Things my father said.

[DeYaKen]

to a degree

I already have. In the English language, no matter where you live and means plus, as in I bought peas and carrots. We "say" all kinds of things, but then we call it dialogue. Teenagers in America say "fuck" every third word. The frequency of oral usage is not the standard. In any case, the original editor was wrong in insisting on the word "did" the sentence was fine without it and using it made the sentence awkward. The last thing I will say about this is: An editor and his/her writer are supposed to be a team working together to produce a finshed product, not two huge egos battling for center stage. (With plenty of other huge egos claiming miles of credentials joining in)

To a degree I agree with you. Most especially the last sentence. I love working with a good editor and really miss my beloved Juicystarchild. Currently I am working with a new one (not the person mentioned earlier) and we seem to be doing well as a team.

In my mind the grammar pedant has no place in stories. Creating a character and an atmosphere is far more important. Look at people like Irvine Walsh, James Kelman, Iain Banks, to name a few. When the narrator is a character in the book they use the language that character would use. If that character would use bad grammar then the story is told using bad grammar and is the better for it. Can you imagine a story where every character talks like an English teacher?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No good grammarian would say got there before Susan did. Susan (got there) is called "understood".

No. Unspecified referential indices invite readers to speculate and guess. Omitting DID is OK if we know where Susan is or what her destination is.

 

[Derroreaper]

I am just wondering. In the sample sentence: Suck me hard!" she said. Doesn't the word 'she' start a new sentence? and shouldn't 'she' be capitalized if the exclamation point ends the previous sentence?

Didn't you make the above post Robertreams? If you can't handle something simple like proper dialog attributes, why should anyone take your opinion in this thread very serious?

A "Good grammarian" would have known this...

 

[DeYaKen]

Fixed that for you. As anybody with a Scots-based username ought to know, there is no One True Version of the English language.

(And if there was, US English would probably be closer to it; a lot of the differences between the two are cases where UK English has drifted and US English has adhered to its origins.)

Many would argue that the reason for the difference is not that one is purer than the other but more because it was distorted by different people. Yours would have been more heavily influenced by the Irish, Poles and Italians.

Ours was distorted by the French, Germans and of course those returning from places like India and Africa.

The reason I have taken to referring to the two as American and English is because of the number of people on Lit who believe that U.S. English is the only one.

I believe it is Charles Dance who tells the story about a woman at a Hollywood party who asked him if he really was British. When the actor assured her that he really was British the woman responded "but your English is so good."

 

[sr71plt]

The reason I have taken to referring to the two as American and English is because of the number of people on Lit who believe that U.S. English is the only one.

But you come across in that as being just the opposite--which isn't a bit better.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Many would argue that the reason for the difference is not that one is purer than the other but more because it was distorted by different people. Yours would have been more heavily influenced by the Irish, Poles and Italians.

Polish? Not so much. Less than 1% of the Australian population has Polish ancestry. Lots of Irish, Scots, and Cockney influences in the language, though.

We do have a lot of Italian descendants but most of that migration was post-WWII and I don't think it's had a huge influence on Australian English, outside cooking and coffee.

I have picked up a few US-English quirks (my partner/editor points out "gotten") because I've spent a lot of time and made a lot of friends on that side of the water, but it's still about 95% Australian English.

The reason I have taken to referring to the two as American and English is because of the number of people on Lit who believe that U.S. English is the only one.

While I'm familiar with that behaviour and find it annoying, I'm not sure that sinking to their level is a good way to win friends and influence people.

 

[DeYaKen]

Shold have checked.

Polish? Not so much. Less than 1% of the Australian population has Polish ancestry. Lots of Irish, Scots, and Cockney influences in the language, though.

We do have a lot of Italian descendants but most of that migration was post-WWII and I don't think it's had a huge influence on Australian English, outside cooking and coffee.

I have picked up a few US-English quirks (my partner/editor points out "gotten") because I've spent a lot of time and made a lot of friends on that side of the water, but it's still about 95% Australian English.



While I'm familiar with that behaviour and find it annoying, I'm not sure that sinking to their level is a good way to win friends and influence people.

Sorry, I should have checked your location. I wrongly assumed you were in the US. From what I know of it Aussie English is closer to UK than US though I think that is changing.

You are right of course I shouldn't sink to that level. However it does get difficult to resist when you receive comments calling you illiterate because you've used UK English rather than US. It won't surprise you to learn these comments are usually anonymous.

I have written one story in which I tried to use US language. That story was located in the US so it seemed right. Most of them are located in England and so they are written in UK English. I've never located any in Australia. If I did I would have to investigate the language.

 

[sr71plt]

Those comments do probably come from Americans, who naturally tend to be insular, but in their defense, this is a U.S.-based Web site and it does use American writing style itself. Most who are criticizing Briticisms simply don't realize there are variations in style. And they aren't likely to apologize for that when someone tells them American English isn't proper English.

 

[lovecraft68]

IMO anyone who can't figure out its UK and calls those authors illiterate is probably close to illiterate themselves, its not like its vastly different.

Odds are most of those people are trolls and if it wasn't the different spelling/wording would find another reason to be morons.