#and what the fuck does 'subjunctive' even mean

[actual-changeling]

Welcome back to Alex's unhinged meta corner, and today I have something surprisingly not kiss-related—though it is still about the final fifteen because hey, gotta keep the brand image.

I read this post by @goodoldfashionednightingale and began typing a small response. Then I made the mistake of drinking half a litre of coffee on an empty stomach right after taking my adhd meds and my brain began vibrating at the speed of light.

But oh, have I discovered parallels. This, my friends, is about the nightingale, where it comes from, what it means, and what the fuck happened in part 3 of 1941.

Ready? Let's go.

Now, as OP said in her post, s1e3 is important. In the script book, Neil himself says that these flashbacks are where the producers would tell him to cut scenes to save money. They suggested every single one—except for the one he ended up taking out, which was the bookshop opening scene set in 1800. The others are building blocks, you need them to see how their relationship progressed and what kind of important milestones they had.

(side note: author is very miffed that english does not have a separate subjunctive form like german which makes quoting lines way more confusing than it has to be)

The one I want to mention is neither 1941 nor 1967. No, what I want to talk about is 1601. This might be about to get a bit rambly but I will do my best to keep it tidy.

The focus of that flashback is on the Arrangement, yes, but it gives us a lot more information than that.

they both see Shakespeare's plays regularly, maybe even meet in the crowd

Crowley prefers the comedies

Aziraphale does not seem to have a preference, he enjoys the tragedies and presumably the comedies too

there is an oyster woman selling food -> reference to their meeting in Rome when Aziraphale tempted him to try some oysters

Aziraphale reflexively denies their relationship

Crowley might say he is not worried but circles Aziraphale the entire time, keeping watch

they both ask favours of each other and both agree to do them

What stands out to me in relation to what I am about to expand on is the line that Crowley delivers after Aziraphale's little 'buck up'—which Crowley finds adorable btw but that's a post for another time.

"Age does not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety."

Why would he say that? What exactly is prompting this? WHY say that specific line?

At first I thought it might be to tempt Shakespeare because he does commit art theft by just copying that line down, BUT I think there is more to that. So much more, in fact. I am wiggling now because I am very excited about this and my adhd meds are kicking in anyway.

First things first: the line itself.

It appears in Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, a romantic tragedy, which was first performed in 1607 aka six years after this meeting. Enobarbus is talking about Cleopatra and describing why Antony won't leave her. Her.

Ccrowley uses his—again, who is he even talking about? Hamlet? Shakespeare? Random poetic quote?

No, I think this line is about Aziraphale and it's a code. Right after, the next line from Aziraphale is "What do you want?", meaning that this is their code phrase for 'I have a favour to ask of you'.

Age does not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety

Age will not affect his appearance nor will he ever become boring to Antony. Crowley, who later chooses the name Anthony for himself, tells Aziraphale, an immortal, that he will never age and that he will never grow bored of him.

It's flattery, pure and simple, and it's code at the same time. This establishes the important fact that they might use more of Shakespeare's work as code/already have a system in place (even though he steals Crowley's line for later).

They play their little morality game of back and forth, Aziraphale agrees, Crowley probably manipulates the coin toss, and THEN we find out that the oyster woman is called Juliet.

Why? What is the meaning of that? Why give her a name and that name in particular? Why bring the sexy oysters back into it?

Romeo and Juliet premiered in 1597, so it is safe to assume they have both seen it by 1601, but this is mostly for the audience, not for us-or is it?

Aziraphale gives Crowley puppy eyes until he agrees to make Hamlet popular, and while I don't think Juliet itself is a code word, although it's very interesting that the OYSTER woman is the one with that name (especially adding what we now know about Job), Romeo and Juliet might be.

Yes, the Nightingale song came out in 1940 but the bird has been around for much, much longer, and, as many probably know by now, also shows up in Romeo and Juliet.

This is where I am starting to vibrate at the speed of light because listen to me. Listen.

Crowley is Juliet. Anthony J. Crowley. Antony Juliet Crowley.

(side note: I'm not saying that Crowley chose it based on that—though I am not not saying that—but that it is a clue for us at the audience.)

