how do I write..

[jeninflorida]

This is from the Sony TV commercial where Justin Timberlake has the ping pong racket in his hand and says to Payton Manning, “it’s on fire.” He uses an accent and wasn’t sure how to write that part.

 

[silverwhisper]

i think there's really two divergent schools of thought on how to address that.

1. get it as phonetically close to that pronunciation as possible.
2. avoid that kind of thing entirely.

for the former, if you do it well, it will do a great job of invoking the source effectively. for the latter, it can be very difficult to do that well.

maybe it's the demographics of the shows i watch but i see that specific commercial all the time. in this specific case, i'd propose the latter approach for two reasons: a) it's a very unusual inflection he gives it that doesn't really lend itself to the phonetic approach, and b) i suspect it's prevalent enough that if you explicitly refer to the ad, the reader is likely to recognize it.

JMHO.

ed

 

[Reba67]

Personally, I find "accents" in written form to be really really annoying. I really don't like having to read aloud to figure out what on earth you are trying to write. If this person really needs an accent, then you can put things into the story that imply that the person has a different accent.

 

[Jailbait]

Personally, I find "accents" in written form to be really really annoying. I really don't like having to read aloud to figure out what on earth you are trying to write. If this person really needs an accent, then you can put things into the story that imply that the person has a different accent.

I agree.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Some people have such horrible posts. This is totally ludicrous!

I'll take 'troll' for $500, thanks Alex.