Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I’ve been waiting to read this book (it’s in my TBR pile)—but the “I’m outie” is cracking me up.

It sounds like a belly-button.

I do like that they are listening to something different—maybe in this case, though, my ignorance of (all types of) music and lyrics is for the best, so I get the sense of mood without the details. I’m still laughing my ass off at the dick in the ear. But then, Chris Rock…uh, rawks.

I’m all for ‘whack’ when it’s death, ‘wack’ when it’s weird.

Grr. I forgot to put my name and it erased my comment.

“Lead” as past tense makes me want to cry.  It’s so totally “led” and I would cut off my fingers before I’d write anything else.  I get defensive about English.  :)

Definitely don’t equate rap, hardcore or otherwise, with semi-bondage.  Sports jerseys and scantily-clad women, perhaps, but not chains and leather.

Finally, I spell it “whack.”

The past tense of “lead” is “led.”  No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.  “Lead” (pronounced “led”) is a metal, and that’s all.  This is simply one of those horrible misspellings that’s become painfully prevalent with the loss of real copyediting, IMHO.

I spell “whacked” with the h, whether referring to a mental state or a hit by the mob.  Not sure why, but I have a feeling Mr. Webster hasn’t rendered a judgment yet:-).

Candy, if we’re talking about the same book..& we might be, the names really got to me. The rap didn’t bother me too much & I missed the ‘outie’ reference. The thing that did bother me after a while was the constant use of ‘shitkicker’ when referring to the guys’ footwear. It seemed to be the only descriptive word available.

I reviewed this one in the last week or so.

I just checked my copy & I think we’re talking about the same book.

It’s “led” ... even all the way down here in New Zealand where we talk funny and add extraneous u’s to words like “colour” ... :)

Yeah, I know that book, and despite the exact same things that you mentioned that also bothered me, I pushed on and actually enjoyed the thing.  Then again, I like explosions an awful lot.  This book appeals to that pyromaniac in me, or dare I say it, the ‘whacked’ side of my personality?

And I second, third, and infinityth that the past tense of lead is led, and lead-pronounced-led is a metal, not a verb.  This is illustrated by the following example:

I will lead you to the explosives, I led you to the explosives, I smacked you with a lead pipe, and this is because deep down inside, I am truly whacked.”

Okay, now I’m outie.

YES YES YES! I put the book down several times at the beginning cuz WTF? I think the last time I heard *anyone* say outie was a lame MTV soap like 6 yrs ago. And that guy was stringy, pale, long haired, goateed and obviously a parody. Also, he said “Outie 5000,” which, if you’re gonna say such DATED shit that wasn’t even in when it was in, you gotta do it all.

The names, the slang, the (lack of) chemistry b/w h/h, the (lack of) interesting h/h period—it all was a bit trying at times. Once I accepted that it was all a little lame, I got pulled in.

And I am SO reading the rest.

SO WHAT’S THE BOOK, ALREADY?  Don’t y’all feel you have an obligation to name names to save the rest of us from this “outie” crisis?

And I’m with Meljean and the others—“wack” for crazy, and “whack” for making someone sleep with the fishes.

Led, definitely.

And I think everybody who’s read/is reading that book had a WTF moment at I’m outtie.  I do what I always do and assume the author’s from some other country.  But a savvy reader friend also tells me that the book is worth the hard-to-get-into front end, so I plug away at it.  It IS starting to hold my interest, and I’m starting to get into the readerly goodness.

And I always used whacked.  Wacky is simply wacky.  Somebody’s been whacked when there are two little bullet holes between his eyes.  But something that’s screwed up or somebody’s who’s not right in the head is also whacked, as in “out of whack.”  But I don’t know why nobody’s ever “in whack.”

Which is, of course, whacked.

Led.
Whack = hit
Wacky = crazy (although even I’m getting confused these days, so I’m sure if I’m wacky or whacky)

And just one more that really irks… Lighted instead of lit, even though lighted is now perfectly acceptable it still trips me up.

oh oh.. one more (no really I promise), off of. It’s off people, off…. I scooped the car keys off the table, not off of the table.

X

Candy, thanks for noticing. I work as a freelance copyeditor for medical journals. One of my favorite things to do is to change “lead” to “led.” It makes me feel that I have contributed to medical research. Let’s not even venture into “then” and “than.” Or—*shudder*—“effect” and “affect.”

Led, definitely. But you knew that already.

Hardcore rap? There’s no such beast anymore, as far as I know. It’s hip-hop, nobody calls it ‘rap’ anymore except for white guys in suits on Capitol Hill. And for a club like that, I’d expect—like you—White Zombie, Black Sabbath, Pantera, KMFDM, Laibach, fer chrissakes! Not ‘hardcore rap.’ Ugh.