Why do I think that? In the play, Romeo spends the night with Juliet and then goes to leave as the night begins to end. Juliet tries to stop him and tells him that the birds they are hearing aren't larks, which sing at dawn, but nightingales, which sing at night.

Who is the one always pushing for more? Crowley. He is the one trying to convince Aziraphale it's safe, they're safe to spend time together.

Romeo disagrees with Juliet and says 'I must be gone and live, or stay and die'.

Leave and stay alive, or stay and hell/heaven will punish us. It gets even better though.

We all know how Romeo and Juliet ends: Romeo thinks Juliet is dead, kills himself, Juliet finds him and then kills herself too.

Hey, do you know how Antony and Cleopatra ends?

Antony thinks Cleopatra is dead, kills himself and dies in her arms, then Cleopatra also kills herself—by snake poison; Romeo also died by poison.

The parallels are THERE. They are jumping down our throats! Two tragedies, two sides, several familiar names and phrases, same fear, same ending.

I think by now you can guess how this ties back to 1941.

We do not see how that night ends, but we know it ends. One of them wants to stretch it out, maybe even quotes Romeo and Juliet because look at the setting!

Candlelight, wonderful night they spend together, the threat of Crowley's early demise, and, to quote the play once more, this time Romeo: I have more care to stay than will to go.

Crowley thought it was his last night on earth and went with Aziraphale to his bookshop, to be with him, because he cares more about that than the fact that he will be dragged to hell come morning. Do you remember?

"Expect a legion to come for you first thing tomorrow" THAT is the threat. They have until dawn, just like Romeo and Juliet, which is why she is so desperate for the birds to be nightingales. Fortunately for them, Aziraphale saves the day, BUT there is NO SECURITY. They do not KNOW if a legion will still show up or not. If dawn is a deadline and they will need to fight.

Sure, they improved their chances, but who knows? Maybe they will come for him anyway, it's not like hell is all fair and square.

The best part: it gets even better.

Juliet eventually panics and tells him to go, and Romeo drops a line that huh, sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it?

'More light and light, more dark and dark our woes!'

Remind me, what does Aziraphale say again? Ah, yes. Perhaps there is something to be said for shades of grey.

There is more. Yes, even more. We know the whole rescue relies on a magic trick, a switch. Guess what Juliet yearns for while telling Romeo to go save himself?

Oh, now I would they had changed voices too. While they did not for Romeo and Juliet—they kiss and part—they did for our two. One fabulous switch and we're good.

(side note: Toads? Associated with hell. Larks? Associated with the dawn, yes, but also heaven since Romeo says 'Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads.')

So, this was a whole lot of information, let's see if I can summarize my thoughts.

I believe the nightingale is a code word that has existed even before 1941 and gained a lot of importance over the years. In 1941, the song is added to the meaning and whatever happened between the two that we have not seen yet, it fundamentally changed their relationship. Maybe they kissed, maybe one of them tried to convince the other to prolong the night but they parted on not-great terms.

The nightingale and the song become a symbol of hope, a goal to achieve, another uninterrupted night, maybe, or an uninterrupted life.

When they part in the final fifteen, it's morning. Crowley points at the sky and says "no nightingales", which at that point has several different layers to it.

No nightingales because their night is over, just like with Romeo and Juliet, and please, please allow me to add another detail, because I am frothing at the mouth over this. The scene I quoted, known as balcony scene, do you know what it is preceded by?

A ball.

Star-crossed lovers defying their sides, falling in love at a ball, getting a hurried, wonderful night together but torn apart by danger of punishment, the nightingale as a dream, as a wish for unhurried time together. Family rejection, torn apart by parents, willing to die for each other so they can reunite in death.

No nightingales. The ball, the romance, is over, their dancing is over, heaven is tearing them apart, and Aziraphale returns to heaven while they are both stuck in a pit of misunderstanding and miscommunication, all bound together by fear for each other.

The thing is, Crowley hates tragedies, he never liked the "gloomy ones", and he does not want them to end in one—luckily, this isn't the end. Yes, they kiss and part, but the play keeps going. We have an entire act 3 to fix what Romeo and Juliet couldn't, to ensure that this is a COMEDY, not a tragedy.

