Yep, one of those.

[barbarienne]

I've complained before about authors using eye-dialect.

So now I'm working on a book by the same author I complained about three times several years ago.She is apparently trying to demonstrate every bad writing tic, perhaps under some impression that it's like climbing the highest mountain on every continent

Comments

[dulcimeoww]

How in god's name are the editors letting that crap through? Seriously, don't they have some kind of house rule about not doing stupid shit with your writing?

Dear Author,

I understand that we are all cutting back in these tough economic times, but perhaps you might consider the repair of your H key as an important investment for the future. After all, time is money, and while clearly you have not invested any of your time in correcting that particular error within this volume, perhaps believing that your publisher would do so instead, you might expect to have to do so henceforth. As a writer you will no doubt continue to use your H key with great regularity, and I would hate to think of you losing money at every stroke.

Best Wishes,
etc.

[barbarienne]

How in god's name are the editors letting that crap through? Seriously, don't they have some kind of house rule about not doing stupid shit with your writing?

Nope. If the book sells--and this author's position on the list means she at least makes a consistent profit--there's no reason for the publisher not to cut those corners.

[dulcimeoww]

That's kinda depressing, actually. Would they be allowed to edit it/have time to edit it if they wanted to push the issue? I mean, we have tons of typos in our webcomics, but only because there's no room in the update schedule to edit them prior to posting, and I seriously dislike that and keep trying to change it. Still, it's a fluid medium, so they do get fixed later, and definitely before they go to print (or at least they do now that I've taken over, they didn't with his previous publisher). I can't imagine just thinking, "Oh well, as long as it's making money who cares, I just won't bother to fix these things."

[barbarienne]

This sort of thing is beyond the mandate of the copyeditor; it was up to the acquiring editor to push this issue. Some of them care a lot, and some of them don't.

I don't know who the acq. ed. on this book was. It could be that she doesn't care, or it could be that she has bigger battles to fight with the author.

Too often in the commercial world the battle is just to get the gorram manuscript at all. At a certain point, it's too late to reschedule the book without getting a lot of egg on one's face.

[secritcrush]

What's a phlegmy h? (And whatever it's meant to convey, I am so not getting it from this eye dialect.)

[mastadge]

When I hear "phlegmy h", I think Ḥ, or the Hebrew Chet or Khaf. As in "challah", or "Pesach". But that doesn't seem to be the effect that's being gone for above.

[barbarienne]

How did you get the dot under the H?!?!?! We have a million books with transliterated Hebrew or Arabic, and that damn h-dot is the only thing that isn't part of the Minion Pro or Times Pro sets.

[mastadge]

I've had a lot of trouble with that in the past, but this time a google search yielded both this site and the wikipedia entry for diacritical dots, so I was able simply to copy and paste.

[mnfaure]

*lol* I just had to read that sentence out loud. If the author has similar sentences and had taken the time to test her dialect aloud, I'm sure she would have seen how ridiculous it is. Not only does it make you want to cough and you have to take a breath if very weird places to pull it off.

[barbarienne]

I sat there in my home office trying to say it and I couldn't without laughing. :-)

[la_marquise_de_]

Argh. At least she hasn't made that character Dick-Van-Dyke-cockney, too.

[barbarienne]

This character is Spanish, I think. I would not be surprised if this author did a bad cockney accent at some point. She will have more books, I'm sure.

[frigg]

Damn, now all I can think of is Manuel from Fawlty Towers, "It's a hhhamster."

[barbarienne]

I think that is the accent she's trying to convey; the character has a Spanish name.