And wack, not whack. Definitely. Keith Haring had that “Crack Is Wack” poster out back when that was in vogue, there was no ‘h’ there.

But I have no clue what book you’re talking about.

Editor’s perspective…

Led. And the assessment that it’s a missed typo, I agree with, because I’ve corrected them. Many, many times.

I presume what they meant by hardcore was the lyrics, not any ability to be menacing, but yeah, I’m for White Zombi myself. Even Lords of Acid would me more freaky.

As for the whacking off…our house style:

Whack if bitchslap, interjection, or mob hit.

Wacky for weird.

For the slang term meaning out of style or dorky, the proper spelling is wack. I got this from several teenagers and teen magazines, and I figure they should know. I wouldn’t want to be wack.

Finally, not big stud man would say “I’m outie” unless it’s following with an announcement of coming out of the closet.

I agree that any kind of rap doesn’t quite seem right at a bondage club. But there IS hardcore rap/hip-hop out there, and it doesn’t get played on MTV. Li’l Jon is crossover, baby.

Led, yes. Wack, no. And can I just say that “mic” as the abbreviation for microphone just drives me insane?

But there IS hardcore rap/hip-hop out there, and it doesn’t get played on MTV.

I have no doubt—and I don’t even watch MTV any more. So that gives you an idea of how out of touch I am with modern rap and hip-hop. It says volumes that the most hardcore I can come up with is Lil Jon….

A friend of mine who’s really into rap is into Californian Socialist rap. I had no idea there was such a beast, but apparently, there is.

And can I just say that “mic” as the abbreviation for microphone just drives me insane?

Similarly, I’ve sometimes seen people abbreviate refrigerator as “frig,” which makes me giggle no end. And then there are the people who spell refrigerator, “refridgerator.” Which I sometimes do, actually. *guilt*

Also, wack is not wacky. I just made a dumbass assumption a while back that it stems from the term wacky, since wack is usually used to mean something fucked-up, off, and/or lame. But Shannon has a good point about off-whack.

Should we start a Society for the Proper Usage of Led?

And Darlene: here are a few more clues about the book:

- It’s a vampire novel
- It was published very, very recently
- The names for the male characters are tres, tres silly. Just about every blogger I know of has bitched about how retarded those names are.
- At least one person who’s posted here has reviewed the book on her blog very, very recently. *heavy hint*

Yes, I’m still playing coy. I’m feeling perverse tonight.

Bitch!

languages changes, so you’ll just have to get over the shift in participles.

Verbs in English fall into two larger groups, strong and weak. The strong verbs are the ones where the vowel changes with the tense (speak-spoke-spoken) and the weak ones where the vowel stays the same and a bound morpheme /d/ is added (walk-walked-walked).

Over the last two hundred years or so, strong verbs have been migrating over to the weak category. So you get variation… she swam/she swimmed I dove/I dived. As a corollary to this you get the simple past form shifting into the spot where the past participle used to be. (I had gone / I had went).

It’s not a character flaw or laziness or poor education (especially if we’re talking about spoken language; written language is a difference kettle of fish, more complex).

Language changes. Inevitable, unstoppable. Really not worth a pair of twisted knickers.

I still wanna know where the kick-ass guy named Phucked went to.  Maybe he’s so whacked he’s not innie yet?

It is led.

I use the ‘h’ in whack/ed.  I looked up whack on dictionary.com (o.k., I"m anal) and found these (all informal sayings/idioms): ‘out of whack’....not functioning properly, ‘I’ll take/have a whack at it’...I’ll try and ‘he’s whacked’ or ‘whacked out’ ...under the influence of drugs, crazy or exhausted.

I want to know who is actually saying ‘he swimmed’ instead of ‘he swam’.  I haven’t heard that…think I’ll want to whack someones tongue out when I do.

Sam

Don’t EVEN get me started on its/it’s.

I vote:
He led them to the treasure and when the wacky lady tried to take the lead, he whacked her in the head with a lead pipe.

Outtie is so, like, uncool. Like the word “like” used, like, all the time. You know, like, what I mean? Like?

Don’t EVEN get me started on its/it’s.

Guilty, guilty.

I do this all the time. I swear I know how and where to use them appropriately, it’s just… I type one a thousand times more than the other and my brain goes on autopilot.

And shit! I’m a lazy blogger.

X

What kills me is that many people, who want to be published, say that it’s not their job to learn English grammar and usage because it’s their—IF they ever get published—editor’s job to fix these mistakes.

:angry:

Laughing my head off at “Phucked”. Maybe it’ll be the seventh book?