Both Antony & Cleopatra and Romeo & Juliet died out of fear, hurried into making bad decisions because they knew what would happen if their sides were to catch up with them.

Crowley and Aziraphale can reunite heaven and hell with love, not death. This is THEIR story and they are writing the ending. No more day and night, no more deadlines, no more hiding and sneaking about, no more fear of larks and sunshine.

Good Omens will end the way it began: In a garden with two no-longer-star-crossed lovers embracing the song of a lark as well as that of the nightingale.

I hope this made sense to everyone who was no present while my mind started to vibrate itself into a puddle because the thing is I can see Neil doing all of this completely on purpose.

Thoughts? Questions? Additions? Come and join me in my insanity and until next time I have a mental breakdown over this show (probably in like two hours).

#alex talks good omens #good omens #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #no nightingales #ineffable divorce #the final fifteen #a nightingale sang in berkeley square

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Are you not chinese?

No

In HS I studied Latin for 4 years, became overwhelmingly sick of romance languages, and so I started studying Asian culture, mythology, and language instead when I got to college. At first just to meet language requirements, but became genuinely extremely interested in studying more.

So far that only includes Mandarin Chinese and Korean. I've studied Mandarin Chinese longer than Korean, but I spent a year in Korea during college studying specifically the intersection of history, culture, and religion (my passion- how history is coded into tradition or mythology).

#ask #see i heard you don't decline nouns in Chinese or Korean and that said nouns don't have different declensions based on their gender #so i was like *waves at latin and it's dumbassery* fuck this shit i'm out #that's how much i hate declining nouns #and what the fuck does 'subjunctive' even mean #i rage quit the root language of most of western civilization that's how i ended up here #some languages are beautiful and some i swear to god were a prank that got out of hand

[wingodex]

The Old Guard Speech Patterns Analysis

I made a post on the speech patterns of the main characters in The Old Guard, and a lot of people seemed interested in it, so I’ve cleaned up and clarified the rest of my notes. What I’ve looked at specifically here is mostly related to syntax, so grammar and sentence structure. I’ve vaguely looked at pragmatics, which has to do with how context contributes to meaning, and semantics, which deals with the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. I’ve also looked at sociolinguistics, which has to do with the effect of society on language, but I want to be upfront in saying that it’s not my personal area of interest so my knowledge is lacking there. On that same point, I have no formal linguistics training, I’m just into conlanging and everything I know about linguistics is self taught. For each of the characters I’ve talked about contraction usage, colloquialisms, phrases, verb and verb tense usage, ellipses, sentence composition, adjective and adverb frequency, discourse markers and fillers, profanity, vocabulary(ish), and questions.

You can also find all of this on ao3.

Couple of disclaimers to start: while this is obviously a great tool for fic writing, and can help you get a feel for the way that the characters speak in the movie, I’m asking non-Black writers to be very careful about the way you use some of this information when it comes to Nile. When Nile speaks, she uses a lot of colloquial/vernacular language, and while she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie, her syntax does contain vernacular features. The history of transcribing colloquial language and vernacular dialects—African American/Black English in particular—is racist, classist and ableist. Your decision to write in colloquial language or to incorporate elements of Black English, rather than using Standard English, into Nile’s dialogue can potentially continue a tradition of racial othering if you’re not wary and conscious. Colloquial language in written form is often used to imply a lack of intelligence, a lack of education or a lower class. Be especially considerate of transcribing colloquial reductions like “wanna,” “gotta,” etc. Avoid eye-dialect at all cost, please, I am begging you. In general, the best way to transcribe dialects is through rhythm of prose, syntax, idioms/figures of speech and vocabulary. Even if you rely on those techniques for Nile, I’m still advising the utmost caution due to the complexity of syntax of AAVE and other dialects. For those unfamiliar with AAVE, I go into more detail about it here. If you do decide to use vernacular language for Nile, I’m going to insist you look into copula deletion/zero copula in AAVE outside of this post. It’s usage is very complex and specific. If you decide to use colloquial language for her to really take advantage of the intelligent way that she uses style-shifting in the movie then, at the very least, remember that the other characters (with the exception of Nicky) also use colloquial language frequently in the movie as well. If Nile is the only one in your fic using colloquial language, that’s a problem.

