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!

My personal take on dialects in writing is to avoid tricky spellings and try to show differences in word choice.

My problem is that there's this little bit about which I know too much, I suspect.

I mean, if they were Bajan, I wouldn't be so responsive to the difference between saying "work" and "wuk" in an otherwise identical sentence.

I wish I could pin down what Nalo and others of her success did right, because it was so effortless.

What would you (larger) you do about grammatical differences, such as word order? Do you translate or report?

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.

My warm babylump often traps me on my side (post-boobie curling against mama and napping time), and I just as often would really like to move off it and into a more comfortable position.

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

Oops, sorry, ita.