The names do seem they’d be…well, annoying, and stupid, but I’m thinking if I could get past Lucivar, Daemon and Saetan in Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy, I’ll do okay.

And, although it pains me to read about Demons and Devils in regency-set historicals, I eventually read on through. It can’t be much worse than that, can it?

Led, for sure. I’ve always associated whack with killing and wack with weird.

What kills me is that many people, who want to be published, say that it’s not their job to learn English grammar and usage because it’s their—IF they ever get published—editor’s job to fix these mistakes.

I’m sorry, but that is seriously whacked!  If you want to get published, then be professional about it.  The easier you make it for an editor, the more willing they will be to work with you.  Personally, as an editor, I will mention the lack of grammar skills in my editing notes, then make the author fix it.

And it’s led; no doubt.

As to the changeability of the language, that’s true; although geographic idiosyncrasies must also bear responsibility for the increasing discombobulation of English.

The English language: where there is an exception to every rule.

“So you get variation… she swam/she swimmed I dove/I dived. As a corollary to this you get the simple past form shifting into the spot where the past participle used to be. (I had gone / I had went).”

Knickers in a knot!!  Oh, they’re in a knot alright!

What happens when my Godchildren do this?  I swimmed in the fast lane Aunt Cindy!  No, you swam in the fast lane.

I seriously don’t know how this comes about?  But, if it has been changing over the last 200 years then wouldn’t that have come up in school.

Course just say schedule like shed-ule and I will go apeshit.  Do you go to shool? Are you a sholar?  NO.  You go to School - skool, you make the scholar - skolar list and it is set to a schedule - sked-ule!!!

Whoops.

It also used to drive me crazy that my brother would refer to ‘last night’ as ‘yesterday night’.  Yeah, I mocked the bejeesus out of him.  Two years ago I heard a news reporter use this term and I sat in front of the TV with my jaw on the floor.  Hubby patted my head and said ‘there, there’.  My brother has infected the english language!!

So tell me, is it last night or yesterday night?

Someone else brought up the lit/lighted thing but I am getting used to it along with hung/hanged - I like the way hanged sounds but I only equate that with an execution not hanging up a picture.

Oh, and it is led, just so you know.

The novel Candy was talking about was Dark Lover (teehee) and the brotherhood has these names that are hilarious.  Anyone wonder how the one brother ended up with Darius as a name.  Yo, this is Wrath, Pissed, Torment and Darius.  (only one of those names is real to the book.)  Just wondering if you have to have a bad ass name to be part of the brotherhood.  I’m sure I’ll find out because I got sucked into the book.  My fav. character Butch.

CindyS - obvious willing to bring all the peeves out of the closet!

Re: the club atmosphere, maybe this is more what you had in mind.

Well, pooh. The href tag didn’t take. Anyway, here’s the link all by its lonesome.

http://ruthlessreviews.com/top10/10blackmetal.html

I’m glad someone else mentioned “lighted.”  That word drives me nuts.  I don’t mind “he lighted the fire,” but when an author writes “his eyes lighted up” it hurts my head.  I don’t know why it works in one context but not in the other, but maybe it’s like hung/hanged.  I don’t know. And I don’t care if it’s correct, either… I just hate seeing “his eyes lighted up.”  Aaaarghh.

With regards to the vampire romance we’re all discussing, I liked it quite well, except for the names.  The hero’s name was spelled correctly, and it didn’t bother me much (a little over the top, but I could live with it).  I didn’t like all the misspelled names, though—dragged me out of the story every time I saw one, which was a lot. Misspellings, even deliberate ones, annoy me.

But the music references didn’t bother me.  I don’t listen to hip-hop, so I confess I probably wouldn’t know “hardcore rap” from Barry Manilow. Which would be interesting, actually.. just imagine all those big tough leather-clad dudes listening to “I Write the Songs.”

*Cringes at image and claps hands over ears*

Thank you nice people (who aren’t Candy, I might add) and told me the name of the series.  I hadn’t planned on reading it, but forewarned is forearmed.

And as to the swam/swimmed thing, OMG, that’s a plot device in my upcoming release, CAPTAIN SINISTER’S LADY!  I kid you not—the roughly educated hero is ringing a peal over the heroine for swimming alone:

“I know how to swim!”
“Oh do you?” he said.  “And when you swimmed back in bloody England, did you ever encounter jellyfish?  Or sharks?  Or an undertow?”
“Swam.” she muttered.
“What?”
“It is not ‘swimmed’, it is ‘swam’.  ‘I swim to the shore, I swam away from the shore.’”

Honest—it’s not another effort on my part to grab at cheap promotion opportunities, it really is written like that!

