does it Piss you off?

[robertreams]

Does it piss you off when you are reading a very famous very rich author and you read shit like, "due to the fact that," or "I went in the shower and changed"?(Patterson)

TV is even worse. Last week a major news network announced twice that they had a story "about a survivor with two sons named Sean".

Several years ago on the Ray Tolliaferro show on San Fransisco radio station, I heard a newscaster say that a San Fransisco police officer was, "shot Tuesday afternoon by the perperator in his stomach."

Maybe we should collect these.

I guess if you've got it made you needn't follow the rules.

 

[drinkz]

......

 

[sr71plt]

I have to go with drinkz on this. I note it but I don't expend much "pissed off" energy on it.

 

[BurningMonkey]

Even worse for me is the seemingly ubiquitous but utterly superfluous usage of "got", "what", and "at".

As in: Where are you AT? (What's wrong with: Where are you?)
And: What have you GOT? (Again, what's wrong with: What do you have?)
And the one that pisses me off the most: It's better than WHAT it was. Just leave the damned word out!

Okay, I've vented enough for the day. I feel better. Thanks.

 

[walkerlong]

No, it really doesn't upset me. I find it amusing usually.

 

[_Lynn_]

Even worse for me is the seemingly ubiquitous but utterly superfluous usage of "got", "what", and "at".

As in: Where are you AT? (What's wrong with: Where are you?)
And: What have you GOT? (Again, what's wrong with: What do you have?)
And the one that pisses me off the most: It's better than WHAT it was. Just leave the damned word out!

Okay, I've vented enough for the day. I feel better. Thanks.

But if you're reading "Where are you AT" as part of dialogue, that's how people speak. They don't think about proper sentence structure before talking. Few people carry the CMS to consult before conversing with anyone. Add slang or accents into the equation for sentences like "Where you at" and What ya' got" . . .

 

[robertreams]

But if you're reading "Where are you AT" as part of dialogue, that's how people speak. They don't think about proper sentence structure before talking. Few people carry the CMS to consult before conversing with anyone. Add slang or accents into the equation for sentences like "Where you at" and What ya' got" . . .

I don't think burning monkey was speaking of dialog, obviously a writer can get away with almost anythng and call it dialog. This is why so many writers try to write their stories as if they were diarists. They can say, "that's just how I talk." However, there is a differece between writing good dialog and bad writing. Twain for example, writes great dialog, but in between he doesn't say Huck went to see where Jim was AT.

I only gave a very limited example of what I see and hear daily. Finally, when I said pissed off, I didn't intend to imply raving lunacy perhaps I should have said, "a trifle peeved".

 

[Bert_Fegg]

I'm declaring for team Pissed - I have to admit what annoys me most when I see errors in print, is the fact that someone was paid to spot them, and that person should have been me

 

[_Lynn_]

I don't think burning monkey was speaking of dialog, obviously a writer can get away with almost anythng and call it dialog. This is why so many writers try to write their stories as if they were diarists. They can say, "that's just how I talk." However, there is a differece between writing good dialog and bad writing. Twain for example, writes great dialog, but in between he doesn't say Huck went to see where Jim was AT.

I only gave a very limited example of what I see and hear daily. Finally, when I said pissed off, I didn't intend to imply raving lunacy perhaps I should have said, "a trifle peeved".

Then that should have been specified. My reply followed the words BurningMonkey posted, not what I guessed the post meant.

 

[sr71plt]

Doesn't apply to the narrative either, if the narrator is being given the voice of a character. The only aspect that should follow standard rules across the board is punctuation.

If either a character or the narrator use a "where you at, Leroy?" voice, the voice should be consistently applied. A reader can get pissed about pretty much anything; sometimes that's just the individual reader's problem, though.

 

[lovecraft68]

Even worse for me is the seemingly ubiquitous but utterly superfluous usage of "got", "what", and "at".

As in: Where are you AT? (What's wrong with: Where are you?)
And: What have you GOT? (Again, what's wrong with: What do you have?)
And the one that pisses me off the most: It's better than WHAT it was. Just leave the damned word out!

Okay, I've vented enough for the day. I feel better. Thanks.

But with those examples that's dialogue and very few people speak in perfect English.

So dialogue I let slide.

 

[bps]

They can say, "that's just how I talk." However, there is a differece between writing good dialog and bad writing. Twain for example, writes great dialog, but in between he doesn't say Huck went to see where Jim was AT.

but you see, Twain was smart.

 

[sr71plt]

but you see, Twain was smart.

But some do find him unreadable because it takes the use of dialects a bit far. Most do just a smattering to give the context the flavor of the character's speech patterns.

 

[Athalia]

Twain for example, writes great dialog, but in between he doesn't say Huck went to see where Jim was AT.

Huh?

The beauty of Huckleberry Finn is that Twain writes the whole thing in Huck's voice, using the sort of idioms and grammar that Huck would have used. He caught hell for that among the literati.

