(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Dear people who use dialect in stories where it's being spoken by a main or frequently recurring character:

STOP. JUST STOP. If this is a TV show, we already know what that character sounds like. If you put an apostrophe at the end of every word endin' in' ing (sorry, in'), it doesn't convey that, it just drives me FUCKING NUTS. Use dialect SPARINGLY. Just because you *hear* "dose" when a character is saying "those", does not mean that you need to write every "th" sound as a "d" sound. It's annoying.

Also, if a character is Canadian or has an accent in which a particular phoneme sounds differently to the way you say it, DON'T SPELL IT DIFFERENTLY if they are the POV character. I think it's dumb to spell it differently anyway, but ESPECIALLY for the POV character. For example! When Rodney McKay says "lieutenant", he pronounces it the way that is standard outside of the States. But he really doesn't spell it "leftenant" any more than YOU spell it "lootenant" (or "aloominum".) I get that you're trying to make a point all funny and ha-ha aren't I clever. No. You're not. Spell it right or don't spell it at all.

Yours in perpetual annoyance because I wanted to finish that story, dammit,
T

Comments

[trialia]

*g* I agree, but did you mean to post this to fanficrants? That's where I thought it was at first...

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Nope, I'm not a member.

[china_shop]

I feel your pain! Thankfully, these habits have mostly gone out of style in current DS fandom, but there was a time... *shakes head sadly*

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was reading a fic (and yeah, older) that was otherwise quite enjoyable with the most annoying Ray dialogue on the face of the planet that sparked this one. I mean, REALLY.

[china_shop]

Yeah, I gathered. (Which one?) Someone should provide an underground, off-the-record fangirl service of cleaning up the dialogue of those and passing them around where the authors can't see.

Like how I occasionally used to c&p Hard Core Logo fics into Word and remove half the swearing before I read them. ;-)

[morbane.livejournal.com]

Honestly, people. It's a well known device that if you want to create that sense of accent for a character, you can do it just as well for laying it on strong when you first meet him/her, then basically returning to giving them ordinary speech with a few mannerisms dropped in. The reader will retain the memory of the flavour of the dialect/accent and be spared a lot of pain. CHAUCER DID IT, YOU CAN DO IT TOO.

[sennical.livejournal.com]

Also, "ZedPM".

*kicks things*

[domssecondbfast.livejournal.com]

I am so freaking with you. That stops me reading the book in question.

[tauira.livejournal.com]

Knowing little about Stargate Atlantis, I still know that Rodney McKay is smart enough to know how to spell. If you are writing in his POV you should not be misspelling something that would cause him to kick you in the head think you're an idiot, deliberate or not.