Proofreading DOES help

[PepperElf]

Ach, so...
No. Me no like. Me no buy. Me goes wash his brain with coffee.

Thankfully the only thing I "spent" on that book was time. I grabbed it from the shelf of free books in the ship's library... and put it back within a day or two.

Thankfully the other book I'd taken from the shelf was a Ray Bradbury book. My brain cells were most grateful. (even if the book confused them)

Since they are plays, and therefore almost entirely dialogue, it's hard to get around that without actively translating it into modern English.

That's probably why there's only one filmed version of the entire play of Hamlet. well that, and the bloody length of it. (surprisingly I finally saw it and loved it)

I've also seen themed versions of his plays, such as a 1930s take on As You Like It, and a country/western version of Taming of the Shrew. (As for R&J... If I *must* suffer through that, i'd prefer it with the original text and original setting... tho i'd rather watch the 4 hour version of Hamlet then sit through one hour of R&J)

[Ironclad Alibi]

I've also seen themed versions of his plays, such as a 1930s take on As You Like It, and a country/western version of Taming of the Shrew. (As for R&J... If I *must* suffer through that, i'd prefer it with the original text and original setting... tho i'd rather watch the 4 hour version of Hamlet then sit through one hour of R&J)

Not to mention the 1956 science fiction version of The Tempest, Forbidden Planet

[Bagga]

For dialect, you mention:

Alice Walker's The Color Purple, or Trainspotting

OK, both are great books, but why not go to the classics?

Wuthering Heights:

"This is t'way on't - up at sun-dahn; dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le lught till next day, at nooin - then, t'fooil gangs banning un raving tuh his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shaume; un' th' knave, wah, he carn cahnt his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off tub his neighbour's tuh gossip wi' t' wife"

"Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge to-neeght; they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in a bowl un' all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then ye'll hae done wi' 't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved out!"

"Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brooken pots; un' then we's hear summut; we's hear how it's to be. Gooid-for-naught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Churstmas, flinging t' precious gifts o'God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But I'm mista'en if ye shew yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I nobbut wish he may."

Best of luck....

[Pagan]

Oh. I can't explain grammar and punctuation. I just sort of know what's what. They whys and hows of the actual rules flumox me a bit. I will score very high on a grammar test UNLESS you ask me why something is the way it is.

Same here. I can tell you if the sentence is right or not, but don't ask me to diagram the damn thing.

Thank you, I meant the Lowland Scots. I had something nagging at me that I had the wrong word (why it was only nagging and not yelling at me I don't know), but I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the dialect.

That's what I figured. It gets confusing. Just so long as you're not referring to Scottish people as "Scotch", we're fine. (That's one of my pet peeves. "Scotch" is an adult beverage.)

I just find it hilarious that I can read and understand Scots

[Chromatix]

Wuthering Heights was indeed one of the Yorkshire classics I was thinking of. ;-)

As for the film versions of Romeo and Juliet, the extra visual cues give a lot of context to the dialogue, so it's easier to mentally skip over the words that you don't immediately understand. The acid test is: did they use the word "Wherefore"? If so, that ain't modern English, pal.

"Youse lot" is a typical Scouse phrase, roughly equivalent to "all y'all".

[Chromatix]

Just so long as you're not referring to Scottish people as "Scotch", we're fine.

"Will you go to stationmaster Bunce, and tell him I am afraid I have wrecked the Scotch express?" -- Signalman Sutton, Hawes Junction, 1910.

[BookBint]

Ow. Sadly that excerpt is at the same literacy level as the book I'm editing this very moment... Or should be...

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

Ow. Sadly that excerpt is at the same literacy level as the book I'm editing this very moment... Or should be...

Aw!
Same author maybe?

[Pagan]

"Will you go to stationmaster Bunce, and tell him I am afraid I have wrecked the Scotch express?" -- Signalman Sutton, Hawes Junction, 1910.

And? That's the name of a train and not talking about people.

[Magpie]

And just because someone said it, it doesn't follow that it's right. I had co-workers who would talk about the "scotch" pines that were being put in on-site.

[MoonCat]

I quote.

"They finished the breakfast at 9.30 and boys managed to beg their mother to clean up the table so [butler] would be freed to give them a sightseeing of the house."

"Estate has also several outbuildings: Stable, which is empty, Barn at the fields a bit further away and lake house. Then there is that big barn over there which is modified to hold your step dads laboratory."

"Now the suns [note that it is science fiction, there are TWO suns, so this one is NOT an error] were already getting ready for the night. [girl] turned to see the sunset when boys heard the scream that seized the blood rushing in their arteries"

Ouch. That hurts.