Victoria:

yeah, there is hardcore hip-hop out there, no doubt, but nobody call’s it ‘rap’ anymore, at least not in the hip-hop community. That’s what I meant, sorry if it sounded like I meant the music itself had gone away.

I still wanna know where the kick-ass guy named Phucked went to.  Maybe he’s so whacked he’s not innie yet?

Not nice to make Dr. Pepper come out my nose this early in the morning.

Led, definitely.

“I"m outie”, no way, very wrong.

Two more that drive me nuts…

when people write “of coarse”.  I have a couple of good friends who do this ALL THE TIME!!  It’s a wonder I have teeth left from gritting them when I read that.

And one I hear on TV all the time that drives me insane is the thing where people seem to have decided that they should neverEverEVER use the word “me”, even though sometimes, people “me” is the right word instead of “I”!  When I hear someone say something like “come to the store with Joe and I”, I have been known to shriek out loud.

I will admit though, that I’m often guilty of the its/it’s thing.  Like someone else said, I KNOW the rule, but sometimes when I’m typing in a hurry it slips by me.

I am too much of an Artiste to be bothered with such things as grammar and syntax. *sniffs self-righteously*  I will leave all that nonsense up to you folks.

In the immortal words of myself:  those who can, do.  Those who can’t are clueless.

I own my cluelessness.  Proudly.

On another matter, whack or wack or however you want to spell it as it pertains to being inferior/crappy/weird is always singular.  For example:

Them shoes are straight whack yo.

However, from what I understand, using whack this way is totally late 90s.  I think it has since been replaced with foshizzle or something.

Somehow I got past all the contrived names with their contrived spellings by deciding that they were assumed names that somehow went along with belonging to the warrior society. I don’t remember if there was something in the book that hinted at that, or if I just came up with it in order to settle my brain and let me read without being distracted. Either way, it worked for me.

What I want to know is where in the Rules does it say that vampires have to be moody and angst-ridden? Authors like Charlaine Harris and MaryJanice Davidson create vampires who are a little lighter, but still…

Just once I would like to read a vampire saying: “Hell yeah, I love being a vampire. I begged the cute chick with the teeth to bite me. Been partying ever since, for 400 years.”

I like tormented heroes a lot, but a little variety would be nice.

I still wanna know where the kick-ass guy named Phucked went to.  Maybe he’s so whacked he’s not innie yet?

AAAAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*falls over*

And what about their REALLY disreputable cousins, Dohnkepuhnche and Ehnel Phister?

I think it has since been replaced with foshizzle or something.

OK, true story: A while back, I heard a teenage guy in the heart of downtown Portland say on the cellphone “Where you at? I’m already down-tizzle.”

The memory of that still makes me drum my feet with glee. DOWN-TIZZLE. A couple of months later, I wrote the following Thanksgiving note to a friend of mine to whom I’d told the story: “Have a Happy Thanksgizzle, and hope you enjizzle the hizzle out of that turkizzle.”

That dude was an inspiration.

Thanks to reading, therapy and embracing my inner dialect, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that language is constantly evolving. I can even accept that a “standard” language is a relatively modern and artificial construction that has certain negative associations.

I no longer go through my days wielding my copy of the OED like a blunt instrument. “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” is a guilty pleasure to be read only under the bedclothes with a torch, err… flashlight. (Gotta love that linguistic diversity). My wince when I encounter something like “It’s powerful engine” is barely perceptible.

Still, I cannot restrain myself in one instance. I must, must, must spit in the face of the hideous, “should of” for “should have” or even “should’ve”. Gaaaarrrgggghhhh.

EvilAuntiePearl—first, please don’t be insulted, but that is a perfect name for my next dog. I love that name.

second, I agree, it’s hard to give up those language assumptions. What books/courses got you that far, can I ask?

third, “should of” for “should have” grates, okay, but it’s really interesting in terms of morphological reanalysis. What we are seeing is the creation of a bound morpheme. An example of the morphology of English evolving.  In a hundred years or more, the modal verb tense will be something like this: Today I should wash my hair. Yesterday I shouldv washed my hair.

It’s very cool, really. Like finding a fish with legs.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned “disconnect” used as a noun. Makes me fucking ape shit. As in, “There is a disconnect between the candidate and the party.”

No you fucking moron, there is a disconnection. TION!!! You can disconnect the candidate and party by cutting off their phone service, but if they simply don’t agree on something or aren’t communicating it’s a DISCONNECTION.

I see it in the newspaper. I hear it on CNN. God, why won’t these people learn how to speak bloody English? Why? WHY?! And why can’t half of them pronounce the word “important”? It’s not im-por-ent. I semi-quote Eddie Izzard, It’s im-port-ant, cause there’s a fucking ‘t’ in the middle of it.

