MU Peeves Thread

[Roz]

@Omen said in MU Peeves Thread:

I am guilty of writing with a hanging ‘g’ in a game I’m in at present, with a bit of ‘wanna’ and ‘gonna’ but otherwise that’s about as extreme as I think it ever gets. It seems like there’s a pretty wide range of examples listed here. Is there generally some kind of more acceptable standard for writing accents (such as, not at all)?

At any rate, I feel bad for inflicting that on people unintentionally. I can see how it might be an issue.

You shouldn’t feel bad; some hanging G’s, wanna’s, and gonna’s are definitely not what folks are complaining about. (I, for one, currently do the things you’re talking about here!)

[Snackness]

@Omen I am all hanging g’s, gonnas and wannas on the character I currently play. Those things don’t bother me at all.

[Cobalt]

@Snackness Idk why but this post triggered a memory from when I was like fifteen where I got absolutely incensed at a chat buddy for using “gonna” or maybe it was “finna” in like casual conversation.

(At fifteen I was convinced only 100% strict “proper” English was correct. At fifteen I was an asshole.)

A couple of years later I went on to write out a southern accent like “Ah am (name). Yuh gahts a purdeh mouf”.

I’m curious has anyone ever asked someone to stop writing out their accent? Had it gone badly?

(Also side note I went to read a book once and the non dialogue was written normally, but all the dialogue was written like the author spent too much time on Scottish twitter and I couldn’t understand a word and immediately returned it…)

[Gashlycrumb]

@Cobalt I’ve never asked someone to stop writing an accent.

I have been asked to stop writing an accent myself. I have never been asked to stop writing an accent politely, it’s always been snippy fuckery along the lines of, “Stop that, it’s so obnoxious, some people use screen-readers you know!” I comply without comment, biting back the impulse to ask, “Does anyone in the scene right now use a screen-reader or are you just trying to pretend your personal preference is morally superior?”

I don’t really mind, and would actually be happy to do so if people were courteous. As is, well, they can’t see me roll my eyes at them and complying is less boring and annoying than trying to play Miss Manners, though not always less boring and annoying than avoiding them in the future.

When asked to stop typing an accent that is composed of the occasional substitution if ‘ee’ for ‘i’ and ‘zh’ for ‘th’ and a whole bunch of grammatical errors, I’ve fixed the spelling and ignored further comments about the remaining ‘accent.’

When people complain that it’s just somehow bad practice in writing, I tend to respond with this:

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae’s behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah’m gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae use smack? They won’t let ye dae it. They won’t let ye dae it, because it’s seen as a sign ay thir ain failure."
– Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting.

I have a much easier time understanding Welsh than I do certain American slang.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Jumpscare

Don’t think you can use online translation tools for this either.

American/Canadian English to Glaswegian Scots is just something that hasn’t been properly automated. Until I can find an algorithm that can properly figure out just when “bawbag” should enter a sentence, I will cling to this stance.

[Snackness]

@Cobalt I have never asked anyone to stop it. I just come to this place and bitch about it.

(that’s not true, I bitched at WORA and MSB, this place didn’t exist when the accents were thick on the ground)

[Gashlycrumb]

@SpaceKhomeini said in MU Peeves Thread:

Until I can find an algorithm that can properly figure out just when “bawbag” should enter a sentence, I will cling to this stance.

AI will never manage this, and in Scotland, CAPTCHA asks you to correctly place ‘bawbag’ in a pre-generated sentence.

BUT just throwing it in randomly works about 80% of the time.

[hellfrog]

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae’s behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah’m gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae use smack? They won’t let ye dae it. They won’t let ye dae it, because it’s seen as a sign ay thir ain failure."
– Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting.

This is terrible, and I hate reading it. I’m sorry.

[Pavel]

I will say that lots of what people are picking out as accents, like cannae and dinnae etc aren’t actually just accents, they’re elements of Scots. A language (or dialect, depending on your definition) all its own.

A minor gripe, to be sure, but fuck lexical essentialism.

[Gashlycrumb]

@hellfrog And yet it’s a much-praised work, in spite of not winning a Booker and Welsh griping that the Booker is “imperialist” and “anti-Scottish.”

I don’t think Welsh is so great.

Maybe it doesn’t technically count as a “spelled out accent” but is Scots language.

And

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An’ fellow-mortal!

etc

ETA Robbie Burns

[Polk]

@Pavel Right. The reason that, for example, Auld Lang Syne has so many strange words in it that it’s not in English. It’s in Scots.

And well, a Scottish person jabbering away in Scots is going to be virtually unintelligible to most people. So you might as well just write <Scots intensifies>, or at least outright emit that <you probably wouldn’t understand but a word being said here> so people don’t feel the need to try to parse it.

[Snackness]

Y’all got me. It’s not that I hate typed out dialect, it’s that I hate Scots and I’m an unread bumpkin.

[Pavel]

@Polk There’s also the consideration that some folks can parse it rather easily, either natively or through exposure; therefore they simply don’t know that others can’t. So it’s not intended to be annoying, it’s just how they or people around them use language. So tell them.

[Polk]

@Pavel Absolutely right. Assume the best, and you often get just that.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Snackness Naw, you hate typed out dialect. You’re allowed.

[GF]

@Cobalt said in MU Peeves Thread:

(At fifteen I was convinced only 100% strict “proper” English was correct. At fifteen I was an asshole.)

Did you have a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” with the panda stickers in the back to put on typos? I had a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” with the panda stickers in the back to put on typos.

[Roz]

@GF said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Cobalt said in MU Peeves Thread:

(At fifteen I was convinced only 100% strict “proper” English was correct. At fifteen I was an asshole.)

Did you have a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” with the panda stickers in the back to put on typos? I had a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” with the panda stickers in the back to put on typos.

I had a copy of the book, and my parents still make comments and jokes about my grammar strictness, in the way that parents do when they don’t know you’ve outgrown a part of your childhood because you now understand the classist and racist nature of strict grammar adherence wait where are you going I’m not done with explaining–

[GF]

@Roz Your wording of your post made me notice that no one in this thread has said “grammar Nazi” and that makes me very happy.

[Roz]

@GF Yeah, I also grew out of that one years back.

[sao]

I doubt anyone who types out dialect is doing it because they intend to be annoying, they’re just succeeding at being annoying.