Explaining terms?

[Omenainen]

As a non-native reader I'm well accustomed to skimming over words I do not understand, trying to guess their meaning and tone from the context, and any regional/specific cultural references are gonna go past me no matter what they are. If the term is really central to the story, or repeats often enough, I might google the acronym or translate the word. Glossary at the end of the story is pretty much useless, I don't see how it helps after already reading the story? In the beginning would be more useful.

I didn't vote since I don't have any real preference.

 

[Hypoxia]

Back to topic: If I use an obscure term in a story, I make sure it's explained nearby.

Thus, when I have a character deride someone as a "total spad", someone else mentions that a Southern California village named Spadra hosts a major institution housing retarded folk. "Spad" in the local east-of-Los-Angeles dialect term for moron, also expressed as "mental retread".

That same dialect contains "chawse" as a funny rendering, often with an exaggerated Pachuco accent, of "choice" meaning "excellent: "That car is really chawse" expresses approval. "Pachuco" itself may need explaining.

As for acronyms, I make sure that they're also explained at the first usage. Thus in my current V-Day project, now a novella, when a fellow says he's studying for FCC licenses, he tells a listener "that's the Federal Communications Commission" and that a "First ticket" is a broadcast engineer's license.

Certain USA acronyms are presumably known fairly globally: CIA, IBM, FBI. Others likely aren't quite as prominent: NSA, NYT, DOJ. Some stuff just MUST be spelled-out.

 

[Voboy]

Look at how Tom Kratman handles a glossary in his Carreraverse series of books. He does the glossary as an appendix. Explaining all the military terminology. It’s not uncommon.

Yes, my thought was to put it last. But then I put on my reader hat and asked myself how happy I'd be if I had to zip over to the last page, then back, every time I had a question. The answer I gave myself was "not very happy."

 

[Bramblethorn]

Pauline is uniquely Australian and you’d be a poorer place without her adding a little contrast and diversity of thought.

"Diversity of thought" is an argument used to defend ideas that aren't actually worth defending on their own merits. This isn't racism Pokemon, we don't actually need to showcase every variety of bigotry.

It's not like her flavour of bigotry is exactly rare; I've been pestered by drunk guys on the street whose position was indistinguishable from hers, although they usually articulated it better and were less of a drain on the public purse.

(And if she had her druthers, she would not be allowing people named "Chloe Tzang" into the country; she got her political start on a Yellow Peril message.)

Nah, Pauline can get in the sea.

 

[Omenainen]

Yes, my thought was to put it last. But then I put on my reader hat and asked myself how happy I'd be if I had to zip over to the last page, then back, every time I had a question. The answer I gave myself was "not very happy."

Plus, how would a reader know you have a glossary at the end, unless you added an introductory note in the beginning mentioning it, in which case...why not just put the glossary in the beginning as well?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Yes, my thought was to put it last. But then I put on my reader hat and asked myself how happy I'd be if I had to zip over to the last page, then back, every time I had a question. The answer I gave myself was "not very happy."

Yeah, I hate end-notes for that reason. If the technology here allowed, I'd love to use mouseover text.

 

[Voboy]

I'd love to use mouseover text.

That's the solution.

Pity. It's not a bad little story. I'll give it some thought; maybe it'll see the light of day sometime.

 

[Emirus]

Yeah, I hate end-notes for that reason. If the technology here allowed, I'd love to use mouseover text.

Using a mouse over the text may be the answer for all those who read using a pc but it’s not the answer for the thousands who read each day using a smartphone.

When you are writing surely one of the primary things to consider is whether the reader will understand what you’re trying to say not assuming they’re prepared to go looking for an explanation.

 

[LupusDei]

Yeah, I hate end-notes for that reason. If the technology here allowed, I'd love to use mouseover text.

Yes. Perhaps perfect would be colored asterisk or some such with onclick expanding inclusion, but neither exists here.

I can usually comprehend general meaning of texts with significant percentage of unknown or garbled words without need to look those up or otherwise decipher and enjoy word making in my native language to the point of confusing even less proficient native speakers at times.