Tonda—maybe it’s time to cut back on the coffee?

Hardcore rap?
What about Anthrax + Public Enemy?

Vampires, leather, chains and stuff?
Type O Negative, with the guy that posed on Playgirl.

Don’t drink coffee. Just can’t stand morons.

I will say that, “rocking on the mic” aside, I embrace the evolution of the language. Most of the so-called rules were created out of whole cloth anyway. “Don’t end a sentence with preposition”, for example, was pulled from some self-important teacher’s ass.

Let’s face it, our Foremothers would be horrified that We don’t capitalize Nouns anymore! Or I assume that’s what they were doing. They might have been capitalizing all their favorite words, for all I know.

BUT, there is a difference between evolving language and not knowing grammar in the first place. I love Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, because it explained why I think the comma should be left off before “and” in a list, and why other people don’t. We are all beautiful in our own ways, bitches. And I love making nouns out of verbs and verbs out of adjectives. (Tonda, I’m gonna kick your ass in Atlanta! And I’m gonna scream “DISCONNECT!” while I’m doing it :bug: ! And this will be your chance to whup my ass into submission for writing a corsetless heroine. You know you’ve been waiting for the chance.)

Shakespeare made up lots of words, and I am arrogant enough to do the same. Words are art, not engineering. I think “eachother” should be one word, and I’m not going to rest until I’ve won!

“that is a perfect name for my next dog”

Sara, not insulted at all about the dog name. Actually, quite enjoy the thought of a namesake gambolling free across open meadows. Or at least doing all those dog things that I can’t because of a decorum gene.

“What books/courses got you that far, can I ask?”

It’s all pretty new to me, actually. It was kicked off by a few casual footnotes in some post-colonial research. Since then I’ve read the some of the more accessible suspects (tend to avoid the ones with too many scaaary big words and funny symbols), but I suppose my epiphany came about while reading David Crystal’s “The Stories of English”. His approach really worked for me, probably because of my secret identity as a historian and his lovely long examples. He’s also really interesting when it comes to writing dialect. But would really welcome any recommendations.

It is really hard to let go of ideas about “standard” or correct English, and probably harder the more you love the language. But it’s quite liberating to realise that no one actually owns it, too.

EvilAuntie—

Pardon the self promotion, but the standard college text on this subject (and it was written as a introduction, and not for linguists) is *English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States* by Rosina Lippi (=me. SD is my penname). If you ever have a look at it, please let me know what you thought.

What is so difficult in these discussions is that people conflate very different things and talk about them as if they were one and the same: written and spoken language, punctuation and grammar, grammar and style.

For all you word artists out there, I highly recommend “The Mother Tongue”. Bill Bryson, maybe? Good, nerdy fun. Those Saxons were crazy, yo!

You can drive your Significant Other crazy with word trivia they don’t want to know! OMG, do you know why we call cow meat “beef” and not “cow”?!?  Fashunating.

simple version:

pre 1066. Britons speak an English that is primarily Germanic in structure and lexicon.

1066 Normans invade, take over, boot the Saxon types out of positions of power. Saxons = farmers, laborers; Normans = power and money.

Saxons (Germanic speaking): cow, calf, etc etc
Norman (Romance/French speaking): bouef, veal, etc etc

So Saxons raised and butchered cows, but Normans were the ones eating the beef. Lots of pairs like this. Raise sheep, eat mutton. Raise pigs, eat pork.

Made me think of Sean Connery, which in turn made me think of that series of Celebrity Jeopardy skits on SNL

Jesus, Candy, you made me snort. Those are some of my favorite skits. His last few insults to Trebek are always classic. If only I could remember them five minutes later. 

It’s been years since I read the book, so pardon any ignorance, but. . .

When the Normans invaded England, French became the language of the upper classes. So the lowly Saxon servants (read: us) still called the animals cow and chicken and pig, but on the table, they were referred to by their French names like bif or beouf or whatever the French word was back then. These later evolved into the words beef and poultry and pork, still used in the uppity kitchen today.

Jeez, I hope Sara Donati’s not reading this and laughing at my ignorant fumblings. Oh, gawd! Ignorant fumbling. It’s junior high all over again!

Holy shit, I was right! I love you, Sara!

I don’t know if anybody’s done this yet because being grammatically-challenged, I’m skimming comments lest the shame of my literary shortcomings cause me to curl into a fetal position *g*, but I checked in the book and in the same scene as “hardcore rap” is mentioned, the bands Ludacris and Cypress Hill are mentioned.  (Assuming they’re bands and not some hip new word I don’t know about.)

