MetaFic

people who talk too much and read too little. See the thread "what things do you consider a bad sign?" for many other moments of hate.

In my case its the use of drug instead of dragged. e.g. "He drug the trunk across the floor."
Every time I come across that is like fingernails on a blackboard.

-SC

I've come to accept that, with a few honourable exceptions, most stories have things in them I have to put up with if I like the narrative/idea/plot etc.

Doesn't do much for my sanity

I was once informed that the use of drug in the above context was acceptable dialect usage.

I still loathe and detest it, and contest it's use. I also dislike span for spun yet see it over and over and over. A span is a length of space, not a twirl.

I also don't like it when people get homophones mixed up. Just because some words sound a like doesn't mean they mean the same thing...

In northern Louisiana I've heard "drug" quite often ("look what the cat drug in..."), and as with so many things it's a matter of context. Unless there's a dramatic change of scenery, I can't imagine anyone saying it.

(Though I do use the word "snuck" in my story, but purely for comedic effect.)

What words people use all demands on where they are from. Not to mention who they phrase something. But then again there are exceptions like myself. I have lived my entire life in the San Fransisco Bay Area and I have been accused repeatedly of talking like a person of Portuguese descent that is from Hawaii (rather odd considering I've never been to Hawaii but my mom is from there)...

Since the context we're talking about is "Harry Potter fan-fiction", this is highly unlikely. I do not recall reading a story where Harry and the crew visit Louisiana.

Having said that, I did read one recently wherein a student from New Orleans ended up at Hogwarts, post-Battle, and it gave me an odd feeling reading the attempts the author made to convey how he and his mother spoke. At least it was better than some attempts at conveying Hagrid's or Fleur's accents ;-)

…at authors who use blatantly American names for children who are blatantly British.

The likelihood that Sirius would have daughters named "Keira Ginevra" and "Dakota Julianna" is remote, even if he married an American (which he didn't in this case) although the idea of having Ginny be a god-daughter offers faint partial validation for that first one. Assuming Charlie Weasley ever got married, why he would name his second son "Kalen" completely escapes me. As for Ron and Hermione naming their firstborn "Granger Ronald"…

But the "taking the biscuit" award goes to Harry and Ginny for naming their triplets (and don't tell me a magical OBGYN would miss that third fœtus, I'm not buying it) "James Remus", "Sirius Brigham", and "Aubrey Lily-Rose".

ObSheesh: sheesh!

Note: all of the above are from the same story which kicked off this thread.

OK, rant over for the minute…;-)

Those names are a lot better than what Sirius named his first born in "Backwards With Purpose": Elvendork.

Add Payton to the list of names, there's a story out there where Percy calls his son that.

…but in this one Percy's children (with Penny) are Preston, Paul, Scott and Travis.

That sound you hear is my eyes rolling uncontrollably :-P

Isn't Preston the name of the nasty dog in Wallace and Grommit?

True. But Sirius had a very valid reason for naming his kid that. There is something wrong with all of the other above examples. But not Elvendork. Okay, there is something wrong with the name in general, but not with Sirius using it.
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If you strike me down now, I shall become more annoying than you could possibly imagine.

But Elvendork is unisex! And BWP Sirius did give his word. :-)

I really have to get my round tuits together and read that. For some reason I've been a bit nervous about it. I think it might be because of some strange association my mind has set up between that and whatever the sequel was called to "In the words of GMP" which completely freaked me out when a certain person was discovered to have died (no spoilers if you haven't read it) and I couldn't complete it. "Destiny Redefined", that was it, gave me the complete shivers.

