I'm having a grammatical conundrum

[SpecterNecter]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Is there a box for ‘Not Entirely Unreasonable’?

 

[SpecterNecter]

There should have been

 

[ElectricBlue]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

If you're using a term for endearment as a title for the person, then go for it.

Seems to me, in this quick example, you are elevating the status of My Dear to someone imperious, who deserves the title. Whereas, "My dear little girl," could be read as mildly dismissive.

If you get all clever and try to use grammar differently or "artistically", I reckon you'll just confuse people. That's why we have grammar, so when you use it as expected, your intent becomes obvious.

 

[XerXesXu]

Context?

 

[SpecterNecter]

Context is I don't agree with the 'rules of English grammar' and it pisses me off a bit because I know that grammar hardos are going to leave crappy responses about it

 

[SpecterNecter]

I also may be drunk

 

[XerXesXu]

Context is I don't agree with the 'rules of English grammar' and it pisses me off a bit because I know that grammar hardos are going to leave crappy responses about it

I think you'll find they're the 'style' hardos (I'm guessing, from context, that a hardo is similar to a Nazi). The great thing about style is that there are so many style guides to choose from, indeed there's no rule preventing you from creating your own. You'll also find that most style Nazis don't even know the difference between 'style' and 'grammar', so their opinions may be worth rather less than they think.

 

[PennyThompson]

I think creative capitalization and vocabulary and sentence structure and text layout are like spices... can be delightful when used in moderation, but can be overwhelming or obnoxious if overused!

My opinion is that language is beautiful when it's organic and alive, but you should be intentional about what rules you're bending or breaking.

What does capitalizing "My Dear," mean to you? Is it trying to capture a character's voice, who is maybe very dramatic or self-important? Then I think it could be a tool in the toolbox! Are you just throwing capitalizations around anywhere you feel like it? That would probably become both distracting and annoying.

I'm guilty of wordcrime myself once in a while, and have had my volunteer editors and beta readers reign me in a little bit They're usually right, but sometimes I do it anyway

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I don't agree with its vs it's, but it's the way it is.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

Anything that makes a reader go "Why did the author do THAT?" instead of being immersed in the story is a mistake.

 

[alohadave]

Context is I don't agree with the 'rules of English grammar' and it pisses me off a bit because I know that grammar hardos are going to leave crappy responses about it

Cormac McCarthy wrote without punctuation and he gets shit all the time about it.

Write however you want, just be prepared for negative reactions if you do.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I studied linguistics, among other fields, and we described languages; we didn't prescribe them. There are places such as France and Spain, where there are academies to prescribe the rules of written language, but I don't subscribe to them. The written form, including punctuation, is a way of seeing what someone may be speaking or thinking (or tasting, feeling, hearing, seeing, or smelling), and I'm in favor of doing whatever you want with it that conveys what you want to convey. But then again and again, e.e.cummings has always been a favorite of mine and if I had but one book (forbid!) to have on a desert isle, it would be Finnegans Wake. As Dave says, "write however you want, just be prepared for negative reactions if you do." And don't forget to include at least one multi-lingual sextuple entendre when you do; after all, this is Literotica, and we appreciate ...lingual sex...

 

[ronde]

I had an English teacher in high school who was absolutely obsessive about the use of "correct" grammar, so that's what I used to pass her English classes. There are actually several other "rules" for grammar depending upon the location in the US or any other country where English is the primary language. These rules reflect different backgrounds, regional slang, and in some cases, social status. They are all correct in my opinion so long as the grammar corresponds to the speaker. For third person narrators, I use reasonably correct grammar for the time period. For dialogue, anything goes so long as the idea of the speaker comes through. Just please don't mess with the roadmaps of written words like quotation marks, commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation points. Those are the cardinal "rules of the road", so to speak.

 

[JGittes]

Cormac McCarthy wrote without punctuation and he gets shit all the time about it.

Write however you want, just be prepared for negative reactions if you do.

I just went upstairs and pulled out "Blood Meridan" and "The Road." He uses punctuation but not quotation marks. After reading a few pages, he makes it clear when someone is saying something versus thinking or narrating something.

Sally Rooney is a contemporary Irish writer who doesn't use quotation marks. In her case, I tried reading and reading the first thirty pages of "Conversations with Friends" and couldn't make sense of it. I finally realized she didn't use quotation marks, so I marked them with a pencil through page ten. It didn't help.

 

[MetaBob]

I think creative capitalization and vocabulary and sentence structure and text layout are like spices... can be delightful when used in moderation, but can be overwhelming or obnoxious if overused!

My opinion is that language is beautiful when it's organic and alive, but you should be intentional about what rules you're bending or breaking.

What does capitalizing "My Dear," mean to you? Is it trying to capture a character's voice, who is maybe very dramatic or self-important? Then I think it could be a tool in the toolbox! Are you just throwing capitalizations around anywhere you feel like it? That would probably become both distracting and annoying.

I'm guilty of wordcrime myself once in a while, and have had my volunteer editors and beta readers reign me in a little bit They're usually right, but sometimes I do it anyway

"You gotta be able to play on the changes, you gotta be able to ... really deal with, like, Coltrane stuff, you gotta be able to hang in all twelve keys on any standard, you gotta be able to do all that. Now that you can do that, don't do that."
- Pat Metheny

 

[SimonDoom]

I guess I wonder why it matters to you to do it this way. I think context matters, but it doesn't seem like something to get too worked up about one way or another.