And it’s turning into quite a good read. The guys are intriguing in individual ways, and the secondary characters are awesome so far. It’s definitely worth turning a blind eye to names reminiscent of a 15-year-old girl’s D&D Dream Team.  I’ve convinced my subconscious they’re superhero names, like Storm and Wolverine. It seems to be working.

Now I can’t get the cat from “BABE” out of my head.

They only call you pig while you’re alive.

My sides hurt from laughing so hard!

I am so going to buy that Eat Shoots and Leaves book.

Should’ve is a bad thing?  Sorry, that one I’m guilty of.  As well as taking the keys off of the table.  I may need an explaination for that one ;)

Its/It’s - has been explained to me one too many times and I still get the shakes when I have to use it.  I will google and see if I can get the explaination one more time - I will print it out in large print, frame it and hang it above the computer!

As for animals vs food - absolutely fasinating.  I had no clue - a shock I know but, hey.

CindyS (going to the kitchizzle for my lunchizzle - hmmm, I’m not sure it works for me)

Victoria—I think we must have been writing our comments at the same time. And thanks for the love, I can always use more.

CindyS,

Lordy knows I’m not a grammarian, but off of bugs the heck out of me. I’m sure there’s someone here much more knowledgable that can answer this (hey, and maybe I’m entirely wrong)

but my understanding of ‘of’ is, its role is to connect a noun or a pronoun with a preceding noun (usually).

The Duke of Wellington
The light of my life

In the example sentence, I scooped the keys off of the table,  neither ‘keys’ nor ‘off’ has the type of relationship with the table that requires of.

Dats my convoluted bassackwards explanation. Did I mention I’m only a nodding acquaintance with grammar?

X

It’s easy to be misled by spellings. When the word “have” occurs in a sentence in an unstresssed spot (and this is the spoken language I’m talking about), it goes through the normal process of assimilation to the sounds around it. So you get only the /v/ sound.

Assimilation (where sounds adapt to the sounds around them) is a normal and unavoidable thing in spoken language. Jeet yet? for Did you eat yet is an example—the aveolar stop /d/ assimilates to a fricative because of the features of the vowels that follow it.

More than you wanted to know, right? The simple take is this: people may write “of” instead of “have” but it’s not because they’ve confused the two words. If you asked them to read the sentence outloud slowly, they would substitute “have” for the “of”. The grammar is still intact, it’s just it’s representation in writing that is showing the effects of changes in morphological structure.

As far as sheep/mutton, here’s how it goes:

Sheep is from the Germanic root /schaf/. You don’t get the word ‘sheep’ in French. French call that animal ‘mouton’. When the Normans took over in England, a lot of French words were borrowed into English, so we have a vocabulary that’s comparatively huge.  We’ve got doubles for thousands of words. help/asssistance (the Germanic word is the older one in English; the second, French-origin one is newer, borrowed in post 1066). Another pair: stone/rock.

So the Saxons used the word ‘sheep’ for the animal and the meat, then the Normans came along, and eventually everybody was using ‘sheep’ for the animal and ‘mutton’ for the meat. 

In German, “schwein” is the animal and the meat both (pig). I don’t know enough French to provide pairs from that language.

And now I’ve highjacked this thread long enough. I’ll go quietly.

So how come (there’s one!) no one has mentioned “which” vs. “that” and “lay” vs. “lie”?

I’ve read so many comments I don’t remember who said what, but I’m with whomever (that is the right one, yes?  please???) it was who said that grammar is important in narration, but that too much precision wrecks dialog.  Or whacks it out, or something. I especially hate when authors refuse to use contractions, so all their characters sound like Commander Data.  Love him, but I don’t think most book characters should be channeling him.

Oh, and that “between you and I” thing?  Drives me BUGGY!!!

My guess on the French situation is that it’s a kind of linguistic cross contamination, but you’re right, we’d need a linguist who specializes in romance languages to tell for for sure.

This copyeditor says it’s led, whack/whacked (as in, out of whack), and that spelling characters names with funny constructions is so very 90s (think Hackers).

When I read the bit about the hardcore rap I thought they were talking about that rap/metal mix. Because the nightclub I saw was hte one from The Matrix. Just me, though.

My biggest pet peeve is impact as a verb.

I’m with Sandy W on the happy-go-lucky vampires. I always liked the scene in Buffy when Spike made a case for loving being a vampire in this world, where the people are Happy Meals on legs.

The English language: where there is an exception to every rule.

English has RULES?

I’ve never found any. I go by: if it sounds funny, it’s probably corret. :-)

Let me just say that I wrote a “happy” vampire. I nice, funny guy who got great reviews from contest judges, friends, my agent, and editors. People LOVE him.

