I realised acronyms had crept into my normal life a couple of weeks ago when I told my children – FYI, guys, it’s my birthday on Saturday. (It didn’t work. Only one out of 6 kids gave me a present).
One of the things we writers take for granted after a while is the use of acronyms. We have our Crit Group (not exactly an acronym). We have our fave authors (again not exactly an acronym). There are Panters and Plotters (try saying that to a non writer). You don’t realise how much of your conversation is spoken in short-hand until you meet someone who’s a Newbie.
Sorry, new writer.
Here Roy Peter Clark asks, are writers using too many acronyms? And here’s Jessica Shaw’s list of acronyms used by writers. So if you find people are going on about the PoV in their WIP, you’ll know what they’re talking about.
Then there are the words we take for granted like: Pitch, Query letter and Proposal.
Then there’s numbers. When do you use the word ‘one’ and when do you use the number ’5′? Here at GrammarBook they answer that curly question.
Over at TV Tropes they talk about using capital letters in fantasy and science fiction. This may sound like a bit of a no brainer, but with my last trilogy my editors and I had to come up with a ‘word bible’ for the world’s invented words and when to use capitals or lower case. Think about it – a ship’s captain – when do you use a capital? When it’s Captain Ahab, it is easy. But what about when you are talking about him and it is the Captain?
And then there’s those words that people get wrong. Advise and Advice I can figure out. Affect and Effect I think I have right now. One word I often come across in printed books that jumps out at me is ‘lay’.
Since we are writers, we might as well get the basics correct. Once we know what we’re doing, we can play with words.
In my job as a lecturer I come across some unintentionally hilarious word usage, when people have simply accept the spelling suggestion made my their computer. I have a thing about apostrophes being used in the right place. Students feel this is optional and sometimes will throw in apostrophes in the mistaken belief that more is better than less. Then there is the dreaded – they’re, their and there. And I come across this mistake ‘alot’ Hyperbole and a Half made me smile.
(There is a law that says if you do a blog post about grammar and word usage you are sure to make a mistake somewhere in it).
What are the little mistakes that are invisible to you in your own writing? What are the mistakes in printed books the make you grit your teeth?
As someone with English as a second language I have to say that my most common mistakes are definitely/definately (I can spell “definite” just fine though!), fiercely/fiercly and of course the lie/lay thing you mention in your text.
I also make various grammar mistakes just because I never really bothered to learn all the gazillion rules you have in English. I just use what sounds right, which usually (but not always) works. Which, I might add, drove my English teacher absolutely insane back in school.
And one thing that never EVER happens among native English speakers but that Swedish people trying to write English always do is using the accent sign instead of an apostrophe: “it´s” instead of “it’s”. I hate that one so much, and once even caught it in a newspaper headline. It’s very, very crazy making.
Wow, if we had to use an accent on some of our words, I’m sure my students would drive me crazy finding ways to mis-use it.
Kaia, it amazes me when someone like you comes along. I have a friend who is a writer and English is also her second language, too. I don’t know how you do it.
I’d never be able to write in a second language.
I forgot to come back and reply to this! I just wanted to say that I actually struggled a lot with coming to terms with the fact that I am no longer a good writer in Swedish. I mean, I can write it, but every word is a struggle and it’s just hard work and falls flat on the page. Once I admitted that and allowed myself to write in English everything became so much easier.
I suppose one could say that in writing English is my first la nguage, and spoken it’s Swedish. That might actually be the definition of being bilingual, but there you go.
Wow, Kaia,
Writing in English and speaking Swedish?
What do you dream in?????
Haha, good question! When I lived abroad I thought, dreamt and even wrote notes to myself in English. These days I’d say it’s about 50/50, up or down a bit depending on how much writing I’ve done that day. But I always swear in English, because your swear words are so much more colourful.
When I was younger I dreamt of being fluent in Spanish, because it seemed like the coolest thing ever, but this is pretty fun too!
Editors seem to do such a good job, I hardly ever find anything in a printed book (even though I look. God do I look.)
Facebook more than makes up for the shortfall though. And I’m not just talking about the usual their/they’re/there thing. Two of my recent favourites were someone lamenting how much they missed the “Flinders Rangers”, and someone else going on about the “hot, barmy weather”. And it’s so difficult not to respond with some kind of smart-ass comment, even though, let’s face it, those comments are crying out for one.
And I have no idea how many grammar mistakes I’ve made in this post…
LOL.
I love the barmy weather. Mind, if if it is too hot it will drive you barmy!
I get antsy when I see “then” instead of “than”. “I’m bigger then you.” Argh! I usually only pick up typos in printed books, but when a created name is misspelled in a fantasy (one the author has made up) I wonder how on earth it was missed!
I seem to have missed the formal grammar component of my schooling, but I am learning a fair bit now. I think my functional grammar is ok, and I think in stories sometimes you need to break the rules a little (I’m guilty of using fragments rather than sentences when necessary).
Things I don’t get:
1. When a character says: “You have two choices.” Really? Two choices? To me that means at least four options. If there are two options then you have to make A CHOICE — not two. Call me a nit-picking pedant if you like but that one really makes me want to strangle a cat.
2. “If you think such and such, then you’ve got another thing/think coming.” I could go on for quite a while about this one, suffice to say that I used it once in a story and settled on ‘think’.
3. “Are you insane!” he laughed.
“Are you insane!” he cried, laughing.
4. Race titles like:
Orcs/orcs
Elves/elves
Women/women (to me this makes sense)
5. “Ahhhhhhhhh!” Is this even a word? If I’m writing a guy stubbing his toe and he makes the same sound I make when I stub my toe, it’s something like, “Ah fffffffjesuscrrrr.” Is that okay?
6. OK/okay
7. Itallics
8. FULLY CAPITALISED SENTENCES THAT END IN AN EXCALMATION MARK!
9. Ending a point on a list (except the last one) with anything other than a semi-colon;
10. Semi-colons;
11. C U L8R
Gee, Chris, Don’t hold back now. Tell us how you Really feel!
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