sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)
Sholio ([personal profile] sholio) wrote2009-09-16 10:35 am

*cue inner grammar pedant*

There's a grammatical mistake that I've been seeing all over the place lately. Like ... just about every third story I read. It's not big enough to make me stop reading, but it's driving me BONKERS.

You don't put a period between a line of dialogue and the attribution, unless the attribution is a new sentence. And you do not capitalize the start of the attribution line UNLESS it is a new sentence!

For example, this is correct:

"Hi, guys," John said.
"Where are we going?" said John wearily.
"Hey Teyla." John turned to smile at her.
"I just want to know where we are." Turning in a full circle, John couldn't see a recognizable landmark anywhere.

But this is wrong:

"Hi, guys." John said.
"Where are we going?" Said John.
"Hi, Teyla." Said Rodney cheerfully.

AAAUGH. (It hurt to even type those sentences on purpose.)

There are only a few writers (mostly new ones) who do it consistently throughout the story, so I know in most cases it's a typo -- a period for a comma, say -- or an accident. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've occasionally been guilty too. But it's cropping up EVERYWHERE lately and I just wanted to drop a quick note to be watchful for it when you're writing and beta'ing, because when I start stumbling across it in a story, it gets to the point where I'm not paying as much attention to the plot as I am to bracing myself for the next error, and you want the reader to be sucked into the story and not looking at the mechanical details, right?

[identity profile] cat-77.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh. This rant shows up over on [livejournal.com profile] fanficrants at least once or twice a month. You'd think people would know better, or at least learn the correct usage eventually, but no luck.
trobadora: (Default)

[personal profile] trobadora 2009-09-16 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I will never understand how you can get that wrong in the first place. (Apart from typos, of course.) Don't these people read?!

[identity profile] jadesfire2808.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Weirdly, I had a flister ask about this last week. She knew there were rules, she was just having trouble figuring them out. Which is so much better than wilful puncutation abuse.

Do you know the book/series "Eats, shoots and leaves"? It's all about this kind of thing. Personally I prefer the radio version, because you can just hear how passionate the author is about these things, and it really gets to why it matters, and isn't just pedantry ;)

*shudder* Those examples are painful. Ouch.

[identity profile] roga.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh my god those hurt to reeeeead.

I actually mentioned this kind of mistake: "Hi, guys." John said. to a House writer once, who consistently wrote all her stories like that. She told me that that's how they wrote in Australia. I never checked it out, but I don't know, it could be true? I know that in Hebrew there are some punctuation differences from English that drive me crazy.

(Like, attributing speaking quotes "like this", instead of "like this," before commas sometimes. Gah.)

[identity profile] taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm betaing a co-written fic right now, desperately hoping I catch all of these. My co-writer is talented, but unfortunately makes those kind of mistakes a lot. Argh.
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[identity profile] xparrot.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Ow. My inner pedant is whimpering.

(She's still recovering from the onslaught of its/it's confusion that turns up everywhere, including professionally published stuff...)

[identity profile] julii-wolfe.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
my thesis is a creative writing project. I just spent the morning editing this exact same problem. I'm hoping the editing process has hammered the correct format into my brain.

*hopes never to offend the friendship goddess*
bratfarrar: A woman wearing a paper hat over her eyes and holding a teacup (dead)

[personal profile] bratfarrar 2009-09-16 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I've reached the point of no tolerance for this sort of thing. Doesn't matter how intriguing the premise is: if they can't manage basic punctuation, they're not getting me as a reader.

Also (and I feel obnoxious and pushy whenever I say this sort of thing, so feel free to ignore me because I probably would) this is an excellent thing to link to/cross-post on [livejournal.com profile] writers_lair--especially since I know we have some non-native English speakers there who might not be aware of the finer points of punctuating dialogue.

[identity profile] reen212000.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Do. Not. Get. Me. Started.

Being a grammar whore is bad enough. But I also work for a newspaper. AP style is an antiquated writing style that drives me crazy. Sometimes, I find myself using that instead of the proper grammar.