Most of the contextual analysis as it relates to sociolinguistics is based on my own speculation and interpretation of all the data I’ve collected. They contain my own personal biases and are influenced by my own experiences. If you have another interpretation of any of this, I’m absolutely interested in hearing it. Also, there is simply not enough data for any of my observations to be definitive, especially for Joe and Nicky. The two of them combined say around the same number of sentences as Booker, and he only says half as many sentences as Andy. There are literally verb tenses/aspects that not a single person uses in the whole movie. It’s also important to note that I am fallible, and while I do think most of this is accurate, I probably fucked up and missed something or miscounted! More than once! In some cases, I was only able to find one example of something and while I’ve included those observations, they are in no way indicative of a pattern, so don’t view them as strict rules.

I threw around a lot of jargon in this, and there wasn't really an easy way to avoid doing that while talking about most of this stuff. Descriptions are provided throughout the post. I've done my best to define all the more complex and lesser-known concepts, and to provide specific examples from the movie but feel free to reach out if you're unsure about any of it. Basic English grammar things that will be helpful to know to understand all of this post: parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, interjections), clauses (subject + predicate), tense–aspect–mood for verb conjugation (in English we have: past and non-past; perfective, imperfective, and progressive; and indicative, imperative, and subjunctive), phrase structure, auxiliary verbs, phrasal verbs, wh-movement (who, what, when, where, why, how) and sentence sequencing (in English it’s SVO, or subject-verb-object).

On ellipsis: for Andy, Nile and Booker (and Joe, a little bit), the types of ellipses I focused on were mostly the types that you only see in spoken colloquial English. For Nicky, I talked a lot more about further classification of ellipses that do sometimes apply to the other four, but aren’t as noticeable. 

For phrases, I mostly included idioms and expressions to avoid listing every single phrase in the movie. I generally avoided noun phrases (with a few exceptions), and I don't think I mention any adverb phrases. 

For my own purposes, I’ve decided to define fillers as discourse markers without lexical content that are used to indicate that the pause while speaking is only temporary. The rest of the discourse markers use standard classification.

Thank you to both @disregardandfelicity and @youknowthegirls for looking over this post for me!

Andy

Andy uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’ve, it’s, etc). I mean, she actually doesn't in the movie, but she comes so close that I feel confident in saying she would use all the others. The Wikipedia page for English Auxiliary Verbs has a great chart for contractions. Of the characters, she's literally the only one who does this with this level of consistency.

Her contraction usage isn't limited to personal pronouns. She uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there" and "where", and presumably with “when” and “how” although there are no examples of that in the movie. She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Andy uses both the simple future and the more colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. She seems to have a preference for going-to future, and the only time she uses the simple future is in her dramatic opening monologue and when she’s trying to reassure Nile. Otherwise, she sticks to going-to construction.

Simple future: “Will this time be the one?”, “Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Going-to future: “And you’re going to help us.”

Andy also typically uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction. When she uses “going to” instead, it’s during moments of sincerity. As mentioned, she also iconically uses them both in the same sentence.

"I knew this was gonna happen", "You think knowing is gonna make you sleep better at night?"

“You’re not a Marine anymore. They’re going to lock you up.”, “When we leave a footprint in the sand, in the snow, in the ether, you’re going to sweep it.”

“You’re going to protect us from those who want to put us in cages, and you’re gonna help us find those jobs that are best suited to us.”

Andy uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, and with no real pattern. Important note: I am only referring to the verb “to have” in the present tense, not when "have" is used as an auxiliary. She doesn’t seem to use “have got” in the negative (i.e. “haven’t got” vs “don’t have”).

“We have to find Copley.”, “I have the new one.”

“You’ve got blood in your hair.” “He’s got Joe and Nicky.”

“We don’t have all the answers, but we do have purpose.”

Andy also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she usually uses contracted have/has. Occasionally she drops the auxiliary.

"You’ve gotta feel it, Nile.”  "There's gotta be a price."

Andy drops the auxiliary when she says, "We gotta go" instead of “We’ve gotta go” and “Sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with” instead of “Sometimes you’ve gotta..”

Andy uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“Well, sometimes you gotta work with people you don’t wanna eat with.” “You really wanna do this, kid?”

