Language

I'm still getting a malware warning & block on BuffyFaith so couldn't check that tonight. And I was halfway through checking various LiveJournal sites when LJ went down!! If you click on a link and get nowhere - or get that rather alarming goat and a 503 error - that's why. So there aren't as many links for you as normal. Though at least that means there'll be more links tomorrow.

I read Joan's ramble yesterday with a great deal of interest. And I definitely endorse her message to get a beta reader. And I would emphasise the point - a good beta reader. Not just a friend with worse grammar than your own, who just wants to read your story early *g*. The number of fanfics I've started to read, and abandoned in despair at the appalling spelling, grammar,and positive canyons in plot rather than simply holes, and the writer has thanked their beta...

A beta familiar with the place/fandom your story concerns is a good idea. If your story is set in England and you are not English it's a good idea to have an English beta. We do not have rattlesnakes, poison ivy, or - despite what Disney tells you - skunks in Europe. And yes, I've read stories with all those things. It applies both ways of course. If you aren't from the USA but your story is set there - have a beta from the USA.

Though proper editing can cause problems sometimes. With editors suggesting changes which go totally against correct usage in the variety of English being used. For example, in British English we don't tend to use the "m" dash. Nor is the use of the Oxford comma common. And that sentence is wrong to my mind, too. Though apparently correct in US English. Why?? Because I have a "nor" without a "neither". Either/or. Neither/nor. Using don't/nor or not/nor just doesn't sit well with me.

Although - I've grown used to reading stories in American English and consequently become accustomed to the Oxford comma. This means that I frequently find sentences in newspapers, or on British news websites, to be humorous that were intended to be very serious.

And in British English we still love the hyphen. There is a great deal of difference between no-one and no one.

And how about this - different to, different from, different than.

One of those is common British usage, one is common US American usage, one is correct. There is no overlap. (As far as I'm aware.)

And punctuation is different in some circumstances - full stops (periods) inside or outside parenthesis?? - depends which side of the pond you're on.

OK. I've quite possibly bored you all rigid now. *g*. You probably don't find language and dialect as fascinating as I do. (Only history is more interesting to me.) So I'll stop now.

See you tomorrow.

Ze

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