 

[beachbaby179]

I'm declaring for team Pissed - I have to admit what annoys me most when I see errors in print, is the fact that someone was paid to spot them, and that person should have been me

Right on the money, Bert. I don't get angry, but as a self-proclaimed grammar geek I do get distracted when I read such things. And I've sometimes thought I could do a better editing job than some of the pros do.

 

[JonB1969]

Does it piss you off when you are reading a very famous very rich author and you read shit like, "due to the fact that," or "I went in the shower and changed"?(Patterson)

TV is even worse. Last week a major news network announced twice that they had a story "about a survivor with two sons named Sean".

Several years ago on the Ray Tolliaferro show on San Fransisco radio station, I heard a newscaster say that a San Fransisco police officer was, "shot Tuesday afternoon by the perperator in his stomach."

Maybe we should collect these.

I guess if you've got it made you needn't follow the rules.

Well that kind of thing is more due to a lazy editor than the writer, IMO. But it doesn't so much piss me off as irritate me, especially the glaring plot holes or the stuff the writers of the TV show should know better but obviously don't, or they would have a different situation for the show!

*breathing deeply* #rantover LOL

 

[sr71plt]

Well that kind of thing is more due to a lazy editor than the writer, IMO.

You mean the writer has no responsibility to get it right? You're saying it's the editor's responsibility to catch and fix everything the writer screws up--each time she/he does it? Wow. (Why would we need writers then? Just hire editors to do it all.)

 

[lovecraft68]

You mean the writer has no responsibility to get it right? You're saying it's the editor's responsibility to catch and fix everything the writer screws up--each time she/he does it? Wow. (Why would we need writers then? Just hire editors to do it all.)

That's a vicious circle though. If writer's didn't screw up who would need editors?

I do feel an editor should not have to repeatedly fix the same mistake in every story, the writer should learn as they go.

 

[sr71plt]

We can go back to publishing house editorial procedures. The more mistakes an author makes in a manuscript, the fewer the editor is supposed to see and fix (because the forest of mistakes is too large for the editor to see them unless several rounds of editing are done--and there's only so much time/money a publishing house is going to devote to a manuscript. If the author can't write well, he/she gets dumped).

Beyond that, in charging for mistakes that have to be corrected in proof (there is an allowance for how many of these will be fixed in proof and the author has to pay to fix any that go above this number), all mistakes left in a manuscript are charged to the author. Only the mistakes the editor introduced him/herself are charged to the editor.

Authors are supposed to get it right as part of their responsibility. If they can't write up to a certain level, they don't get published (unless they are celebrities or famous enough for a high guaranteed sales).

Any writer who takes the attitude that the editor will/should clean everything up isn't going to be publishing with any support for any length of time.

 

[lovecraft68]

Authors are supposed to get it right as part of their responsibility. If they can't write up to a certain level, they don't get published (


Twilight and 50 Shades blew this rule out the door.

 

[robertreams]

Authors are supposed to get it right as part of their responsibility. If they can't write up to a certain level, they don't get published (


Twilight and 50 Shades blew this rule out the door.

So Right. Why write 50 shades if you are going to pull the shades down. What a cop out. What a waste of money!

 

[sr71plt]

I see that LC's jealousy of 50 Shades just won't go away.

 

[sr71plt]

You know, this constant harping on 50 Shades, in addition to being very bulldog tiresome in its own right, reveals a naivete about the effect of synergy in publishing--and, in this case, in the erotica market. Erotica writers shouldn't worry about the success of 50 Shades unless they also want to be writing shoddy pseudo-BDSM works (and even then, there apparently are buyers, who, like the Twilight people, can't get enough of regurgitated works of a genre that has zoomed from practically nothing in interest thanks to the 50 Shade books). These books have helped expand the readership/buying of erotica, in general, and BDSM specifically exponentially. Even in BDSM, who cares if 50 Shades gets it wrong, if you (think you) can get it right? Suddenly there are a lot more readers/buyers in this market.

The market for this stuff was fairly small before 50 Shades made it OK, even trendy, to read erotica, in general, and BDSM specifically. All of those writing in this market should be sending this author thank-you notes--even those who can't write a book that's any better but who can figure out how to slap something on Amazon.

The demographic for this stuff isn't the demographic I write erotica to. But this book has loosened up and broadened the erotica market across the board. Those who can't understand this are a bit dim.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

Even worse for me is the seemingly ubiquitous but utterly superfluous usage of "got", "what", and "at". ...

My pet hate is more than one superfluous preposition, as in "I met up with my friends." What is the additional information provided by that sentence that is not provided by "I met my friends."?

 

[BurningMonkey]

Y... there apparently are buyers, who, like the Twilight people, can't get enough of regurgitated works of a genre...

[Mr. Rogers' voice] Can you say, Harlequin Romance? I thought you could. [/voice]

The romance and bodice-ripper genres have been generating millions for decades for authors who essentially republish the same book over and over with just a few name and setting changes. And they, when they first appeared, were the erotica of their day.

That's the mass market for you. If we're lucky, erotica will go the same way and some of us will actually be able to make a living at it.