Andy incorrectly uses the object pronoun “me” like a true native English speaker

“Me and those three men in there will keep you safe.”

Andy seems to generally say “Yeah” but she says “Yes” when she really means it. She also says “Mm hmm.”

Andy uses several discourse markers throughout the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Andy uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Andy uses are:

Sentence openers: actually, so, come on, here, look, listen, now, oh, well, you know,

Sentence closers: I guess, maybe, right, 

Responses: yeah

Interjections: hey

Connection: to be honest

Andy doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, she pauses and repeats herself as needed.

“Remember what it... what it was like to feel unbreakable.”

Of all the characters, Andy uses the imperative mood the most (throughout the movie Andy tells someone to do something 35 times using this mood)

When Andy repeats herself for emphasis, she usually does it in pairs. The only exception is when she says “why?” three times to Booker in the scene with Copley

Andy uses ellipses, which is when words are omitted from a sentence and the sentence can still be understood. This isn’t particularly noteworthy in what it says about her speech patterns, as everyone uses elliptical construction. It’s just part of how speech works, how dialogue works and how writing works. It’s a feature of English, spoken and written, rather than an anomaly. I do feel it’s worth mentioning though, because I’m going to talk a lot about some specific kinds of ellipses (null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula) that are only found in colloquial and spoken language. For more about elliptical construction, see the Nicky section.

Andy uses noun and verb ellipses when she says, “I’ve been here before... over and over again, and each time the same question.” 

Andy uses answer ellipsis. That means that when she answers questions, she often speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

[Who’s gonna fly the plane?] “We don’t need a pilot” instead of “[Nobody is going to fly the plane.] We don’t need a pilot.”

Andy occasionally uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. she doesn’t use subject pronouns), but not as frequently as the other characters. 

“Can’t wait” instead of “I can’t wait.”

Andy frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. This means that she will drop the leading auxiliary verb. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.  

Andy uses “You found Copley?” instead of “Have you found Copley?” and “Everyone still with me?” instead of “Is everyone still with me?”

When asking questions, Andy typically uses either the method described above or intonation if she can get away with it. However, she does still ask yes-no questions without dropping the auxiliary. Andy is also one of the only characters to use a disjunctive question. In contrast to the disjunctive (which is often condescending), Andy is also one of the only characters polite enough to use an indirect question.  

Intonation: “Joe and Nicky?”

Disjunctive: “You don’t speak Russian, do you?”

Indirect: “Would you like me to take one for you?”

Andy doesn’t use the subordinating conjunction “that” at any point in the movie.

“Last time I checked, you had to be American to be in the CIA” instead of “Last time that I checked...”

Andy says “What the...” when she’s confused.

Andy makes a humming sound when she’s pleased that’s transcribed as “Mmm!”. Interesting to note that every time she makes this sound, it’s in response to Nicky.

Profanity used by Andy: asshole, fuck, goddamn, motherfucker, shit, shitty

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Andy: bend it to [your] will, broke [a promise], changes nothing, come on, do the same, enough of this, for all I care, get some sleep, go big or go home, going out for a bit, gotta go, last time I checked, let’s, next time, now and always, on board, play dead, set up, straight to [something], tie off, to be honest, welcome back, what [he] said, whatever it takes, work out

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Andy says more sentences than any other character. She says more than twice as many sentences as Booker and four times as many sentences as Joe and Nicky. Nile says a little less than 2/3 as many sentences as Andy. 

Sentence composition**: 57% of Andy’s sentences are simple sentences, 31% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences, and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 13% of Andy’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 9% of Andy’s sentences.

Andy is very consistent in her speech. She doesn’t style-shift much and almost exclusively speaks in a colloquial style of Standard American English. There are two exceptions to this: when she was talking to the tourists in Marrakesh, she was overly polite; and when she was dealing with Copley, she enunciated herself far more and was less likely to use contractions. When I say that Andy speaks Standard English, what I mean is that she speaks the dialect of English which has undergone the most regularization and standardization. It’s the one associated with public communication, the one that's used in commerce and government, and the one that has the most institutional support and sanction. Andy is very familiar and comfortable in this dialect, to the point where she even uses common grammar mistakes that native speakers do. Her speech is very casual. I would say that Andy has spent a significant amount of time recently in the United States or Canada, and I also suspect that English is the modern language that she is most comfortable in. I think that Andy has likely spent a lot of time speaking casually with other English native speakers and that her grasp of the language was formed without any kind of formal language training. Andy doesn’t use much descriptive language, and her sentences are typically short and clear. While I think Andy does read a little bit, it’s had very little impact on her speech patterns. I doubt she reads any kind of serious formal writing, or academic works. 

