It's Like a Seasonal Allergy to Bad Grammar

[zannes]

I think I've noticed a trend. When the Big Bangs come out, my grammar rage goes through the roof with the absolutely atrocious slaughtering of the English language. I want there to be a master list of people forbidden from betaing and/or writing as a result of this yearly event. You do NOT put periods in the middle of dialogue! "Close your eyes."

Comments

[texankate]

I completely understand your rage. My peeve is word choice. Loose/= lose, bear and bare are two quite different concepts, and for the love of the Goddess, slash writers, prostate and prostrate are NOT the same thing! True, repeated stimulation of the prostate may leave one prostrate, but please keep them straight!

[zannes]

I nearly did a their/there in this post, but I went back to read it over to make sure I didn't make any stupid mistakes and caught it. Self-editing can work!

[texankate]

It happens to all writers. I actually have gotten in the habit of reading my stories aloud. I find that I recognize errors much more easily that way. And I think things like the loose/lose would stand out that way.

Plus, we rely too much on the spell-checker. It won't catch those sorts of errors at all.

[dairygirl]

I agree about some of the supposedly beta-read stories. Some of the errors are so obvious (the transposed words like there/their and loose/lose and even misspellings, which shows the use of spellcheckers is optional), how could someone miss it? As one of my editor colleagues likes to say, "This is when the red pen goes to work!"

[kasman]

And the number of people who do not know the difference in the use of lie and lay...ARGH!!

[katsheswims]

I know the difference, but the different tenses always get me. There's lain, laid, lay, lie etc...

[kasman]

The past tense of lie is lay. The past tense of lay is laid. The past participle of lie is lain. The past participle of lay is also laid.

Lie in the past tense would be:

Last week, Dave lay down on the floor.
The dog lay in the mud after it rained yesterday.

And lay:

Last week, I laid the carton of eggs report on your counter.
Joe forcefully laid his keys on the table.

The past participle of lie is lain:

Dave has lain on the floor for days.
The dog has lain in the mud for hours.

The past participle of lay is laid:

I have laid the carton of eggs on your counter.
Joe has forcefully laid his keys on the table.

However, my main objection is where lay is used when it should be lie, and it happens all the freaking time. "Go and lay down," said [insert character name here]. Grrr. It should be "lie down". "Lay" needs an object, ie, it's something you do to something else: "Go and lay the book down."

*sigh*

[hezio2]

I'm going to be real quiet but I beta'd a fic, returned it, and the writer was extremely angry at my little grammar fixes. I explained that I was just using actual grammar rules. (All I did was fix tense and some capitalization.) Her response was that it's fic and doesn't matter.
Me=???
Why ask for a beta then?

[dairygirl]

That is very disappointing. Maybe one of those writers who believe his or her writing is perfect? Believe me, they can be extremely problematic. (I dealt with one at work and it required lots of patience and biting of tongue. Got tired of the e-mails to let everyone know how unhappy she was with what I was doing.)

Agreed

[narusasuiscanon]

I've actually compiled a list, that I intend on posting soon, of mistakes I see the most often in fanfic writers, and that includes everything from not double checking your spelling and only using Spell Check to formatting. Most mistakes like that can be caught if the author just reads their work instead of spell checking it and saying "Done

Re: Agreed

[leonhartslover]

I have some for you if that's okay. Not a lot just some that I have seen in reading fanfic.

hole/whole: Jim thrust against Gino's whole.
sole/soul: My children are eating my sole.

Plus I think that someone needs to write a 'How to write yaoi guide'. Some of the things that I have read make me shudder with horror. I do read other things other then yaoi and everytime I see some of the things that people try to pass off as good 'sex' makesme serioulsy wonder if they have ever had an anatomy lesson.

*His balls were the size of tennis balls. Unfortunately I am not joking about that.
*a** hyman. Nope sorry men do not have one of those, a** or otherwise.
*My biggest complaint about some yaoi fanfic writers is where they have the uke bleed and oh it's all well and good because the 'loving' is so good. Nope sorry kids but that is an obsolute not.

Love your avatar by the way, pretty kitty.

Re: Agreed

[leonhartslover]

Color me embarassed. I just noticed on my reply that I had misspelled absolute. Sorry!