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?

Well, I haven't seen Cool Runnings, so I can't comment on how well you could extrapolate.

I don't know which would bother me worse. They're not measured in the same units.

I know it's hard, and if you don't want me to be repeatedly making the effort to ignore, it's best to be Nalo slick, or to avoid it entirely.

eta: it's "ita," not "Ita," Windsparrow.

Ellie is so cute! And I'm so jealous of people whose babies will sleep on them.

I'm reading a non-fiction, autobiographical book wherein the white British author records his conversations in pidgin with Cameroonians, and I'm finding it a little off-putting. I have no problem understanding "You go come long time" or "Me likee dat too much!" but if they were speaking in a completely other language, he'd just report what was meant ("I really like that!") rather than what was phonetically said.

My personal take on dialects in writing is to avoid tricky spellings and try to show differences in word choice. Trying to read something and sound it out then try to figure out what it means is a lot more work than I care to go to.

white British author records his conversations in pidgin with Cameroonians,

Gerald Durrell, by any chance?

For the record, Susan, I wasn't talking about you.

Thanks, ita, I wasn't sure given the context.

I know I err on the side of caution in this area because I've been so annoyed and insulted as a reader by writers' botched attempts at Southern accents. Not to mention driven batshit by romance-novel Scot dinna-speak. And then there's my vivid recollection of trying to talk a writing class participant out of Gone With the Wind-style speak for his African-American characters by getting him to say he'd never write a character like me with misspelled words or sloppy diction, then pointing out exactly how many things I say "wrong," from changing little to liddle to retaining distinctly Southern vowels after all these years away--my "gets" still "git" and when I'm speaking quickly enough, my "I" slips into an "Ah." He still didn't get it, and it pissed me off. Racist bastard.

So I just use near-standard English all around to avoid those pitfalls.

Gotta run--PT in 45 minutes and I still haven't showered. Annabel's 5:00 a.m. wakefulness has me all off-schedule.

And I'm so jealous of people whose babies will sleep on them.

That's the only way Emmett would sleep at that age. You'd be surprised at how quickly the pleasure of warm babylump on you gets balanced by the desire to roll over on your side.

Happy Birthday, La Princessa Empressa!