Nile

Nile uses every contraction for auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns (e.g. I’m, you’re, it’s, etc). She also uses them with other nouns and names. Nile is very deliberate about contraction usage. For the most part, in casual speech, she uses contractions, although she does use a lack of contractions to express disbelief or for emphasis. Nile also uses a lack of contractions to show condescension or disapproval. When she’s trying to be authoritative, she’s less likely to use contractions. When she wants to make sure she’s understood, she also doesn’t use contractions.

“I am not jumping from a plane!” “You do not listen to her, you listen to me.”

“We are looking for this man. He has killed many of our people and many of yours.”

Nile uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. She also uses contractions with "there", "where", “why” and “how.” She uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Nile doesn’t use the contraction “y’all” in the movie. In fact, she specifically doesn’t use it.

“How are you all in my dreams?”

Nile uses both the simple future and the colloquial going-to future construction at various points in the movie. Like with contractions, Nile is less likely to use colloquialisms when she’s serious or trying to be authoritative. I think it’s especially poignant when she uses it to express bravery (with Booker). Nile always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction. 

Simple future: “I’m the one who will walk out of there, one way or another.”

Going-to future: “People that are gonna worry.”

Nile uses the verb “have” and the phrasal verb “have got” interchangeably, however she has a very strong preference for “have got”

“You have my phone?”

“I got people that love me,” “You got a satellite link?”

Nile also uses the colloquialism “gotta” in sentences where she uses “have got” with the infinitive “to”. When she does this, she always uses null auxiliary construction (see below for more details).

“We gotta get out of here!”

Nile uses the colloquialism “wanna” in the place of “want to”.

“I just really wanna hear my mom’s voice one more time.”

Nile truncates “trying to” as “tryna”.

“I’m tryna save you, man!”

Nile truncates “out of” as “outta”

Nile uses a lot of discourse markers. She uses more discourse markers than any of the other characters, although Booker comes very close. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nile uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers that Nile uses are:

Sentence openers: so, well, wait, here, yeah, now

Sentence closers: or something, maybe, you know, okay, man

Interjections: come on, what, no way

Responses: yeah

Nile uses some fillers when speaking, however she doesn’t use them often. The fillers she uses are: uh, yeah

While Nile does occasionally use the imperative mood, she’s far more likely to give commands based on intonation alone, rather than syntax.

Intonation: “You do not listen to her, you listen to me,” “We gotta get out of here!”

Imperative: “Land this plane.”

Nile uses elliptical construction when speaking, which means that when words are omitted from a sentence, the sentence can still be understood.  Again, this in and of itself is not very noteworthy, see Nicky for more details. 

“South side of Chicago, a million different ways we could’ve went left.”

She also uses answer ellipsis, meaning that when answering questions, she speaks in sentence fragments.

Answer ellipsis: [You have someone?] “Just my family” instead of “[I have] just my family.”

Nile frequently uses null subject elliptical construction. When using null subject construction, she drops personal pronouns.

“Talked to Copley. Said he could fix it.” instead of “I talked to Copley. He said he could fix it.”

Nile’s use of ellipsis is mostly characterized by her usage of null auxiliary, which is when she drops auxiliary verbs from sentences. The way she does this is very distinct and she’s the only character who speaks like this. While the other characters who use null auxiliary construction do so in the specific context of asking questions, Nile’s usage is more complicated.

Like the others, Nile frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion, but unlike the others, she also sometimes drops the auxiliary in wh- questions. For more on zero copula, see below.

"You gonna be okay?" "So, you good guys or bad guys?" 

“Where you taking me?”

