Don't worry, I'm not gonna start any sword fights. I'm over that phase.

Mal ,'War Stories'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Toddson - Jan 10, 2008 8:18:27 am PST #4663 of 28342
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

And, on the SBTB site, they had a plagairism expert of some sort who'd looked at the examples (or perhaps only one or two) and say it did look like plagairism ... and someone posted accusing him of slander.

It's very fan-girly in there.


Polter-Cow - Jan 10, 2008 8:18:57 am PST #4664 of 28342
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I wonder how one becomes a plagiarism expert.

Dear God, plagiarism is a fucked-up word. -iari-? Are they trying to make sure that only people intelligent enough to spell it can accuse people of it?


Toddson - Jan 10, 2008 8:22:52 am PST #4665 of 28342
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

hasn't stopped anyone so far ....


Steph L. - Jan 10, 2008 8:26:25 am PST #4666 of 28342
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine

Now you people made me go read some of the CE threads over at SBTB, and I'm flabbergasted by the commenters who seem to think that it was wrong and mean for a reader to google passages from the CE ferret book.

As if there's some other magical, telepathic way to divine plagiarism.


Nutty - Jan 10, 2008 8:45:53 am PST #4667 of 28342
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

Dear God, plagiarism is a fucked-up word.

It's following Italian (presumably, Latinate) spelling: the I after the G and before a vowel forces a hard G rather than a soft one. Like Giovanni or Giuliani or that scary chef Giada de Laurentiis. You don't actually say "Jee-oo-lee-an-ee", just "Joo-lee-an-ee" -- the I is for consonant-hardening purposes only.

(In Spanish, a C before and E or an I is a soft C, so if you want the hard-C sound, you have to use QU. But a C before an A, O or U is a hard C, so if you want it to be soft you use a Z. Italian is way simpler.)


Polter-Cow - Jan 10, 2008 8:47:15 am PST #4668 of 28342
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Let's all just switch to Esperanto.


amych - Jan 10, 2008 8:49:51 am PST #4669 of 28342
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

Italian is way simpler.

Phonetically, Italian is an absolute dream. Of course, it's a language with very marked regional differences, so there are only like 12 highly-educated people from Florence who actually pronounce things the way they were presented in class as the One True Way -- but oh, the rules, they are lovely and clear and consistent rules!


§ ita § - Jan 10, 2008 8:52:35 am PST #4670 of 28342
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I used to study Esperanto by mail. Spanish is better.


Polter-Cow - Jan 10, 2008 8:53:43 am PST #4671 of 28342
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Dude, I'm reading about Esperanto, and then I discovered Riism. It's like a language patch!! Now I want to see the one that turns all nouns into strippers.


Jesse - Jan 10, 2008 9:18:50 am PST #4672 of 28342
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I used to study Esperanto by mail.

OMG, I think I did too. Or, at least, I once mailed away for something about Esperanto.