BUT!!! Two editors have assured me that they love my writing, the story’s great, it makes them laugh, and the dreaded “probably someone else will buy it”, but for them it’s just “too quiet” for a crowded market. My guy is simply not bloodhthirsty *kof* enough. He’s not tortured and he’s not mean.

Fuck it. I sent them the next one (with the tortured vampire hero), and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe I can sneak the I’m Okay/You’re Okay vampire in later.

Hmmm…I seem to be loosing the thread of this conversation.

Sorry, I should have marked my post Off Topic. 

Back on topic. . . Yeah, Ludacris doesn’t really say hardcore to me. Wasn’t he on Oprah last week? *snicker* I’m serious!

Tonda: “They only call you pig while you’re alive.” Ouch!

And maybe the French were always too classy to yell, “Woman! Bring more cow to the table.” Unlike my Viking ancestors, who probably just put the whole animal on a slab in the middle of the room, fur and all.

Your Viking ancestors were too drunk to notice any difference anyway.

Wait *looks at her own family tree and sees a bunch of kilted Scots singing in Gaelic, and wrong, too*

Shouldn’t say anything about Vikings. :-)

Clearly I should have marked my comment tongue-in-cheek since you all seem to have missed the “loose” reference. I must be the only one who hears fingernails on achalkboard when loose is used instead of lose.

I saw it Angie, and like you, it drives me bonkers too. I just figured you were one of the challenged ones. Besides I make enough spelling mistakes I can’t exactly throw stones. Another one—definAtely, but like I said, I can’t talk when I can never get -able/-ible straight.

X

Jesus, Angie, that is one of MY pet peeves and I almost thought you were kidding and I almost said something. I should have just taken the chance of humiliating you in front of your peers, you loose woman.

Vicki, who’s laughing and snorting again (or should I say “whose”?)

Hey, ten years ago I would’ve sworn up and down that definitely was spelled “definently.” Wait, I’m loosing my focus.  This is as bad as one of those multiple choice spelling tests. They always ended with me screaming in my head, “Clearly none of these choices are actual words!”

Does anyone else have this problem? The longer I stare at a word, the less word-like it becomes. Posting to writers’ loops is too much pressure. I need a drink.

Yep yep… clearly allways is alright.

X

I just read the excerpt on Amazon, and I have to ask, what does “off the chain” mean?  And how about “consumption was a binary proposition”?  And yet another: “patois of sounds”.  Patois is the name of a Jamaican dialect or something! 

And lighted, hanged, swammed, and all those others are just wrong.  I do understand that spoken language is different from written, but for me the difference is a change in degree of formality.  If you speak English, or even that bastard child American, you should still be able to put a thought together that is comprehensible and have it come out of your mouth in the same manner.

Other things wrong with American weirdness.  The way the date is put together.  Why, oh why, is it month/day/year ?????

I could really go on forever about the things that are just wrong with the way people speak nowadays, but I will leave you with the one thing that absolutely, every single time makes me want to kick something.  I am a good person, and do good.  As in feed the hungry, clothe the naked.  I am doing well, as in I am not dying and my day is going pretty well, too.  ARGH.

Yeah, maybe I wasn’t too clear with what my Argh moment was reaching for.  You can put it down to not being able to type it because it is so painful, or that I am just that scattered.

No ‘I am doing good’, unless it involves the previously mentioned clothing and feeding.  Doing good does not denote any sort of inner feeling you may be having, it does not express a state of mind.  Grrrr.

Its/It’s - has been explained to me one too many times and I still get the shakes when I have to use it.

Its—belonging to it. 
It’s—It Is.  The ’ is your clue that two words have formed a mystic union and become one, unable to tell where one starts and the other begins, their souls entwining in a ecstatic explosion of ecstasy…

Ahem.  Sorry.  Been writing too much smut lately, if such a thing is possible.  *ggg*

That’s just how I remember it.  Either that, or I think, “Okay, now how does it work for the rest of the language?  Yeah, so its is opposite.”

I actually liked Dark Lover despite the listed peeves.  Although I did wonder why Ward wrote all of members of the brotherhood so “black” w/o featuring even one black member.  I mean, hey, Darius?  Why not Jamal?  Just curious:  What is it about black idiom that suddenly makes someone “down with it” (so to speak).  Does the blackspeak make the “brothers” seem more dangerous, and therefore more appealing?  Hell, these characters spoke more black idiom than I do, but then again I’m a middle-aged black woman, so what do I know.

I couldn’t help remembering a line spoken by Louise Jefferson to a “hep” tupperware lady on an episode of “All in the Family” (paraphrasing):  I wish I were white so I understand all this black slang.”

