Colloquial speech, local dialects and bad grammar

Not all bad guys use bad grammar. Some are very suave and sophisticated. Similarly, not all persons doing minimum wage jobs use bad grammar either.

Every person from Scotland does not use “wee” or “drap” in every second sentence, nor does every Australian call you “mate”.

Typecasting happens because there are similarities inside groups. An Australian is far more likely to call you “mate” than an American person is, but both of them are more likely to use your given name.

Please don’t typecast your characters. If that strong young man on the road crew drops his mallet on his toe he probably will swear. But then, so would a doctor or lawyer. And all of them are equally likely to say invite (verb) instead of invitation (noun) because they’re probably all on Facebook. But there is no excuse for bad grammar in narrative. Nor is there need for endless “local color” in dialogue. The lady in the Scottish hotel may offer your hero “A wee drap” of something alcoholic to drink. But leave it there. Don’t overload your story with colloquialisms or poor grammar.

Helen Woodall

Hated and incorrect buzz words

The Sydney Morning Herald (Aussie newspaper) did an article on the most hated buzzwords. I have to say mine is “invite” used as a noun. Despite everything Facebook might tell you, invite is a verb. I might invite you to my party. But the piece of paper or email I send you telling you about my party is a noun, invitation.
So imagine my joy when they chose Gifted as #10 on their list, with this comment, “Used incorrectly as a verb to mean to give a gift. Gifted is not a verb. The word is gift, which is a noun. If you don't know the difference between the various parts of speech, you probably need a refresher in primary school English.”
The same goes with invite.

Other buzz words they disliked were “big data” especially when used by people to mean any old data, “double down”, and literally, misused when people mean figuratively.

For the complete list check out: http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/trends/blogs/the-big-idea/the-most-hated-buzzwords-of-2015-20150205-3pjdf.html


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

“Youse guys get off of the bed!”

“Youse guys get off of the bed!” aka Accents and Slang.

Between two villains or two teenagers this line is perfectly acceptable. Spoken by a CEO, millionaire, or university graduate not so much unless it’s a deliberate attempt to be funny. An author doesn’t need to have perfect grammar. However an author does need to have a basic feel for how her characters speak. And characters in well paid positions, or characters who went to a good school, would generally speak grammatically unless they were deliberately playing a part.

Therefore when the narrative has many grammatical errors, this raises flags in the reader’s mind. Either the book needs good editing or the author needs to listen to her editor and make some corrections. There is no excuse for constantly mistaking their/there, or other simple errors, anymore than there is for having characters speak poorly.

On a similar note, if you are using dialects, be very careful to have them checked by a person who speaks that dialect fluently. Nothing is worse than having a creole speaker break into latin in the middle of a sentence. Babelfish and other such programs are not infallible, so always check what you’ve written.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Colloquial speech, local dialects and bad grammar

Not all bad guys use bad grammar. Some are very suave and sophisticated. Similarly, not all persons doing low-paid jobs use bad grammar either.

Every person from Scotland does not use “wee” or “drap” in every second sentence, nor does every Australian call you “mate”.

Typecasting happens because there are similarities inside groups. An Australian is far more likely to call you “mate” than a British person is, but both of them are more likely to use your given name.

Please don’t typecast your characters. If that strong young man on the road crew drops his mallet on his toe he probably will swear. But then, so would a doctor or lawyer. And all of them are equally likely to say invite (verb) instead of invitation (noun) because they’re probably all on Facebook. But there is no excuse for bad grammar in narrative. Nor is there need for endless “local color” in dialogue. The lady in the Scottish hotel may offer your hero “A wee drap” of something alcoholic to drink. But leave it there. Don’t overload your story with colloquialisms or poor grammar.

Do you have a book you want edited before sending it to a publisher or self-publishing it?
Contact Helen Woodall for prices and services.
helen.woodall@gmail.com