Giving A Shit. Or Not. (Of Word Choices, Word Order, And Grammar.)

Grammar, word choice, and punctuation are a matter of courtesy. Poets and Yoda may turn sentences around, but the meaning is clear. Rules are still followed.  If fictional, green, space aliens can make sense, shouldn't the rest of us?

Perhaps the courtesy bit is being taken too far. Clarity of meaning might be more important... unless the intention is deliberately to mislead.

How about this: "...beleaguered Name-Your-State governor XYZ".  Does that headline tell you if it was the State or the Governor that is beleaguered? No. Does it matter? Yes. It would be easy to change the word order, and much more courteous of the journalist and his/her/their editor.

I have a German friend who says "I give a shit for U," when he means that his emotional investment in "U" is the lowest possible.  There is nothing lower than a bowel movement, right?

Or is being given  "nothing at all, not even a bowel movement" even less respect?

An English friend would say "I don't give a shit for 'U'" meaning that even the most disrespectful action is more attention and time than he is willing to accord to  'U',  whomsoever or whatever 'U' stands for.

Kenneth Beare's article for thoughtco.com on the differences between American and British English as regards grammar, spelling, and word choice is succinct and interesting, especially regarding the simple past and present perfect.

https://www.thoughtco.com/differences-between-american-and-british-english-1212216

Leo McKinstry for the British Daily Mail penned a jolly good piece about Political Correctness and word choice. Apparently, the populace of Great Britain is assumed --by the elites-- to have the vocabulary and understanding of a five-year old, and therefore, because one five-year-old assumed that the reflective devices embedded in roads to mark the lanes at night are feline body parts, "cats' eyes" must now be called "road studs".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5094791/A-Z-politically-correct-madness.html

How long will it be before itinerant gigolos decide that "road studs" is an offensive term?

How much will language be impoverished, not to mention the resources for humorists, wits, and stand up comedians, if vocabulary is whittled away? Beyond "man holes" and "man power", there is some discussion on the authors' forms about whether or not "master" should be banned as a word. Alas for master sergeants, master plumbers, master suites, mastery of a subject, masters degrees and even homophones (words sounding like "master-", such as that immensely popular puerile joke about Master Bates). 

Is etymology not taught in English classes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly

https://www.etymonline.com/

How can grammar be racist?  Or sexist? Every country or state that has a national language, has rules of grammar. Without grammar, one cannot be understood. Therefore, grammar and the importance of choosing "le mot juste" should be taught more, not less. Some would claim that this was the actual point being made by the Rutgers academic... although it was widely reported as "Teaching Grammar is Racist!"

There is an advertisement by a pharma business that lays down the law: I may not urinate without consulting my physician. Really?

Try really listening to advertisements. Why is it, in America, that the FCC allows them to bombard all of us, daily and even hourly, with execrable grammar and muddled messages? It is our fault if we don't understand what they mean.

According to the Lanham Act, as long as a claim is not "literally false", but rather, remains ambiguous, the advertiser is reasonably safe. 

The legal bloggers of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP give insights into the sorts of marketing trickery that goes on, and what is allowed versus what crosses the line.

https://www.dwt.com/insights/2020/07/stay-advised-whats-new-this-week-july-27

Moreover, if you ever listened to advertisements promoting health supplements, medicines, beauty or medical devices and equipment, you might have wondered whether they damn themselves with faint praise by claiming to be FDA "cleared", when other offerings announce that they are FDA "registered" or FDA "approved".  High risk devices are required to be "approved".  Problems for the consumer may arise when medical devices are purchased from foreigners. Foreign devices do not have to be FDA registered, even if they are high risk.

Aspen Laser explains:
https://www.aspenlaser.com/the-difference-between-fda-registered-fda-approved-and-fda-cleared/

Finally, if you care about copyright, and if a State, or state entity --such as a school or library or prison or tourism board or university etc-- has ripped off your copyrighted work, the Copyright Office wants to hear from you.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/copyrightinfringement


All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Galactic Gabbing: Confessions of a Word Slut

I’m a word slut. In fact, if there was a Wordaholics Anonymous, I’d be right there in the front row, ‘fessing up to my addiction. So it was with great interest I read Margaret Carter’s recent blog here, WATCHING LANGUAGE.

A professional etymologist, I’m not. Strictly amateur here, from a life-long love of reading and a life-long love of eavesdropping and people-watching. (In fact, consider the word: “eavesdropping.” Wow, what a wacko word when you realize what it actually says. I’d love to know what the lower edge of a roof has to do with being nosy though visually I can rather see it.) See, this is what I mean. I’m easily seduced whilst reading or conversing by a flirtatious set of letters.

I recently taught a writing workshop in the Orlando, Fl area and—not surprisingly—at the luncheon after several writers and I were discussing words (well, golfers talk about golf clubs and golf balls, the tools of their trade!). One gal—and apologies but I forget who told me this delightful anecdote—mentioned her editor (who is an Aussie, I believe) questioned her use of …”All of a sudden.” As in…ALL of a sudden? Show me HALF of a sudden.

Wow, what a wacko phrase. That received a delighted chortle from me. Half of a sudden. ::snort!:: Love it.

So that brings me to crafting languages—as I do in my books—for non-Earth based characters.

