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Pet Peeve H/h
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Andrea
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May 31, 2014 04:16PM
This seems to be a tradition in talking about romance novels. Abbreviation for hero is a capital H and for the heroine is lower case h. That bugs me. I know it's not a big deal but it seems kind of sexist to me. Mr. Macho gets to be capital but the little woman is lower case. Anyone else feel like that?
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Me too... shades of the "little woman" at home. How about H/Hn
My pet peeve is the verb 'padding/padded' Like, "Amber padded across the creaky wood floor as quietly as she could...blah blah blah." Yikes! Plus insta-luv, I mean really...what's up with all the immediate head-over padded heals instantly fall in luv and be soul-mates thing going on all over Noveldom, doesn't anyone develop an attraction for each other over at least two chapters, double yikes!! for that one.
To be honest the only thing that ever padded across the creaky wood floor in our house was a Persian cat...
Since I don't read much romance I didn't hear about that, but I'm with you. It would annoy me too. In fact, I could see sending a note to the author.
I can see padding if the character is wearing those big fluffy socks. Lisa, the H/Hn makes sense. Or Hr/Hn.
Andrea wrote: "Lisa, the H/Hn makes sense. Or Hr/Hn."Or just Hero/Heroine. Why all the abbreviations? We're not texting, are we? There isn't a premium on space. Sometimes I despair at the tendency to abbreviate everything. I understand acronyms like LGBT, but why abbreviate a four-letter word? Isn't that extremely lazy?
I think it's the texting mentality, Martyn. Many people chat from their tablets or smartphones these days. You get used to shortening words. Personally, I use the full word just because the H/h annoys me. But for those who want to abbreviate I wanted to offer an alternative. Not that our thread will make a dent. I just wanted to rant and find out if anyone else had the same issues.
In the old days of T9 keyboards, abbreviations make sense, but now with smartphones you get a full keyboard. Some keyboards also feature 'swiping' the keys.So we can stop the abbreviations and just write that we laughed out loud when the too-stupid-to-live characters didn't meet their Happily-Ever-After ending.
I habitually skip messages (and reviews) that are filled with 'text-speak'. If someone can't be bothered to carefully formulate their opinion, I'm not interested in reading what they have to say.
(This post was written on an iPad)
Andrea wrote: "I just wanted to rant and find out if anyone else had the same issues."On topic, it is sexist. Or at least it indicates a lack of balance in power or importance. That's why in BDSM circles a relationship between a Dom(ina) and a sub is shortened to a D/s relationship, to indicated that the Dom is the dominant one. And subs mostly write the first letter in their names in lower case to indicate subservience.
However, that is a subculture and it's jargon designed for use within that group. A publicly posted review intended for everyone to read should be, in my opinion, devoid of weird abbreviations that are only understood by a select group of people.
Abigail wrote: "I always write them out."Good for you. And for your readers.
Martyn (a.k.a. M'sieur Sang Froid) wrote: "In the old days of T9 keyboards, abbreviations make sense, but now with smartphones you get a full keyboard. Some keyboards also feature 'swiping' the keys.So we can stop the abbreviations and ju..."
I am agreeing with you entirely here Martyn, TSTLs and HEAs had me puzzled for weeks when I first joined this site. LGBT and BDSM are shorthand clues really and I knew what they meant, but HEA? Not for me, I am too old.
Andrea wrote: "This seems to be a tradition in talking about romance novels. Abbreviation for hero is a capital H and for the heroine is lower case h. That bugs me. I know it's not a big deal but it seems kind of..."H/h? Really? I've not seen this before this thread. It looks like a watered down version of D/s (Dominant/submissive) where the capital/lower case are intentional to reinforce the nature of the relationship. Also, there is no rule that state 'D' is male or female and likewise, 's' doesn't mean female or male.
Some days I know what the abbreviations mean and some days I don't. It depends on how well the flash memory in my mind drive is working.
