on my soapbox, yelling into megaphones

[musesfool]

Last night I dreamt that I was at a family wedding, and Ethan Hawke was in attendance. My brother had apparently been friends with him at some point long in the past? But Ethan Hawke was having none of that. Also he wore a Hunter College hoodie and a leather jacket to a wedding. WTF?

Also at the wedding,

Comments

[writingpathways]

I totally want to work desultory into a sentence today, I might be able to rather easily to since my roommate is constantly in the middle of conversations suddenly talking about something completely different.

[musesfool]

That sounds like a good goal.

[loveandthetruth]

I think desultory works there, seeing as how offhand and careless are among the synonyms for desultory and that's pretty much what I've always taken it to mean.

Or it might just be me?

[musesfool]

It doesn't work for me in that context, because you can't really substitute either of those words in that sentence and make it work. It sounds like she wanted "insulting" or "derogatory" and thought desultory was sort of a combination of the two. If he said something careless or offhand, that is not necessarily insulting (though careless would be closer, but I always thought of desultory as more aimless than careless), and in context with the rest of the paragraph, it's clear that the woman's looks are not fashionable, and Lyall is being careful not to say anything *bad* about them (or anything that could be taken that way).

I found it jarring while I was reading and had to reread the sentence a couple of times before I decided it was the wrong word and not me misunderstanding somehow.

[loveandthetruth]

Fair enough. :)

[dancinguniverse]

I feel like technically there's nothing wrong with the first two meanings of desultory in that sentence, except it makes the young woman in question totally deranged. I want to meet the person who is completely enraged by off-topic remarks.

I suspect you're completely right though, and he either mixed up desultory and derogatory, or has no idea what the former means.

[musesfool]

Hee! It's not actually the young lady who would be enraged, but Our Hero, who is Lyall's boss. But yeah, I think it's something that an editor should have caught and fixed.

[sienamystic]

I enjoyed Soulless as a fun bit of fluff, but the stuff you point out, and some careless choices in slang (I think she says "Gee!" at some point? Erk.) and some plot points I heard about subsequent books made me decide not to continue.

[musesfool]

I got all four books in an ebook omnibus, so I will probably read them all as long as I find them entertaining, but that is some sloppy editing.

[chicklet_girl]

Also he wore a Hunter College hoodie and a leather jacket to a wedding. WTF?

That sounds like something his asshole character in Reality Bites would do, which is most of the reason I detested the way that movie ended. I wish there was an edit of that movie that was just Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo.

[musesfool]

Heh. He was an asshole in that, iirc. It's been years since I saw it.