peeve peeve peeve

[kaigou]

1. Get the names right. Go with the official decision, accept that Sunrise or Square-Enix or whomever gets the final say because, hey, they OWN the damn characters (if at least in part), and shut the hell up. It's Ed, not Edo, Al, not Aru, Heero, not Hiiro; Hilde, not Hirde; Relena, not Reylena or even Relina. (Although I must say that "Liza Hawkeye" seems far more likely than the official "Riza Hawkeye," but hey, there you go.)

Fandom-specific to GW: if you're going to insist on mispelling names that have had official spellings for almost a decade, at least be consistent. Prefer Hiiro? Fine, then stop misspelling Trowa's name the official way, and use the original, intended version, pre-butchered romanji: Trois.

2. Would of, could of. Please, stop. It's 'would have', 'could have', and I don't care if it's colloquial. Use it in dialogue, then, if you must, but in narrative, please observe the grammar of this language and stop making my eyeballs bleed.

3. The drug is H-E-R-O-I-N and the female lead is H-E-R-O-I-N-E. Confuse them, and you don't get bathos, drama, or even pathos, unless you mean that strange sense of pathetic enjoyment as I snort soda out my nose for the idiotic misspelling.

4. You will not win an award, not if I and the rest of the spellchecking world have any say in it, if you cannot even TRY to use a spellchecker.

5. Could we please kill the phrase, "the shorter man" now? Or better yet, fifteen minutes ago already? Every time an author says, "the shorter man", I think of that red-headed guy from Willow. And believe me, that's the last visual you want when reading smut. Really.*

6. Insert your own peeves here. Go on. You know you want to.




* this is why I hate some of my oldest fic. Yes, we learn from our mistakes, but do you really have enough time in your life to make every mistake just to learn from it? Save time, learn from mine. Just use the (accepted) character names and be done with it!

Comments

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

About 2, 3 -- OUCH. Need duct tape. Brain is trying to escape via ears.

For 6: Fangirl Japanese is BAD. Do NOT use it. Random Japanese (French/ Spanish/ German/ etc.) does not make you sound cool, it makes you sound like you're desperate to fill up the dialogue and unable to come up with something witty in English. (Note: correctly used foreign languages are acceptable, but please, don't overdose on them. Also, stick to ONE system of romanisation -- oh OR ou OR oo, but no mixing them randomly. Shi/shu OR si/syu. Etc. Etc. Argh. Shutting.)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

That one system of romanization bugs me, too, even in published works. While I really did like Secrets of Jin Shei, the fact that half the quasi-Chinese names/places were in pinyin, and the other half in Wade-Giles, really got to me at times. Sometimes it's Xing, sometimes it's Hsing, and I'm going, PICK ONE. I also noticed in some cases, in Hard Rain (a thriller about an American-Japanese assassin, and otherwise neatly and sharply written), there was sometimes a variance in the romanji.

Then again, the fact is that in published works, the percentage of the audience who actually has a clue is probably quite low -- so I'd guess that the editor & copyeditor went on a case-by-case basis, trying to pick what looked right this time, in this word, and what looked right for that word. I'd prefer that they be consistent, too, but I can understand their reasons.

Unpublished fanfic, written for an audience of whom the vast majority probably watch/listen to the fansubs, are a different matter. Huge numbers of people in the various anime-based fandoms either have pretentions of knowing/comprehending some amount of Japanese, and that's the last time I'd recommend varying your spelling/style out of personal preference. Don't confuse the learners any more than necessary.

Actually, Hard Rain was a rather interesting book in that it had copious amounts of Japanese. I never did figure out whether it was a lot of the author showing off his (actual) language skills, or a skillful and efficient way of communicating when the character's in Japanese mode versus American mode (and he does have a subtle difference in characterization whether he's trying to be Japanese versus trying to be 'American', which I thought was a nice touch). Still, it was a great deal more Japanese than I expected, but the translations were always either immediately following the foreign line, or were implied by context and/or response.

Plus I couldn't help but enjoy the one time the character's listening to French, and he can't quite figure out what they're saying! ;)