Ugh.
ext_1771: Joe Flanigan looking A-Dorable. (Default)

[identity profile] monanotlisa.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I've noticed this mistake occasionally...but as there are so many more blatant spelling and grammar mistakes in fanfic that make me weep tears of blood, punctuation generally fails to annoy me as much. This is partly due to the fact that as a linguistically detail-oriented non-native speaker, I have learned to accept that in most US-Americans' eyes, there is no such thing as "proper punctuation." & ;-)

(Thanks, by the way, for not saying, Grammar Nazi. As you can imagine, THAT one makes my blood boil: one pseudo-comparison that should not be drawn.)

[identity profile] wildcat88.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
*sighs in relief* I'm happy to know I'm not the only one. Commas and periods are not interchangeable. Proper punctuation and capitalization are not voluntary. Apostrophes have a defined purpose!

Gah!
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[identity profile] astridv.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 08:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I noticed that too! Only recently in two otherwise perfectly fine stories. That kind of punctuation mistake drives me crazy because it tears me out of the narrative every single time someone opens their mouth.

I've actually started to wonder if that is how they do punctuation in some country. I know that we do it differently in Germany. Here it would be:
"Hi, guys", John said. (I *think*. I actually know English punctuation better than German.)

I learned that rather significant little difference in fandom, not in high school as one would expect.

[identity profile] estel_angel.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
It took me a moment to click what you are refering to english was never my strongest subject. I can see how it could bug you it is a silly basic mistake. It is rather distracting I hate to start to read a story that sounds really good they get bogged down in bad gramer etc.

[identity profile] kriadydragon.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I swear it's like some people hate commas. Along with your example, you also have the run-on sentences in desperate need of a comma and fractured sentences in desperate need of a comma.

I find the abuse of exclamation points my own bigger pet peeve, though. If just about every sentence of dialogue ends with an exclamation point, then I stop reading. And don't get me started on elipses that are longer than three periods :P
sheron: RAF bi-plane doodle (Johns) (04red cardinal)

[personal profile] sheron 2009-09-17 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, this was very helpful when my beta pointed it out to me many years back. Coming from a different language where punctuation is completely different these were some rules I had to learn. Still get it wrong sometimes and still have to think about it sometimes, but at least I recognize the rule!

[identity profile] iamrighthere.livejournal.com 2009-09-17 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
Some people--like younger/newer writers--can be forgiven. Temporarily. *nods kindly* Other writers feel that it's perfectly acceptable to throw punctuation willy-nilly into a story. Yes, just toss those commas and quotation marks around and see where they land! Even a good story is difficult to read when the writer doesn't have the basics straight.

[identity profile] tipper-green.livejournal.com 2009-09-17 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
It's a fair complaint. I'm not guilty of it myself (although, once upon a time, fanfiction.net magically erased all my punctuation out of one of my fics, then replaced everything with periods. Everything. It was traumatizing). I am, however, guilty of the opposite, namely, putting a comma where a period belongs. I did stop doing it eventually, but most of my stories are guilty of it.

Curiously, I have a harder time remembering to correct this kind of error when I put it between dialogue. E.g. "All I'm saying," his eyes narrowed, "is that I'm not certain where we started from." I think it partly comes from the fact that I'm not sure how to punctuate the dialogue. To use ellipses seems to draw out the pause too long. How do you solve it?

[identity profile] melibabe.livejournal.com 2009-09-17 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
The one that continues to give me the nails-on-blackboard-shudder is "John was sat at the edge of the pier" and all its many permutations. ("Was stood" really bugs me.) Apparently, in England (?) this structure is very common. They don't seem to want to use the past progressive anywhere.

ETA: Oops, apologies for slipping a grammar peeve into a punctuation thread. You can see how much it bothers me. ;)
Edited 2009-09-17 05:31 (UTC)

[identity profile] argosy.livejournal.com 2009-09-17 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
I do that right. *basks in superiority*

The one that makes me want to start hurting people is not putting a comma between someone's name and the body of dialogue in direct address.

"Come with me John"
"I love you Rodney."

And there are so many writers who seem just not to know and do it EVERY GODDAMN TIME.
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[identity profile] gwendolynflight.livejournal.com 2009-09-18 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Really? Because I just scrolled past three posts using "whose" in place of "who's". ... Is grammar actually taught anymore? By anyone? ::dies::