Just so you know, Americans do not as a rule use the expression, "What are you on about?" To my knowledge, this is not a commonly used expression anywhere in North America
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Yeah ... I think a more general way of putting this would be to write the character (any character) as THEY talk, not as YOU talk. This is one reason why I find Carson insanely difficult to write, because I *know* his speech patterns are distinctive and I have a certain amount of trouble getting it down. Oddly, this is not necessarily true of other characters like Zelenka and Teyla, who also have distinctively non-American patterns of speaking -- I just have a lot of trouble with Carson and his British Isles phrasing
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Rant away! And yes, the teenage girl-talk thing is another one for the gonna-take-hostages-if-you-do-that-again book. It's almost as bad as having him ACT like a teenage girl.
You hit the nail on the head with "write them as THEY talk." It all goes back to listening. A lot of writers don't pay attention to how characters really talk, which is why you see Zelenka speaking like an Ellis Island refugee in some fics.
I actually read one that had Zelenka THINKING in broken English, which was so wrong on so many levels that it practically made my eyes bleed. I mean, even if you have trouble with a foreign language (which he doesn't, but I'll try not to go there), you're still going to *think* in the language that you're more comfortable with.
ROFLMAO! Wow, that's just... I have no words for what that is.
I think that a lot of writers tend to develop a thumbnail view of a character based on a rather narrow selection of stuff they've seen in canon, then add a huge portion of what they want the character to be. That may be why they write them so OOC - the characters match the inner picture they've created in their minds rather than what the rest of us all see when we watch the show.
That is AWESOME in its defiance of both logic and canon. Why in the world would an author... I mean, even if they thought he spoke in broken English, which I agree he DOES NOT, why would he even think in English if his English was that poor? And why would he think in broken English? It makes no logical sense.
Radek is fluent in English. He sometimes drops articles, as stated above, but that's only because there are no articles in Czech. And his accent is actually very, very mild.
You speak as though there is a hard limit somewhere. Silly, silly girl! There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in fandom to support such a conclusion.
And yes, hearing Rodney (or any one them) sound like a teenager drives me right up a wall. Yes, Rodney and John occasionally act like a pair of tween boys, and Rodney doesn't get that "kid in a candy store" look from time to time, but they talk like an adults. Yes, they do use words like cool or sucks from time to time, but not all the time
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You hit the nail on the head with "write them as THEY talk." It all goes back to listening. A lot of writers don't pay attention to how characters really talk, which is why you see Zelenka speaking like an Ellis Island refugee in some fics.
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I think that a lot of writers tend to develop a thumbnail view of a character based on a rather narrow selection of stuff they've seen in canon, then add a huge portion of what they want the character to be. That may be why they write them so OOC - the characters match the inner picture they've created in their minds rather than what the rest of us all see when we watch the show.
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Radek is fluent in English. He sometimes drops articles, as stated above, but that's only because there are no articles in Czech. And his accent is actually very, very mild.
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Really, just when I think it's not possible for fanfic writers to butcher the characters any more than they already have been...
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And yes, hearing Rodney (or any one them) sound like a teenager drives me right up a wall. Yes, Rodney and John occasionally act like a pair of tween boys, and Rodney doesn't get that "kid in a candy store" look from time to time, but they talk like an adults. Yes, they do use words like cool or sucks from time to time, but not all the time ( ... )
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