Accents question again

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

I've gone through a piece I've written and dropped all the ending g's because the protagonist has a country twang. When I read it, all the (") everywhere bugs the hell out of me. Any suggestions? Should I only drop the apostrophe on selected words, or all words that end in (ing). It seems it can be overdone.

Oh, and trust me, I'm writing no Pulitzer. Just want to make it as good as my meager skills allow.

Espie

 

[Angeline]

I've gone through a piece I've written and dropped all the ending g's because the protagonist has a country twang. When I read it, all the (") everywhere bugs the hell out of me. Any suggestions? Should I only drop the apostrophe on selected words, or all words that end in (ing). It seems it can be overdone.

Oh, and trust me, I'm writing no Pulitzer. Just want to make it as good as my meager skills allow.

Espie

Hey there Espie, did you know I'm an editor? Well that's what I've done for a living for many years. Anyway, I'd take out the quote marks. If this is a prose piece, I'd use quotes only for diaglogue. Readers will understand the accent without them, and it looks way better. I agree with you on that last point. If it's a poem and you only use words with dropped g's a few times., it would look even odder, imo. I always figure if a reader isn't smart enough to pick up on my using an accent for a character or an alternate spelling to show a mispronunciation, something like that, uh they should probably go read something else. But quote marks for dialogue are appropriate and necessary in prose, I think.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

Thanks--Hope you see this

Example below

I climaxed more than once as her soft thighs pressed into my flesh, shakin’ like I be crazy. She never said a word, and I worried that she smelled my sex; she bein' so sensitive to smells.

versus

I climaxed more than once as her soft thighs pressed into my flesh, shakin like I be crazy. She never said a word, and I worried that she smelled my sex; she bein so sensitive to smells.

I prefer example two because the apostrophes are distracting. Although one is probably grammatically correct.

In dialogue it's the same issue. Overabundant use of the (') is distracting. It's easily changed with the find and replace function.

 

[bronzeage]

Example below

I climaxed more than once as her soft thighs pressed into my flesh, shakin’ like I be crazy. She never said a word, and I worried that she smelled my sex; she bein' so sensitive to smells.

versus

I climaxed more than once as her soft thighs pressed into my flesh, shakin like I be crazy. She never said a word, and I worried that she smelled my sex; she bein so sensitive to smells.

I prefer example two because the apostrophes are distracting. Although one is probably grammatically correct.

In dialogue it's the same issue. Overabundant use of the (') is distracting. It's easily changed with the find and replace function.

This is a style issue, not a spelling issue. If this is written in first person, just keep it consistent. Non standard pronunciation and grammar are part of the style. What is important is clarity. As long as the reader is not confused, it doesn't matter.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

This is a style issue, not a spelling issue. If this is written in first person, just keep it consistent. Non standard pronunciation and grammar are part of the style. What is important is clarity. As long as the reader is not confused, it doesn't matter.

Always constructive comments bronzeage

Thanks again

Espie

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I go with the idea that it's a style issue, but just for me I don't see that the final 'g's get dropped in narration but they definitely do in dialogue. Then I would use the apostrophe like you do with any dropping of letters.

In the quote you give, I would leave 'shaking' and 'being' - that's what is in his head, but if he was speaking I would drop the 'g' and use an apostrophe.

Same for words like 'freaking', 'freak'n'. You get your accent more by sentence structure.

 

[MaxSebastian]

I'd agree with Elfin - if it was me, I'd drop the 'g's only in dialogue. In narration, keep them in.

If your narrator bothers to include apostrophes instead of the 'g' at the end of the words, they clearly know there should be a 'g' there in written English, so why would they drop the 'g' because of their spoken accent?

And if you leave out the apostrophe, it looks like straightforward ignorance.

If you only do it in the dialogue, it will end up bugging you less since it would be less frequent.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

It's first person and the narrator is the protagonist.

 

[sr71plt]

If the narrator is someone who talks that way, you'd want to render the narration in dialect too.

I take it some folks here have never read Mark Twain--or Too Kill a Mockingbird.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

It's first person and the narrator is the protagonist.

Even so, I still think that the narrator doesn't 'think' in losing the letters and sentence structure gives you the dialectal nuance. Of course in dialogue it's different and you want to make it clear. Losing the apostrophes for missing letters could look like copy edit errors rather than dialect dialogue, which is the last thing you want

 

[sr71plt]

Even so, I still think that the narrator doesn't 'think' in losing the letters and sentence structure gives you the dialectal nuance. Of course in dialogue it's different and you want to make it clear. Losing the apostrophes for missing letters could look like copy edit errors rather than dialect dialogue, which is the last thing you want

This is just one of your idotic notions about writing--which, as usual, you expressed as a ridiculous sweeping generalization. (Luckily Esperenza was too savvy to suck in on what you first posted. Of course the voice in a narrator's head can drop the "g" and think in the same dialect they speak in.)

In the first person (which, of course, you don't recognize no matter how many best-selling authors are using it), the narrator more often than not is a character in the book. That narrator should express him/herself as the narrator's character would. Not fully/purely, of course, because we don't do that with anything in writing, or everything would be a mess of "uh's" and "ya knows" and fractions of sentences and everything being repeated three times.

The reader is resilent as long as the author is consistent. And the reader wants to hear--and can adjust to hearing--the first-person narrator in character. (As long as you do the usual flavoring rather than faithful slavering, which you wouldn't do in any event.)

 

[elfin_odalisque]

It's first person and the narrator is the protagonist.

Just as an example, John Grisham handles it well. In 'A Painted House' often called one of his best works, he switches from colloquial narration prose without suppression of final 'g's to dialogue where he goes for the apostrophe - except inning and pitching - some words just can't be shortened.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

What this thread has done is spurred me to read and learn about dialect. I think that subtlety is important in most cases. Dialect can be reflected in word choice rather than the "g" drop. I read a bit of Tom Sawyer today. There is judicious use of apostrophe and "g" dropping. He uses phrases and words to capture dialect except with an African American boy. In that case the accent is obvious, so Twain writes it that way.

Thanks to all that looked and posted.

Espie