My own linquistic pet: peeve:  “Nauseous” (causing nausea) used instead of “nauseated” (suffering from nausea)

“there are at least two similar pairs in French (vache/boeuf and cochon/porc)”

Candy’s right, there is a distinction between what you eat and what you rear in French too (boeuf/vache & porc/cochon) but it’s not totally clear-cut.

“Boeuf” is also the word for a steer, or the eunuch of the species (guess if he can’t swing his manly thing, not only is he unlikely to feature on bovine romance novel covers, but he’s nothing more than ambulatory steak… although don’t people eat lady cows too?)

Cochons are a bit odd too, but don’t want to be boring, and porcine hijackings are just too way-out for a romance site. Eunuch cattle fit in so much better, of course.

Disclaimer: Never studied French linguistics (too many scaaaary long words and mysterious symbols in them thar’ books), so haven’t got a clue why, that’s just the way it seems to be.

I have to ask, what does “off the chain” mean?

Ohmigod, nothing to do with anything, but I was listening to the Howard Stern show this morning on the way to work, and everybody was talking about how amazing Stevie Wonder guest appearance was yesterday. Robin started saying it was off the hook, then Artie Lange cut in and said “I use ‘off the chain.’”

I snort-laughed SO HARD.

Although I did wonder why Ward wrote all of members of the brotherhood so “black” w/o featuring even one black member.

See, I think it’s an attempt to indicate that the characters are young, urban, hip and with it. Personally, though, I think a lot of the slang is going to go the way of “groovy.”

oh, oh, i know how the “vache/boeuf and cochon/porc” thing works! and my mom said learning french when i live in california would be a waste of time. :P whoever made the “one is the live animal and one is the meat” comment is exactly right. vache is the word for a live (living? damn you grammar nazis, getting me all confuzzled!) cow (as in “tu parles francais comme une vache espange”, a grave insult which literally translates to “you speak french like a spanish cow”), and cochon is the word for a live pig (as i found out when i used the word porc to call someone a pig in a class skit; mme. magnelia asked if i was calling him a ham or a porkchop, since cochon is the word for the animal).

as for dark lover, the outie comment at the beginning threw me for a loop too. but it was completely overshadowed by worse “omgwtf?!” moments further in. to cut and past from my post on it elsewhere (stop if you plan to read the book, spoilers ahead):

the names, oh good fucking god, the names. they’re awful. they’re stupid. they drive my inner spelling nazi nuts. the judicious application of extra letters (‘h’ being the popular choice) and creative spelling of common words is the stupidest bloody idea authors have had in a long time. these guys are big, macho, hyper-testosteroned badasses and they will fuck you up; they are a breed/culture/society not in any way similar to us poor helpless mortals, and their world is fantastical and exotic. i get that, i really do. what i don’t get is the author’s unwavering faith that i will suspend my belief in logic enough to find the idea of parents naming their child “vishous” (and during the 17th freaking century, no less!) a plausible notion.

woman with little to no sexual interest/experience is nearly raped, big hulking stranger shows up on her balcony the same night, scares the shit out of her, bhs comes back the next night, blows magic cigarette smoke in her face, and she turns into raging slut and practically rapes him. do i really need to elaborate on the wrong?

I finished The Book last night, and I have one quick, final thought (and yes, I know the conversation’s pretty much moved on.)

Despite all the things mentioned, I’m dying for the next one in the series. The different members of the Brotherhood are incredibly interesting, despite their silly names, and I need all my questions about them answered, dammit.  And with all the events that take place in the second half of the book, I think the series is going to go in an awesome direction.

So, despite all the things other readers and I…me…I…me…I have mentioned here, it’s a really good read. *g*

If I did a 15-page test in the store, it wouldn’t have passed mine, either.  But my short kid doesn’t like standing around, so I have to grab and go.  Having already spent the money might give me more incentive to push past the first few chapters.  And I’m glad I did.

Personally, though, I think a lot of the slang is going to go the way of “groovy.”

...

Romances are in print so briefly, I have wondered about this issue ... of dated slang and dated product placement in contemporaries.

Was reading a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book in which the heroine is seduced while wearing one PowerPuff Girl sock. I thought, “That may need a footnote in a couple years.”

Maybe some of these books are more like periodicals than I’ve previously thought, and they are published to sell as many copies as possible within six months, while the buzz lasts. Maybe they nearly have an expiration date on them because no one in the industry expects them to be read in four or five years.

If so, that’s sad, cause we respect them more than the publishers. There we all are, on eBay & etc., hunting down the fine, O.P. books that are so good, you could read them at any time in the future and still love them.

Well, if we wait long enough, some of these contemporaries may look thrillingly “retro.” In 2015, some ironic, high/low culture-loving female may find the slang in “Dark Lover” as quaint as we do the hard-boiled detective fiction slang of 1940s.