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Jay wrote: "Richard wrote: "...and let's not forget the dumbing down of even the big six's proofreaders. I find errors like that in almost every hardbound book I buy. I don't seem to mind so much if it's just ..."I suppose there should be a special kind of quotation marks to indicate an expression where one's tongue is firmly planted in the cheek. Sorry for the mis-communication. I have four eBooks of my own to sell! I was simply making fun of the general drop off of punctuation standards in published (big six) work.
Google Chrome just suggested I change "baristas" to "Aristarchus." I like ancient Greek astronomy as much as the next guy, but it has very little to do with my no-foam latte.
Richard wrote: "Jay wrote: "Richard wrote: "...and let's not forget the dumbing down of even the big six's proofreaders. I find errors like that in almost every hardbound book I buy. I don't seem to mind so much i..."I should probably be the one apologising, Richard. I was tired and in a grump and should stay offline when that is the case lol!
Jay wrote: "Spellcheckers can lead to great embarrassment. A colleague recently sent out a letter apologising for 'any incontinence' caused."I guess it depend on how soon after eating that big bean burrito you read the letter! LOL!
PS -- I have no issues with writers who get cranky -- I are one!
The thread has begun to investigate something really interesting though, how language is changing at a very fast rate right now. Even spoken language. Did anyone else see the discussion about the growth of the growl phenomenon in the speech of young women, say under forty? How about the valley-girling of English as it is spoken in TV commercials -- you know, the looonng soft As and other vowels, aaaas in aask me a queschuuun, huh?
Fascinating discussion. I cannot for the life of me remember either what I was taught about this (if anything; I went to school in the loosey-goosey 70s) or what I am used I seeing. As a writer of fiction it seldom arises, as I would be unlikely to be using quotes for anything but direct dialogue. Well, I take that back, as even there a sentence may continue after the quote ends, and sometimes I do rewrite because correct punctuation looks odd.
That's actually a decent rule of thumb: if your sentence leads you into complex and murky punctuation questions, odds are you need a rewrite :)
P.S. I resent very much when ebooks have errors. I see this in traditionally published books, too, and I can't figure it out. I don't THINK the hardbacks have the same mistakes, and my experience of converting a file to, say, Kindle format, didn't introduce any weird punctuation (current book has random periods) or especially misspelled words. But I very much want my e-reading experience to be transparent--no different from reading a bound paper book.
Alexandra wrote: Oh and I had dairies instead of diaries a while back.
I cam across a review of 'Watership Down' some years ago which said that one of the things that made Adams' book convincing was the way he described the rabbits' patios. It should, of course have been 'patois', but ever since then I've had a mental image of rabbit holes with little paved areas in front, complete with garden furniture.
I cam across a review of 'Watership Down' some years ago which said that one of the things that made Adams' book convincing was the way he described the rabbits' patios. It should, of course have been 'patois', but ever since then I've had a mental image of rabbit holes with little paved areas in front, complete with garden furniture.
Rebecca, as much as it annoys me, I'm sadly, getting used to it. Now I can read right through it. Awkward sentence structures and other read-killers are more of an issue that punctuation these days for me at least. I appreciate how the flogging we accepeted in school hasn't really been worth the pain.
Chris! LOL! Little cobbled patios settings, complete with little orange umbrellas...
It was The Wind in the Willows that really opened my eyes to how animals live.Common canary coloured cart! Poop poop!
My daughter has The Wind in the Willows on our coffee table. I think she just finished reading it.
TWITW is still a wonderful piece of writing. I don't think that many authors since have been as lyrical as the chapter The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, little canary yellow carts and umbrellas aside.
Thank you all for reminding me about TWITW. A 5-star book if ever there was one, and I realised I hadn't got it on my Goodreads bookshelves! That's what comes of buying it for my wife and giving my own copy away...
Richard wrote, "language is changing at a very fast rate."
I bought a book, "Do You Speak American" by Robert MacNeil and William Cran. Some of the "changing" and the cause of the changing is scary. Even die-hard southerners are reputed to be changing their "Southern Speak."
I bought a book, "Do You Speak American" by Robert MacNeil and William Cran. Some of the "changing" and the cause of the changing is scary. Even die-hard southerners are reputed to be changing their "Southern Speak."
Being a retired eighth grade English teacher, I take some offense when I see a skillful writer make repeatedly the same punctuation error. Example, not setting off nouns of direct address with commas. ("You, Robert, should know better," the teacher said.) A writer should clear a higher bar than should the general public.