Possibly as much (or even more) than 95% of literature I read in my native language are translations and some translator's notes are pretty much inevitable (and sometimes go as far on a tangent as shortly explaining why a particular historical figure is being mentioned), so in paper publishing I'm very used to end notes, with for some reason increasingly replace the under-the-line notes at the bottom of the page, a much user friendly format in my opinion. Unfortunately in digital format end notes are just as (if not more) awkward and below the line comment about impossible (as "page" isn't something well defined).

I wouldn't be shy to include parentheses with expansion for an obscure acronym if it's important and there's no better way to explain it, but wouldn't go much further than that in explanations, and yes, it's perhaps not "in style" for fiction.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Using a mouse over the text may be the answer for all those who read using a pc but it’s not the answer for the thousands who read each day using a smartphone.

There are tap-to-expand equivalents that work for smartphones. Here's a story told almost entirely through annotations which works fine on mobile, and if you tap on the symbols here you get a pop-up that explains them.

That said, reading long text pieces via smartphone is probably always going to be inferior to reading it on a full-sized screen, because of the physical limitations of the medium. That's the price we pay for portability.

When you are writing surely one of the primary things to consider is whether the reader will understand what you’re trying to say not assuming they’re prepared to go looking for an explanation.

Maybe it's a matter of different audiences, but I feel like a lot of y'all don't give your readers enough credit. IME, the ones who are enjoying the story don't seem to mind looking up a word now and then, or figuring it out from context. We have scads of readers whose first language isn't English, who have to do that all the time, and yet they're still reading.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>Maybe it's a matter of different audiences, but I feel like a lot of y'all don't give your readers enough credit. IME, the ones who are enjoying the story don't seem to mind looking up a word now and then, or figuring it out from context. We have scads of readers whose first language isn't English, who have to do that all the time, and yet they're still reading.

I’ve referenced Luca Pacioli and his Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita. Readers got told it involved accounting and that my (American) character was allowed to peruse the existing 500 year old original and doing so made her horny as hell. And caused her to chatter in (untranslated) Italian . And her and her girlfriend’s search for an early edition of Newton’s Principia led to more sexual shenanigans.

Another story was set at the time of the transition of the Arpanet to the Internet and mentioned various Internet protocols that were being rolled out but only as characters of the day would’ve discussed it. More info left as exercise to the reader.

I’ve dropped references in passing to the Super League war and that many Battle Royale fans consider the Hunger Games a rip-off. And to American elections immediately recognisable to people who lived in a certain time and place but obscure to anyone else. It can all be chased down with the right search terms but yes, not thoroughly explained.

Maybe that’s why I don’t have more followers than I do

 

[Thefireflies]

Inspired by this thread, I lost my snack pack virginity today, eating one for lunch. Whether it was Halal or not, I have no clue and don’t mind either way. It was greasy roasted meat, chips (fries to many of you) and I think some sour cream and maybe garlic sauce/aioli (I can’t remember). It was extremely filling, so much so I didn’t eat anything else till dinner, and even then only required a light snack. It was of average taste, not terrible, but not amazing. I give the experience 3 stars out of 5, and imagined that they likely do it better in Melbourne or Sydney

 

[YDB95]

I've lived in Melbourne for nearly six years (originally from USA) and this is the first I've ever heard of HSP.

To avoid confusion, my advice in a situation like this is to create an excuse to explain it in passing:

"Lucy and I ended up sharing an HSP in the park, which reminded me of a funny story. 'My mate's dating an American gal,' I told Lucy. 'The other day I asked them if they wanted to split an HSP, and I guess she's never heard of Halal snack packs, she asked me 'How do you plan to split a highly sensitive person, and why?'"


I have occasionally come across this sort of thing in published novels, often addressed with a brief explanation at the beginning of the book, before the story begins. A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower featured a brief explanation of who the Moors Murderers were, for American readers (or at least my copy did).

 

[yowser]

Reader reactions are sometimes unpredictable, context is likely everything.

One comment: Wow You had me at "incanabula"

 

[Voboy]

When you are writing surely one of the primary things to consider is whether the reader will understand what you’re trying to say not assuming they’re prepared to go looking for an explanation.

I can't comment on other contexts; normally, I've got no trouble agreeing with what you're saying here.