I’ve blogged a bit on that last year (in case you missed them). They’re articles originally published by SFROnline. You can find them here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/10/part-uno-speaking-in-alien-tongues.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2006/11/part-deux-swearing-in-alien-tongues.html

So I know I’ve warbled on this subject already. However, Margaret’s blog renewed my fervor for galactic gabbing and how it’s done.

It’s done just as we do it here. Depending on how you structure your Not-Earth culture, you hone done or fluff out their language in the same way. If they’re not spacefaring, if they’re xenophobic, then chances are—and I do love the comment by Anon on Margaret’s post—their language won’t remotely suffer from the “cribhouse whore” syndrome. It will probably be predominantly purely their own and—depending on how you structure their religion and politics—there may even be a penalty for using anything but their “pure” language.

Spacefaring cultures, to me, would be the most likely to have a real mixture and far more slang, simply do to the taint of continuous exposure to other cultures. Those would be the most fun to create and write.

The hard part is translating this—kinda sorta—into English. I know someone’s translated Shakespeare into Klingon. But for the most part, a NY publishing house is not going to buy an entire SF novel written in Vekran or Alarsh. So as an SF/SFR author, you have the daunting task of doing all this delightful linguistic work knowing 90 percent of it will be backstory, and never make the pages of the novel.

But you have to do it. It’s as much a part of your required world building as religion or politics. The entire galaxy does NOT speak English. Yes, your novel is written in English (or French or Portuguese or Russian) but you have to be aware, when you’re crafting character, dialogue, etc.., that your character is the product of a Non-Earth culture (if that is, in fact, the case). Your character IS his or her (or its) local galactic culture and will be aware of speech patterns (and differences) from other galactic cultures. Not only does everyone in the galaxy not speak English or Portuguese but they don’t speak Alarsh, either.

In the same way you’re away of the accents and speech patterns of those around you—in the supermarket, at the airport, at a meeting—your characters are aware of others’ word use, word choice and accent. There are differences in the same “planetary culture” just as there are here: someone from Alabama speaks differently from someone from Maine. Or London. It’s not just accent. It’s also slang. Cadence. Rapidity (or not) of speech. And at this point, it’s still the same language.

How about a “universal” language? In a spacefaring culture, I’d deem that possible. English has been crowned the official language of the air: commercial pilots and air traffic controllers all over this planet are required to speak English. There’s also Esperanto, that kind of one-size-fits-all attempt at a global language.

So I think it’s reasonable to posit an official language of the spaceways as long as you remember—when crafting characters and dialogue—that someone from Cirrus One Station may not pronounce the words in the same way that someone from Delos-5 would. Again, Alabama and Maine. Or even more, a Frenchman or Italian speaking English (as a secondary language) or an American speaking French (as a secondary language). There will be a noticeable accent. There will even be mispronunciations. Which lends to…unique characters and believable world building.

And slang—well, that’s my favorite part, as many of you know. Slang will be the one thread of constant miscommunication through it all. I have no idea why something that’s soda in New Jersey is pop in Michigan. But I really, really want to see a “half of a sudden.” And I want to know how my character would say it in Alarsh.


(From THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES by Linnea Sinclair, coming November 2007 from Bantam)

Blurb: After almost twenty years on the job, Bahia Vista homicide detective, Theo Petrakos, is used to the fact that almost everyone in Florida is from somewhere else. Then a mummified corpse and a room full of high tech computer equipment sends Guardian Force commander and intergalactic zombie hunter, Jorie Mikkalah, into his life. And ‘illegal alien’ takes on a whole new meaning...



The rear cargo door of the vehicle suddenly flew open. But no weapons turrets protruded, nothing lethal emerged. Jorie slowly let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding and watched him transfer the small black boxes to the rear cargo area. The long box went in, too. She was considering how to take him from behind when, damn! damn! He stepped back to the door on the navigator’s side, bent over and came out with the T-MOD in his grasp.

There it was. She had to take possession of it now. It shouldn’t be difficult. He was a nil, a civilian. She was an expertly trained military commander with the element of surprise.

She rose in one smooth, swift, practiced movement.

And her scanner screeched out an intruder alert.

Zombie.

So much for keeping a low profile.

“Run!” Jorie screamed at him, her heart pounding in her throat as she tabbed the laser in her right hand up to hard terminate. “Run!”

She grabbed her other laser and barreled across the lawn. “Drop the T-MOD! Run!” A sickly green glow formed in the night gloom off to her left. She laced the spot with both her lasers, aware the stupid nil was still standing there, T-MOD in his hands, staring at the expanding portal.

Just as she reached him the green cloud erupted into hard form maybe two maxmeters away, about level with the top of the high hedge. Its diameter was small. Bliss luck, she’d done some damage. But she hadn’t stopped it. Yet. She fired off three more bursts then swung around to face the nil, bringing her micro-rifle across her chest as she did. “Drop the unit, damn you!” Her breath was coming in hard gasps. “That’s a zombie. It’ll kill you!”

The man stared down at her. And then Jorie remembered: the entire universe did not speak Alarsh.

But that was the least of her problems. The zombie had arrived.



~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com
SFRomance from Bantam Spectra