Harold wrote: "Being a retired eighth grade English teacher, I take some offense when I see a skillful writer make repeatedly the same punctuation error. Example, not setting off nouns of direct address with com..."It's ironic that you mention the example of nouns and commas ("You, Robert, should know better," the teacher said.). I do that because that's the way I was taught. However, Microsoft Word considers that to be a grammatical error and will underline it for whatever reason. I ignore it and leave it the way I know it should be.
Chris wrote: "Thank you all for reminding me about TWITW. A 5-star book if ever there was one, and I realised I hadn't got it on my Goodreads bookshelves! That's what comes of buying it for my wife and giving m..."I made the mistake of giving away my copy of The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast. Must get that again.
Harold wrote: "... A writer should clear a higher bar than should the general public."Hear, hear! Hat tip to you, Harold.
As a retired 8th grade English teacher, what do you think of this excerpt from a review of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style:
"... My issue is not so much with the content of the book but with the fact that one must already have some background in grammar to understand the concepts Strunk is communicating.
For example, without a prior understanding of grammar, the following sentence would be meaningless to a reader: "Participial phrases preceded by a conjunction or by a preposition, nouns in apposition, adjectives, and adjective phrases come under the same rule if they begin the sentence."
"some background in grammar"... "without a prior understanding of grammar"...
Um, weren't we supposed to have gotten this in primary school?
Jay wrote: I made the mistake of giving away my copy of The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast. Must get that again.
Presumably that was the Alan Aldridge version, Jay, not the older Roscoe version, in which case that certainly was a mistake! The illustrations in that book are superb. Hope you find it again.
Presumably that was the Alan Aldridge version, Jay, not the older Roscoe version, in which case that certainly was a mistake! The illustrations in that book are superb. Hope you find it again.
Chris wrote: "Jay wrote: I made the mistake of giving away my copy of The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast. Must get that again. Presumably that was the Alan Aldridge version, Jay, not the older Rosc..."
It was the AA one. Just ordered it :)
I am fairly sure I would not have understood a bloody word of "Participial phrases preceded by a conjunction or by a preposition, nouns in apposition, adjectives, and adjective phrases come under the same rule if they begin the sentence" when I was 8, at least not in that terminology.
I'm now closer to 80 than 8 and I still don't understand it. Not that I've ever attempted to learn it. I just know what is right from good literature - read the best, copy the best, and tut-tut everyone who doesn't match up lol!
Alexandra wrote: "I am fairly sure I would not have understood a bloody word of "Participial phrases preceded by a conjunction or by a preposition, nouns in apposition, adjectives, and adjective phrases come under the same rule if they begin the sentence" when I was 8, at least not in that terminology."LOL! I'm sure it was presented to us much differently in primary school. Bear in mind, S&W was originally put together for use at university (forget which one).
hi there!Just sipping a hot toddy - mmmm, that's better! Feeling rotten is crap but it's a comfort not to have to go out in this torrential rain.
Jay wrote: "hi there!Just sipping a hot toddy - mmmm, that's better! Feeling rotten is crap but it's a comfort not to have to go out in this torrential rain."
Over on my side of the pond, drinking coffee. And it's sunny (but cold). I'm sort of with you, though, on feeling rotten. Head cold developed into sinus infection so... condolences.
Went to the 2nd floor in work last Friday - Marie Celeste job with all the various bugs that had swept straight through the open plan office.Condolences reciprocated.
May I ask, as a non-author, how much an indie/self-pub author would rely on editors and proofers to fix the basic grammar and punctuation? In the past, I've always thought that writers could write (some handwritten on paper) and then leave the "clean up" to others. But I get the feeling (and keep reading in books) that this is no longer the case.
Haha! just noticed the thread we're on - how appropriate!Editing and proof reading: I do mine until I think it's fit to be seen by writing buddies, take on board their suggestions, do more edits and proof reading, print and do more edits and proof reading, convert to Kindle and do another round from reading there, do another check after corrections and then publish.
I find the Kindle reading good for catching errors as there are fewer words visible so that tends to be where I spot repeated use of words and last typos.
OK, I'm back but have to get off soon. So, Jay, you have no outside/separate editor or proofers? Wow.
I would very much like to have an editor and proof reader, but they'd get upset when I couldn't pay them. Apart from that, have you seen all the options for different types of editor and proof reader? How does one tell who is needed?
Jay wrote: "... Apart from that, have you seen all the options for different types of editor and proof reader? How does one tell who is needed?"Um, you're asking the non-author? But seriously, I keep forgetting to separate "indie" from "self-pub". Sorry.
Stay cozy with your toddy. Time for me to brave the outdoors. Cheers!