The most famous literary use I can think of this is "My dear, I don't give a damn" from the end of Gone with the Wind (the word "frankly" is not in the book). In that case, it's not capitalized. That would be the usual way to do it.

If Dear is used like a pet name or form of address for someone, like a substitute for a name, similar to the use of "Mom," then I could see it being capitalized. "I love you, Dear." "I love you, Mom." But if you say "my mom" then it's not capitalized. E.g., "I love my mom." You would NOT write "I love My Mom." That would be weird.

If you used "My Dear" as the opening form of address in a letter, I think you'd be perfectly entitled to capitalize "Dear." It makes it seem more important and therefore conveys something to the person being talked to.

I'm more bothered by your omission of the serial comma, but that's a debate for another thread.

 

[Bamagan]

I think it's fairly grammatically conventional in modern English to use capitalization when conveying that a word or phrase is being used as a title or form of personal address. If it isn't, then I'm also guilty of a word crime, because I used 'My Lady' frequently in my latest story. It contains no actual names at all, just the roles the POV character mentally assigns to the other main characters. In context, My Lady is being treated as a name, and I will fortify that hill and die there if necessary.

 

[StillStunned]

I don't know much about art or music, but I understand that you need to master the orthodox basics before you can do anything unorthodox. Mondriaan was an accomplished painter before he started reducing his works to straight lines and primary colours. Jazz often sounds like pure improvisation, but there's an underlying basis in music theory.

The same with writing. You can play around with grammar, punctuation and style, but to do it effectively, you need to know what rules you're breaking - and why. Of course everyone understands language, and can form sentences, but it helps if you know what you're doing and what makes it effective if you do something different.

Call me a snob - perhaps I am, as a language professional - but I think everyone who attempts to write should know the basics. I've mentioned it before here in the forums, but why are people relying on software grammar checkers when grammar is the foundation of our hobby? That's like singers using autotune.

Don't know the rules? Look them up. All the time people spend on here debating minutiae of site rules, or researching what flavours of ice-cream were available in the summer of 1952, or how long it takes to recharge a Womanizer - use a fraction of that time to learn some basic grammar and punctuation rules. They're the tools of the trade.

Once you know them, you won't have to worry about "but Word's/Grammarly's grammar checker said....!" And when people complain about you using non-standard grammar, you can say, "I know, but here's what I was trying to achieve."

YMMV.

 

[Rollinbones]

A girl once chastised me for opening her car door for her. "I could do that. It's a car door. It's not complicated." Such is grammar. Whilst it may not be important to someone else it might be important to you. Do you.

Also, don't fuck up a good conversation by having characters speak like they swallowed a dictionary, snorted a thesaurus and choked on a grammar nazi's cock.

 

[alohadave]

why are people relying on software grammar checkers when grammar is the foundation of our hobby? That's like singers using autotune.

Don't know the rules? Look them up. All the time people spend on here debating minutiae of site rules, or researching what flavours of ice-cream were available in the summer of 1952, or how long it takes to recharge a Womanizer - use a fraction of that time to learn some basic grammar and punctuation rules. They're the tools of the trade.

Not everyone is a language professional. People get things wrong.

It's a tool to assist. It'd be like saying, "why do you have a dictionary? Learn the spelling of the words." You can't hold the spelling of every single word in your head, and people make mistakes.

Do you, as an editor make mistakes when writing that need to be corrected? Do you, as part of your job use reference materials?

 

[drobert44]

I wont use checkers; they dont get it right often enough.

 

[StillStunned]

Not everyone is a language professional. People get things wrong.

It's a tool to assist. It'd be like saying, "why do you have a dictionary? Learn the spelling of the words." You can't hold the spelling of every single word in your head, and people make mistakes.

Do you, as an editor make mistakes when writing that need to be corrected? Do you, as part of your job use reference materials?

I said "the basics". I don't expect amateur writers - or even professional writers and editors - to know every obscure rule, just like I don't expect everyone to know the spelling of every single word. But there's a basic level of competence, and honestly, the stuff that comes up in fiction writing should, most of the time, fall under the basics.

As a professional editor, I do use reference materials. But fewer and fewer every year, because I learn and remember. When I do check things, it's because frankly the language and importance (and potential liability) of the texts I work on professionally is a few levels above most erotic fiction, and my clients are paying me money to be certain. I also pay a colleague to double-check my work.

Like I said, call me a snob. It just strikes me as odd how little effort some people are willing to make to master the essentials, particularly considering the lengths they'll go to for a minute piece of trivia.

 

[XerXesXu]

I don't know much about art or music, but I understand that you need to master the orthodox basics before you can do anything unorthodox. Mondriaan was an accomplished painter before he started reducing his works to straight lines and primary colours. Jazz often sounds like pure improvisation, but there's an underlying basis in music theory.

It's the other way around. We all start out exploring the unorthodox, then are taught orthodoxy at school. Listen to children speak, look at how they spell, see how creative they are with paint. I was in a skiffle group when I was 9 or 10, we were terrific. Education tames our natural creativity and exuberance, which we have to re-learn when we escape.

 

[TheLobster]

No, @StillStunned got it right. You can't be unorthodox, or have an outside-the-box perspective, if you don't know where the orthodox box is (or indeed, like in case of children, that it even exists). You'll just spit out an unstructured mix of both the conventional and the unconventional, unconscious and unaware where the boundaries lie. While you may call that creativity, it's really just blind groping of the concept space, ignorant to where the truly original and creative areas exist that may eventually push those boundaries further outward.