Doesn't that leave a messy middle ground where eschewing dialect means you are putting American idiom into the characters' mouths? Or do you prefer the writers to avoid writing characters for whom they can't nail the dialect?

I could be wrong, but I really don't think I'm putting American idiom into my characters' mouths. Am I writing my story exactly as an English writer living in 1811 would've written it? Of course not, and I'm not even going to try. But I think I'm doing a decent job of giving my characters a speech rhythm that's more British than American--and I intende to tighten that aspect of my dialogue upon edit--and of avoiding American or anachronistic word choices.

What I'm not doing is scattering "dinnas" and "havenas," for example, hither and yon throughout my Scottish characters' speech. My reasoning is twofold: 1) No one, anywhere, speaks English exactly as it's spelled. If you don't intend to write a BBC announcer as saying "militree" and "Cuber" for "military" and "Cuba," or an equally well-spoken American as saying "liddle" for "little," it seems somehow insulting to do phonetic spellings for regional accents. 2) Since my story has major characters from several different regions, I feel like it'd be an unnecessary burden on my readers to make them wade through an attempt to duplicate 4 or 5 different regional accents--I'm afraid it'd slow readers down and make them cast the book aside unfinished.

To be comfortable over the long run, my feet need to be able to move. So most boots end up causing me some pain because I can't crack the joints proactively. This pain is easily relieved by taking the boot off and wriggling, but that means I can't spend too much time out in boots that lace and don't zip.

I have several pairs of boots that I can't walk downstairs in, because they don't bend that way. It's annoying. But they look so cool!

I would spend half my life in combat boots, given my druthers, and the other half barefoot, but I really love shoes. I just don't like wearing them.

For the record, Susan, I wasn't talking about you. Rather, I was wondering about Jamaican dialect, and how one would handle that. As a reader, if you tell me she's selling yam in Papine, I don't want to read proper English coming out of her mouth -- and it's more than just grammar and vocabulary that distinguish her from the woman buying yam from her.

2) Since my story has major characters from several different regions, I feel like it'd be an unnecessary burden on my readers to make them wade through an attempt to duplicate 4 or 5 different regional accents--I'm afraid it'd slow readers down and make them cast the book aside unfinished.

Irvine Welsh writes in various Scottish and British dialect in Marabou Stork Nightmares quite effectively. But, the dialect is indicitive of psychological aspects of the character beyond just dialect. That being said, it takes a lot of work to read the first 50-ish pages as you get used to reading the dialect. After a while, it becomes more natural and easier to read, but the first few chapters were difficult.

The bagel run to the hospital sounds like no fun. at. all, Stephanie.

Ita:

Doesn't that leave a messy middle ground where eschewing dialect means you are putting American idiom into the characters' mouths? Or do you prefer the writers to avoid writing characters for whom they can't nail the dialect?

I want those who write historical fiction to either do at least as well with the dialects as I could, or to at the least be bright enough to keep crap out of it that simply doesn't belong, as Susan seems to be doing. Choosing to go easy on the dialect stuff is much better making me think "Sheesh, she learned her Scottish Dialect by reading other cheesy romance novels. The least she could've done was read the George Frickin' MacDonald modern editions." I'm more forgiving of writers who manage to avoid the above yet have so little awareness of the history of the language as to slip Late 20th Century/Early 21st Century Americanisms into the mouths of their characters, provided they avoid irritating me in other ways. Mind, this flaw is irritating; it just is not a deal-breaker for me.

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Painful cute!

Happy Empress Day, Empress!

I always told screenwriting students to write the words as they are said. In other words, if the person would say "I take baby they house." write that, but you don't have to spell out pronunciation, as it's too damn hard to read. You can pick one or two words and spell them differently--I might have a Yorkshire character say "thaself" or something like that. The point is to be clear while still having flava.

damn, I am dumb today. I can't get this database to work and I know it's just 'cause I'm all fuzzy thinking.

Happily I am in no rush to get it done so I think I may put it away until my head clears a little.

I'm thinking of a sentence like this, for instance:

As pronounced: "Im a wok ova de-so"
Means: "He's working over there."

But there's so much code in the distance between those two sentences. I can't imagine trying to decide what stays and what goes -- and who do you cater to? The people who know that "Im a wok ova de-so" is different from "Him a work over dere."? Or the American/British buying public?

Nalo Hopkinson does a good job -- a sufficiently good job that Nutty insisted she understood Patois because the speech sounded different, but was completely intelligible. And it was close enough that I gave it a pass without any effort. Didn't have to suspend my disbelief.

Wonderful pics, Stephanie!

Ita:

I was wondering about Jamaican dialect, and how one would handle that. As a reader, if you tell me she's selling yam in Papine, I don't want to read proper English coming out of her mouth -- and it's more than just grammar and vocabulary that distinguish her from the woman buying yam from her.

Now I'm curious - which would irritate you worse? Having reason to believe the author "researched" Jamaican speech patterns by watching Cool Runnings a couple times, and sounding substantially less authentic, or having them keep the dialogue as plain as possible?