I use contractions all the time in dialogue, and often in narration, but that's not the same as misspellings. I don't think I've ever replaced "going to" with "gonna," but it'd stick out like a sore thumb in a historical.
But I'm still against misspelled dialogue on the whole, because it slows me down and makes me think about the fact that I'm reading rather than the characters and the story events, if that makes any sense. But it depends on your style and the kind of story you want to tell, too. And while I may wish that I could make my preferences into rules, I know I can't.
I use a particular style for my English characters, but that doesn't really qualify as patois; it's more the way individual characters use the King's (or, in Ringan's case, John Knox's) English.
I see exactly what you mean. If I were to write a character from New England (specifically, Cape Cod), I wouldn't try to spell out the magical migrating "R" to convey locale. I'd try to rely on things like "go get me a couple cans of tuna from down cellar" or "don't touch them boxes neither" to get across the local flavor.
Um?
It may just be a Cape thing, but my family there uses "neither" almost as an emphatic negative at the end of a sentence.
Oh. It might be. It might even be a family thing, or social circle sort of thing. I was caught short by both the "neither" and the "them boxes".
Can we talk regionalisms for a minute? Does anyone outside of Somerville say "So don't I" when they mean "So do I"?
I've heard that. . . but where?
That's just crazy talk.
I know it. But there it is. "I want to go to the mall." "Yeah, so don't I."
Can we talk regionalisms for a minute? Does anyone outside of Somerville say "So don't I" when they mean "So do I"?
Maybe. I don't think I say it, but it doesn't sound out of place in my imagination. Granted, I'm still in general vicinity. I think it might be passing away, though.