So if someone could reassure me that I'm not going to be too freaked out, I'll gather my courage and read it. If it turns out that my freak-out over "Destiny Redefined" was premature, I'd appreciate a private word so I can achieve closure ;-)

But that story is so entertaining! ("A different beginning" by Breanie on ff.net and siye) Very far-fetched but good enough for me. Guaranteed to give you some laugs and WTF moments when you just think "Who the hell can even write this crap?" but still you gotta like it. (C'mon, Ginny went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Broadway with a Magenta costume on!) But I have to agree on the triplets. If Ginny is an empath who can tell someone's pregnant just by looking at them, of course she would know she's having triplets. And she wasn't the only empath around!
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"Night falls and I'm running in circles (Whoa-oh-oh)
I'm being chased by my imagination (Whoa-oh-oh)"
Alesana - The Thespian

But its still a horrible name for a kid...

I buy the use of Elvendork in said context since Jo made it up and it's fun to play with. I do not buy the previously mentioned rubbish names like Keira or whatever. There are a lot of 'must read' HP fan fics that I can't stand ...

Pet hates? Hmm...this may take a while!

Firstly, I think it's important to say I certainly don't claim to be either a.) an expert at grammar or writing, or b.) actually correct, but one thing which never fails to get a twitch from my 'pedant senses' is what I've come to call "W-R Blindness" - if in doubt, sling a "W" in front of it.

"Ginny wretched..." *

Well...yes...I suppose it's possible she transformed herself into a pitiable derelict when she saw "Shorty" Longbottom turned inside-out by an angry Nargle but what I think you really meant was, she lost her lunch.

Wretch - person of pitiable aspect, either physically or morally.
Retch - vomit, throw up, chunder, hurl, puke, call God on the Great White Telephone.

"Harry was wracked by guilt..."

An interesting one, this! Presumably Guilt pelted poor Harry with seaweed.

Wrack - a type of seaweed, or other water-borne debris
Racked - tortured, haunted by conscience, c.f. a medieval rack, used for turning "Shorty" Longbottom into a rather more elongated form than normal.

"Oh, Neville!" sighed Hermione. "How could you be so wreckless?"

Wreckless - something lacking in wrecks. Obviously "Shorty" Longbottom removed the remains of the mechanical Sardinian Suicide Squid before his reunion with Hermione.
Reckless - foolhardy, brave.

Possibly some of these are American forms which I am unfamiliar with. And on a slightly different note,

"He's nutters." sighed Wood.

A nut, yes. A nutter, possibly. Gone nuts, nuttier than dried squirrel poo, and many more besides, but I've never come across anyone referring to a single person with the plural form "nutters". The closest you might get would be describing "Shorty" Longbottom's Extreme Sneezing Club as "a bunch of nutters". I think this may have originally been a mistake in one of those "Britishisms for American Fanfic Writers" lists which has since propagated like a folderful of plot bunnies to take over the internet.

Is anyone else similarly afflicted (I bet you are!)?

Cheers,

The Rat.

* I've even seen this one from at least one author on here. You know who you are!
** No Longbottoms were harmed in the writing of this post. Spelling, grammar, and common sense very well may have been.

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Standing here in my Reckless Hat

Nutters is a regular turn off.

that at least Webster's and my Mac dictionary say "wrack" is acceptable use -

(also wrack) (often be racked) cause extreme physical or mental pain to; subject to extreme stress : he was racked with guilt.

[ORIGIN: rack from Old English wræc [vengeance] ; related to wreak .]

I never claimed to be right, only that it annoyed me!

It's not a usage I've come across outside of Fanfic. Given that my "proper" education is rather lacking (I remember my 3rd-Form French teacher having to teach the class what a verb was), for interest's sake I just passed this one over to my girlfriend; she writes for a living and she's not come across it either. I find the etymology given interesting as well, as I wouldn't necessarily equate it to either term. But hey, if it's in the dictionary I'm not going to argue.

Something else that has tickled/annoyed me recently along similar lines; I've caught a few articles from the BBC, no less, describing someone who is either delighted or who has been given a stern telling-off as, "wrapped". This usually vanishes mysteriously an hour or two later!

I just hope they're using nice paper and a ribbon.

Cheers,

Rattie

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Standing here in my Reckless Hat

All that goes to show is that the yanks are all too willing to mutilate the language... *grins ducks & runs*

- SC

Actually, I can't find wrack in the OED in the way its being used here so I would say that rack is correct.

Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language"?

Anyway... Amidst all of the World Cup fever, Yahoo! Sports posted a recent article about the English hatred of the American use of the word Soccer (instead of using its 'proper' name of football). I wish I had the link, but I'm sure someone could find it if they really cared. It seems that when the English authorities over the sport formed the initial governing organization, they took to calling it Association Football. The author mentions the British tendency to shorten (or otherwise familiarize) names. As an example, he offered up the fact that his friends often changed his name from Johnson to Johnners. The Football Association took the third, fourth, and fifth letters of Association, and gave it the same treatment. The result... SOCcer! For quite a while, the terms Football and Soccer were used equally by the British. I don't remember when the term 'soccer' fell out of use over there, but we Americans have continued to use it, since we have our own sport which we have ironically titled 'football'.

I know it's not terribly related to the topic at hand, but I just felt the need to illustrate the point that some of the things we 'Yanks' do that irritate you, are actually practices we picked up from you. Though I will admit that most of them are probably due to our desire to, as you called it, 'mutilate the language'.

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If you strike me down now, I shall become more annoying than you could possibly imagine.

LOL That's fascinating. I never knew the origin of the name Soccer, but it makes sense now. We call it Soccer here too. Probably for much the same reason. (Funnily enough though our own football game is almost never actually called that - see above re shortening of names) I read somewhere that the official name here has recently been changed from Soccer to Football... I'm not sure if that will catch on though.

For the record I'm an Aussie, not a Brit. :-) There are differences between Aussie and UK English too, but I believe that's mostly from us adding slang phrases to it rather than modifying the formal spellings and usage. :-)

-SC

That would be interesting, because so far as I know your regular Brit has no trouble using the term "soccer" to identify "Association Football" and distinguish it from "rugger" AKA "rugby football".

Well, if the word is from Old English... and if it was wræc originally... then the Brits mutilated it first. :P

Eddie Izzard who said that England and the US were two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And it's true.

Probably the French actually.

GLP and GFP interest me rather a bit more than GMP, in my line of work.

That said, I've always wanted a round tuit. Where might I buy one?

I'm fascinated by the linguistic interplay between Britain and France, particularly in the sphere of food. There have been constant subtle, and not so subtle, insults traded back and forth over the years. Hence the term "brut" champagne, for the British who preferred their bubbly both dry and uncouth.

You always insult your neighbours. But we really have never got on that well through history. Both our countries have a superiority complex (ours is deserved theirs isn't!!). Reminds me of the old saying. How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one has ever found out.

Re: soccer - the Brits will just have to get over it. In countries with over five recognised codes of football we have to call it something!!!!!

Although as Sibling Creature said, we just shorten it all anyway ... Aussie Rules, Union, League, Gridiron ... they are all football. Soccer isn't special and doesn't get to be called football :P

Except for having the first codified rules:p

love the joke! Actually, the French hate the Parisians more than we do.

Brits outclassing the crapauds on their own soil in the cycling :-)

Biggest influx of words into the language came when William the B*stard came over with his mates.

Another one that irritates me to no end is wander vs wonder. I've just be rereading a favorite of mine and it hit me again and this time, I thought of this thread.

"Before you wonder off Neville,"

IRRITATING!! The story is definitely great, but little things like this just tend to annoy me.

You wander (move aimlessly) by moving your feet. You wonder by moving your brain.

Thanks, I feel better now.

From: Of This Cup

Actually I don't see. Which is why I grab my travelling cloak and my wand and go wandering. Or wondering. I'm never sure which it is.

Never let it be said that state education standards have fallen.

[/quote]

Never let it be said that state education standards have fallen. [/quote]

Perhaps i should have said

me bros av dun gud in skool, innit.

And I thought it was a clever play on words and on Harry's state of mind :p

Was just reminded of another one. Lose vs Loose. This is also really, REALLY, annoying.

... I once read an actual published book in which the word 'choose', was consistently misspelled as 'chose' throughout.

-SC