The Stranger Diaries (Harbinder Kaur, #1)

Questions About The Stranger Diaries (Harbinder Kaur, #1)

by Elly Griffiths (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (13)

Sandra The dog, Herbert, is thankfully OK! I think he was the only reason I kept reading this 'til the end! lOL…moreThe dog, Herbert, is thankfully OK! I think he was the only reason I kept reading this 'til the end! lOL(less)
Sarah Why would this be on Netflix? This is Goodreads (books) not IMDB (films) 🤔
George No, I'm afraid I didn't notice. But if I had noticed that, or the "should a" that Lore (the other answerer here) complains of, it wouldn't have bother…moreNo, I'm afraid I didn't notice. But if I had noticed that, or the "should a" that Lore (the other answerer here) complains of, it wouldn't have bothered me. Rather, I would have applauded Griffiths's choice.

My master's is in linguistics, my B.A. in English literature, and I've a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Those perspectives support me in being absolutely fine with writers who represent the spoken dialects of their characters rather than edited written English. And that's no matter whether they're marginalized speech--like "Black" English or Irish English in, say, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles's Inspector Slider novels--or the less distinctive dialect spoken in these characters' "idyllic seaside town" (to quote the blurb).

Particularly when I'd bet money that in casual speech both of you ladies pronounce "should've" sometimes indistinguishably from "should of" and other times from "shoulda" (which last is generally spelled solid, in my experience). I certainly do! Because that's normal educated English (as well as uneducated), whether American, British, or I assume Jamaican, Nigerian, Indian, etc. Moreover, it's how English learners should learn to pronounce the form in order to approximate native-speaker usage.

So it's no more awful than pronouncing "comfortable" as a trisyllable, as recorded in any dictionary you care to consult, rather than something approximating the spelling (which I defy you to find in well-ordered spoken English).(less)
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Tippi Anne
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