A quick and pointless rant
Jul. 25th, 2006 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafThis is not aimed at anyone in particular, let alone anyone on my f-list; it's just been increasingly getting on my nerves.
Dear Who fanfic writers: we know that Rose has a fairly typical Estuary accent. I don't find it attractive, by any means, but it's not extreme, just normal for a girl of her origins, educational attainments, and class. Everyone who has seen the show, and probably lots of people who haven't know this. This accent, naturally, comes with a tendency to glottal stop and drop h's.
You do NOT need to make this visually obvious by always writing her dialogue with heavy use of apostrophe, like so: Wha'? 'Old on a momen'. It is annoying, exaggerated, and generally a pain to read.
Recently I found someone writing Nine, using exactly the same punctuation tricks, in order to indicate that he is OMG! Northern!
Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.
Again, Nine's accent was not particaluarly heavy. It does not need constant attention drawn to it. If you want to show a character's linguistic background, there are better and subtler ways of doing it. But they aren't necessary for either Rose or Nine, because they don't speak a dialect. They speak standard English with a mild regional accent.
And if you aren't familiar with a dialect, for heaven's sake don't try to reproduce it. Getting it wrong is a million times more annoying than not doing it at all.
/rant.
Dear Who fanfic writers: we know that Rose has a fairly typical Estuary accent. I don't find it attractive, by any means, but it's not extreme, just normal for a girl of her origins, educational attainments, and class. Everyone who has seen the show, and probably lots of people who haven't know this. This accent, naturally, comes with a tendency to glottal stop and drop h's.
You do NOT need to make this visually obvious by always writing her dialogue with heavy use of apostrophe, like so: Wha'? 'Old on a momen'. It is annoying, exaggerated, and generally a pain to read.
Recently I found someone writing Nine, using exactly the same punctuation tricks, in order to indicate that he is OMG! Northern!
Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.
Again, Nine's accent was not particaluarly heavy. It does not need constant attention drawn to it. If you want to show a character's linguistic background, there are better and subtler ways of doing it. But they aren't necessary for either Rose or Nine, because they don't speak a dialect. They speak standard English with a mild regional accent.
And if you aren't familiar with a dialect, for heaven's sake don't try to reproduce it. Getting it wrong is a million times more annoying than not doing it at all.
/rant.
By 'eck, it's a cyberman
Date: 2006-07-25 04:16 pm (UTC)'Ast seen t' temporal flux recoupler?
Aye, appen it's ower on yon console.
No, I don't think so, somehow.....
Re: By 'eck, it's a cyberman
Date: 2006-07-25 06:30 pm (UTC)Fantastic!
BTW, from your increasing posting frequency, I conclude that you are definitely no longer in the Lake District at the moment. Was your holiday there enjoyable? It must be marvellous in this kind of weather.