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

by Elly Griffiths (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (13)

Would someone kindly message me and let me know if the dog is killed? I'm really touchy about these things and don't want to buy the book if this is the case. Thanks so much.

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)

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Will this be available on Netflix?

Sarah Why would this be on Netflix? This is Goodreads (books) not IMDB (films) 🤔

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Is there really a short story “The Stranger,” by R. M. Holland? I have tried to find it with Google but keep getting so many results to this book. I've tried searching for: “The Stranger” -"the stranger diaries" and many variations without success.

Jackie Robinson No there isn’t. The author includes a note at the back of the book explaining that The Stranher and R.M. Holland are fictional.

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I'm just 35% into this book (Kindle pub) and there have already been two instances where a speaker says "should of" instead of the correct "should have." I was bothered by the first instance but let it slide because I thought perhaps Griffith meant to write it that way given the character who speaks it. But now it's happened a second time by a different speaker and I'm irritated. Anyone else notice this?

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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This question contains spoilers... (view spoiler)

Tippi Anne

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

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