But. I find it difficult to tell military-themed stories that way, when speaking to (or writing for) non-veterans.

I've got many stories from my military days, but many of them fall into a specific category: Stories That Are Only Interesting/Funny If My Interlocutor Has Been In The Military. The one that comes to mind features a dog, killed near a motor pool around three in the morning.

I've told it to veterans, who laugh uproariously. Because they all understand the context. They've all guarded motor pools at 0300 and they all understand that millieu. So I can start the story with, "So, I had a couple of soldiers guarding a motor pool one night..." and, at once, they're THERE. The story has built-in richness, texture, and humor based on their experience.

With non-veterans, I have to explain every aspect of the context in order to make the story understandable. For them, my dead-dog story is repulsive, irredeemably so. Because I can't tell it in the way I find it funny; when I have to explain everything, the comprehension is just never there because it becomes a lecture instead of a story.

I'm quite certain it's the same for cops, firefighters, or doctors, who routinely find gallows humor in disgusting life events, humor that would appall uninitiated outsiders. But this, I feel, is also why soldiers tend to bottle up wartime experiences... at least around civilians.

So sure, I CAN explain every military aspect of my story. But I know, from bitter experience, that I'm still not going to be able to convey it to most non-military readers in the way I want to.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Reader reactions are sometimes unpredictable, context is likely everything.

One comment: Wow You had me at "incanabula"

See, I love an author who's not afraid to use words like "incunabula".

 

[Bramblethorn]

I’ve read many stories and novels since boyhood which contained terms I didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop me from reading and enjoying them. It can lead to some humorous misunderstandings, though. When Bilbo Baggins put his thumb behind his braces and began to blow smoke rings, I had the oddest mental image. Being a 13 year old American, the only braces I knew about were the things they put on teeth! But despite the weird picture in my mind, I read and fell in love with The Hobbit.

When I was a kid, I read a book about Australian pioneers eating a "mammoth sandwich". I had recently learned that mammoths sometimes got frozen in ice, so I assumed somebody had thawed one out and made sandwiches out of it. Took me a couple of years to learn that they just meant "really big".

I still like my version better.

 

[miska_darling]

Nope

From my current chapter:



I doubt many non-Australian readers will know what a HSP is. For terms like this, how do you prefer to have them explained?

Many Australian readers would have no idea what a HSP is. I only figured it out because of the discussion on this thread. This is totally obscure and not conventional at all.

Even now having read that it’s a ‘halal snack pack’ leaves me none the wiser.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Many Australian readers would have no idea what a HSP is. I only figured it out because of the discussion on this thread. This is totally obscure and not conventional at all.

Even now having read that it’s a ‘halal snack pack’ leaves me none the wiser.

Have to admit, I'm kinda surprised at how many of the Australians here haven't heard of them. They're practically ubiquitous in kebab shops, and they got a fair bit of coverage back in 2016-17 with the Dastyari/Hanson spat: https://www.google.com/search?q=sam...Vo73MBHeGfCZwQ_AUoAnoECAMQBA&biw=1269&bih=685

 

[PennameWombat]

Have to admit, I'm kinda surprised at how many of the Australians here haven't heard of them. They're practically ubiquitous in kebab shops, and they got a fair bit of coverage back in 2016-17 with the Dastyari/Hanson spat: https://www.google.com/search?q=sam...Vo73MBHeGfCZwQ_AUoAnoECAMQBA&biw=1269&bih=685

I'm in Sydney's Inner West and make regular visits to Sim Kebab, which is the nearest (and quite good) such shop to us. Nothing on their menu board that's "HSP" or even a 'snack pack.' Various package deals (mainly kebab + chips + drink) but they just call them 'combos' (or 'super combo' for the family pack.) I guess I could ask next time.

Maybe if I headed in a southwesterly direction, out Lakemba way. But my Sydney-born wife doesn't know the term either, although she's lived in the US a fair amount of time last couple of decades, but with 2-3 months back this side every year.

We were in the US 2016-17, that's when we'd started our last move back this side of the pond (we'd been back and forth since 2011) and my wife arrived but I was delayed for various reasons. She tends to change the channel the moment Hanson comes on or even mention of her...