Jay -- You'll probably need both. My pockets are also shallow, but I have found a lucky combination by exchanging services -- I'm a designer of some thirty years experience -- with a really competent editor for copy edits. As far as developmental editing, you'll need to enlist other writers, preferably six or so, and two or three of those should have had some success at it, preferably in your genre. These will become your beta readers, after the proofreading and copy editing phase is finished. They will read for continuity, plotting, story, setting character development, dialog and all the writerly stuff -- not proofreading. Find a writers' forum where your genre is actively discussed and work-shopped. I have had great results from one in the UK, the oldest on the web, called Litopia.com. It really is about quality writing, not a popularity scramble, and it is filled with industry people who are there to share. Once you've gotten a few beta reports, and you can parse the information through your own voice and storyline, you'll know where to take it. The rewriting fun can commence! Whooppee! (That's me being seriously facetious. I hate rewrites, but I do them over and over again...)
Excellent advice, Richard, thanks. I'll check that site out, see what's going on.I reckon I must be pretty weird, as I find getting the first draft done a real grind. That's the stage when I have to force myself to do the job.
After that I'll happily tweak away, from a complete rewrite, to adding chapters and deleting others, chucking text all over the place until all the characters are dizzy, right through to just spotting typos.
It's usually the opposite for me -- I sail through a draft on endorphins! Good luck. Litopia requires a submission for full membership, but take some time and check out everything you can, especially in the archives, etc.
Finding good beta readers is easier if you went to grad school in lit :). If you can find a writers' group, real or virtual, you can do exchanges. For my last book, I used just one editor, but I want to have two or three beta readers this time, in part because the story is more complex.The proof-reading is on-going. My editors/beta readers will mark stuff, and I'm pretty good at finding it myself, especially if I read the thing aloud. I think only one typo slipped through in my last book. I may ask my library co-workers to read the final draft just before publication, as it was one of them found the typo last time.
I am completely unable to proofread my own work. I gave it up years ago.Re: Betas -- I think my reader pool is better outside the academic environment. I write to entertain, first, so I want pleasure readers/writers. I just completed an academic read of very "literary" fiction that I'm quite sure will be required reading for a creative writing class or twenty. I'm sure I could not offer any suggestions at all. When I wrote the review, I noted that..." the writer's efforts in word styling and manipulation were like a movie where the special effects leave the storyline behind, and lose the audience". Notice I didn't write, "...as much as in the odd way that..." I wrote... like. I wouldn't be a good beta choice for that kind of fiction at all.
[smile]. It's okay. My friends and I left academia nearly 20 years ago. I spent several years unlearning the ghastly prose style they taught me there. I'm not keen on self-consciously "literary" fiction either. I write humor, and we all know that can never be, um, taken seriously.
For ETA -- message 78:I agree with our quoted statement about needing to have prior knowledge to understand the concepts that Strunk and White are apparently communicating. Knowing what participial phrases, appositives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases, and adverbial clauses are and more importantly where they are located in sentences and being able to use them as well as parallel construction reduce considerably the likelihood of awkward narration. I had my eighth grade students practice using these structures in designated locations.
Example: (participial phrase), the tall boy, (appositive), read a book (relative clause).
Eventually, they had to be able to write a grammatically constructed sentence that included 4 or 5 informational statements about the sentence's subject. I did not allow them to use more than one conjunction.
Example:
subject: John Steinbeck
Information:
a. a Nobel Prize winner
b. wrote "The Grapes of Wrath"
c. concerned himself about social injustice
d. died December 20, 1968
This is not to say that writing lengthy sentences is preferable to writing much simplier sentences. When the situation calls for one, however, a writer should have the knowledge to write one rather than having to rely mostly on sound.
Mona wrote: "Even die-hard southerners are reputed to be changing their "Southern Speak." "I moved from MT to rural KY and while this may be happening to some extent in the cities, I can't say I've found it in the rural areas much.
After 12 years, I can understand most people here most of the time in person, but there are some I still have difficulty with over the telephone.
I think the merging and softening of regional dialects here is a very sad thing. Especially because the lingua franca, at least on network news broadcasts, is rapidly becoming "Valley Girl Growl" I'd rather listen to hard Arkansas-speak or Minnesota jangle any day that that stuff! We should all be proud of our speech patterns... oh, except the cheerleaders in Anaheim.
You should hear the local dialect around here:) Think West Country UK and in places street talk, it is unique.
Alexandra: that is too funny! I have an older version of Word so the feminist streak must be an update. *wink*
Jay: Apologies "for 'any incontinence' caused" by this particular topic.
BTW, there's a Language & Grammar group here. I believe your can post a question for its members if you can't quickly find an answer on your own. Members seem very erudite (and I use that word deliberately).
Cheers, ladies!