OK, confession time: I, too, write science fiction (more accurately, space opera) and fantasy. No, I'm not published yet. I'm about to renew my membership in an on-line SF/F writing workshop. I may not have published-book creds but I know "bad" when I see it (and "good", "fantastic" and "you're-so-good-I-worship-at-your-feet" as well).

I see a bunch of problems with this guy's work. This is not dialect, this is just poorly-written English. If English is not his first language, he needs to first become a better speaker in it before he can attempt any sort of English dialect...but I don't think that was what he was trying to do.

He is missing articles like "the" where they should be ("Estate has"), and using them where they shouldn't be ("finished the breakfast"). And "boys managed to beg their mother" is a clunky, awkward phrase, and also missing "the" before boys. "A sightseeing of the house", eh, I suppose you could argue that it's a "creative" use of the word "sightseeing", but it would sound much better as "tour of the house."

There's more, but my overall impression is that this guy's work would not make it out of the slush pile, no matter how good the underlying plot may be.

My sister is also on an online workshop, and she told me about a guy whose standard response to every critique was "if the editor wants me to take that out, he/she will tell me." This guy, too, is likely to end up self-publishing, because no editor is going to take the time to tutor anyone in English--standard, dialect or anything else. Basics count.

[Ironclad Alibi]

"Will you go to stationmaster Bunce, and tell him I am afraid I have wrecked the Scotch express?" -- Signalman Sutton, Hawes Junction, 1910.

No doubt an express freight train with a cargo of booze. I hope it wasn't the single malt scotch.

[Chromatix]

Regrettably no, it was an actual express passenger train - result multiple fatalities and many injuries. It ran into the back of a pair of engines running light, which the signalman had forgotten about - such niceties as Track Circuit Block working were not commonplace by then.

The report does not give a name for the train except as part of that quote. It refers only to "the midnight express from St. Pancras to Glasgow". So "Scotch" in this context appears to be an adjective, not a proper noun.

ETA: the report in itself is a good example of dialect writing, because it was written a century ago in an extremely formal style. http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/doc..._Hawes1910.pdf

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

I had co-workers who would talk about the "scotch" pines that were being put in on-site.

Some of my co-workers make me pine for the bottle of scotch I finished yesterday though... good Auchentoshan, bought directly from the brewery...

Ouch. That hurts.

It does. And it was intended to, I am that evil

OK, confession time: I, too, write science fiction (more accurately, space opera) and fantasy. No, I'm not published yet. I'm about to renew my membership in an on-line SF/F writing workshop. I may not have published-book creds but I know "bad" when I see it (and "good", "fantastic" and "you're-so-good-I-worship-at-your-feet" as well).

Amen to all this!
You don't need to be a successful author to recognise "bad" - books are not written for writers, but for readers - aren't they?
(by the way, could you please PM me some detail about the workshop you mention? Thank you)

I see a bunch of problems with this guy's work. This is not dialect, this is just poorly-written English. If English is not his first language, he needs to first become a better speaker in it before he can attempt any sort of English dialect...but I don't think that was what he was trying to do.

No, I am sure it was not.
His spoken English is good enough to allow him to hold a very good job (he is the account manager for a major American company, in charge of... his home country, but from the UK where the European corporate offices for his company are) and to communicate, but clearly not to write.
I don't think he was trying to write in any dialect (I guess that the thread was slightly hijacked by some comments regarding the difference between "bad grammar" and "dialect"). I simply guess that his written English is not good enough. Which is bad, as his story is quite fine!

There's more, but my overall impression is that this guy's work would not make it out of the slush pile, no matter how good the underlying plot may be.

I'm afraid I have to agree.
I had the luck to have chat with a local (recognised and published) sci-fi writer, and I asked for some "hints and tips". Besides some "tricks of the trade" that I'm sure everybody who is interested in the genre will recognise, he was very clear on one point: the language mush be solid. If a character speaks with a certain accent and you are able to "write in an accent" (his words), fair enough. But he must ALWAYS talk like that. Otherwise, your English (or any other language you write in) must, must be pretty much flawless. He mentioned that last year a magazine rejected one of his stories even though he had just published his third or fourth novel (plus lots of short stories) because a couple of sentences "didn't make sense". he realised that he has messed the language up in a failed attempt to convey a certain emotion. He changed those paragraphs and that same magazine published his story.

My sister is also on an online workshop, and she told me about a guy whose standard response to every critique was "if the editor wants me to take that out, he/she will tell me." This guy, too, is likely to end up self-publishing, because no editor is going to take the time to tutor anyone in English--standard, dialect or anything else. Basics count.

Exactly. I agree 100%.

[Pagan]

Some of my co-workers make me pine for the bottle of scotch I finished yesterday though... good Auchentoshan, bought directly from the brewery...

Ooh, I've had some of that before. Good innit?