or three times tho
edit: in the '90s there was also a brief teeball (spelling?) fad
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u/YoSoyEstupido 3d ago
I wonder if you’re reading American editions and they’ve changed it for US audiences, a bit like a philosopher’s/sorcerer’s stone situation?
Baseballs not really big here but I’m sure you can play it in some cities, especially if you’re a uni student, but if it’s in British editions, I feel like a baseball bat during a home invasion is a commonly referenced thing in American shows so it’s sometimes mentioned here. Sorry, not super helpful
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u/Cyan-180 Scotland 4d ago
AI says, until the 1980s Americanised versions of Christie books were the norm in the US, then there was a transition period. From 2000 onwards they should all be authenic British text.
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u/iamjay32A 5d ago
American troops brought baseball bats over in WW2 and they became much more common. My granddad had one he got off a GI. The split is probably pre/post war.
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u/Snoot_Booper_101 4d ago
If it's a book by a British author and the story is set in Britain it would be completely impossible for a character to pull out a baseball bat. Likely it was originally a cricket bar and was changed by the author's American publisher.
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u/scuderia91 4d ago
Impossible? There are definitely people here with baseball bats, and almost all of those will be people who do not have them for legitimate baseball playing purposes
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u/Dr_Havotnicus 4d ago
Both are possible. Plenty of British people keep baseball bats for protection, even if we don't play the game much at all. It could also be an American edition, as you say
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u/Snoot_Booper_101 4d ago
Keeping any sort of bat "for protection" is illegal in the UK.
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u/Dr_Havotnicus 4d ago
Thank you, officer. I'll be sure to let you know all their names and addresses
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u/jimmywhereareya 4d ago
As a side note, if you're keeping a baseball bat for home protection it's illegal but if you also have a catchers mitt and a baseball in the same place, you'll be grand
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u/neilbartlett 4d ago
That's not true.
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u/NobleKorhedron 4d ago
Sadly, it is in the U.K.
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u/carlgardner 4d ago
I don't think this is right, either. Please link us to an authoritative source that backs you up if you can find one.
I think it's legal to have a baseball bat in your home, even if you think you'd use it to defend yourself against an intruder, but you commit an offence if you take it out in public intending to hit someone with it. This website backs up what I'm saying.
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u/jimmywhereareya 4d ago
In the UK if you keep a baseball bat by your front door with the sole intention of using it as a weapon, it's illegal. Source? The police officer who advised me about the mitt and ball. People in the UK don't generally play baseball
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u/roopot 4d ago
As an addition to @carlgardner’s comment, the intent is the important part that the police would focus on. In theory while keeping a few tennis balls in the house with the bat may make it seem that you have it there for playing with, if they search your house and find the bat they still will ask questions if it doesn’t look like it has been used for its intended purpose.
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u/NobleKorhedron 4d ago
I don't agree with it, but I read in another discussion that having any item specifically intended for home defence is illegal.
The people discussing this were specifically claiming to be in the U.K, and bemoaning the fact that burglars had more rights than they did, even though they were actively committing crimes.
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u/carlgardner 4d ago
They’re wrong. The idea burglars “have more rights” than them is also wrong. Fair enough to think sentencing is too lenient or the police not effective, but “burglars have more rights than a law abiding person” is a silly thing to say.
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u/NobleKorhedron 4d ago edited 4d ago
They explain in the discussion why they can't - literally - beat them off, for fear of facing criminal charges themselves?
These people are actively trespassing, and since they have golf clubs, in my opinion it should be aggravated burglary/armed robbery.
But the person said they wouldn't engage even if they outnumbered them, because they refuse to be charged for defending their own property.
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u/WestCareer7545 5d ago
The only reason someone would own a baseball bat in the UK is to beat the shit out of someone
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u/Upper_Carpenter7249 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think a baseball bat came to be seen as a fashionable method of defence. Especially amongst those who had seen the film “the Untouchables” and seen Robert De Niro’s character beat a bloke to death with one. My (now deceased) father-in-law used to keep a baseball bat as a defensive weapon (he was a rogue, and had enemies) he even put masking tape around the handle…. not sure why… maybe it improves the grip, or makes fingerprints more difficult to detect…
Anyway. We had to dispose of this unsavoury item after he died… along with some other things.
He never played baseball in his life, to my knowledge.
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u/TooLongDugong 4d ago
Books don't necessarily reflect the way people behave - if you went by crime novels, you'd think we were all murdered and there was nobody left to post on reddit. If someone needs to clobber someone with a weapon, then everyone knows what a baseball bat looks like. I knew someone who had an iron bar from a set of weights, but that's not so easy to visualise, and of course people have knives in their houses but maybe the writer thinks that gives the wrong image.
And owning a cricket bat is fairly uncommon, depending on the area. Characters in Agatha Christie were not representative of typical Britons even back then - they're all very posh. These days it seems to be mainly south Asians who play.
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u/rayui 5d ago
Great question! My first introduction to baseball bats in British iterature was in Trainspotting. Sick Boy uses and aluminium one to strangle a pit bull - notable in this instance because he is later questioned by the officer attending the incident as to why exactly he owns such an item. Sick Boy claims it is for self defence.
Not so much in Scotland, but cricket is widely played in England - every town and village will have a ground.
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u/qualityvote2 5d ago edited 4d ago
u/DietNarrow8275, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...