Outside of asking questions, Nile also occasionally uses both null auxiliary construction and the zero copula. She is the only character who does this (Andy does this, but only with one specific word/phrase. Nile's usage is less restrictive). Zero copula is a linguistic phenomena where the subject is joined to the predicate without marking that relationship (i.e. there’s no verb). In English, the main copula is the verb “to be”, so zero copula in English describes situations where inflections of “to be” are omitted. When the characters use null auxiliary construction to omit the inflected forms of “to be” while asking questions, they are using the copula deletion. 

In the above example questions, all of them are examples of copula deletion as they are omitting inflections of the verb "to be"

When Nile says “I got people that love me”, she uses null auxiliary construction to omit the auxiliary “have”. Nile always drops the auxiliary “have” when using the “have got” form.

When Nile says “This the shit you into?” she’s actually using the zero copula twice. You’ll notice that she’s missing the leading “is” and in the dependent clause, she’s missing the “are (“Is this the shit you’re into?” in Standard English).

At one point in the movie, Nile includes a further truncated null subject, where she doesn’t use both the subject and the auxiliary verb. Joe does something similar in the present tense.

Nile says “Killed in action when I was eleven” instead of “He was killed in action when I was eleven.”

When asking questions, outside of wh- questions, Nile usually relies on intonation or dropping the auxiliary from subject-auxiliary inversion questions as described above. She does occasionally use inversion for yes/no questions without dropping the auxiliary. 

Intonation: “You have my phone?”

Indirect: “So... you’re even older than him.”

As the audience surrogate, Nile asks the most questions in the movie (she asks 69 questions LMAO)

Another way that Nile formalizes her speech is by inserting the subordinating conjunction “that” into sentences where they would normally be omitted.

“And that was a blank that you shot me with.” “But... you said that we were immortal.”

Nile says “Uh uh” to mean “no” or “don’t even think about it”

Phrases, idioms and expressions used by Nile: a little help, backed down, brains of [the] outfit, come on, follow the money, gave [them] up, honest-to-God, how the hell, what kind of [noun], killed in action, let’s go, move on, never hurts to, no way, one more time, one way or another, roger that, sit your ass down, some bullshit, son of a bitch, stay tight, steal away, went left, what’s up (greeting), 

Profanity used by Nile: ass, bitch, bullshit, damn, fuck, hell, shit

Sentence composition**: 60% of Nile’s sentences are simple sentences, 30% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 6% are complex sentences and 1% are compound-complex sentences.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 18% of Nile’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 4% of her sentences. Nile doesn’t use any adverb phrases.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Pashto

Of all the characters, Nile’s use of English is the most deliberate. While the others are obviously fluent and capable in English, Nile’s use of style-shifting throughout the movie demonstrates a mastery of the language that the other characters simply don’t have. The way that she shifts between formal and colloquial language for emphasis, for clarity, to express disbelief or disapproval, to act authoritatively, to appear casual and friendly, and to invite others to engage with her, speaks to what she is capable of by her word and syntax choices. All of this is obviously enhanced by her tone, her cadence, her pitch, her volume and her speaking speed. 

When Nile speaks, she doesn’t speak in AAVE. That being said, her speech does contain vernacular features. The two elements of Nile’s syntax that are most noticeable are her use of the zero copula and her deletion of “have” in situations where it can be contracted (to clarify: using copula deletion is not necessarily an indicator of AAVE. When the other characters use the zero copula, they are not speaking AAVE. The subtle differences in the context of their usage of copula deletion is what makes Nile’s speech distinctly Black). Some of Nile’s word choices and noun phrases are also reflective of the typical speech of Black people, as pointed out to me by this anon. It’s very likely that Nile can speak AAVE, but doesn’t in the movie. She was raised by two Black parents in a very residentially segregated city, and while Nile didn’t specify the neighborhood she grew up in (you can make some guesses to the general area based on how she talks about it, but that’s not quite the same), Chicago’s South Side is predominantly Black, so the people she was around, the place she attended school and the church she went to were all likely predominantly Black as well. Due to the fact that Standard English is the language taught in public schools in the United States, Nile has obviously also developed a fluency in that dialect as well and can probably code switch between the two dialects. The fact that she doesn’t speak AAVE in the movie isn’t particularly unusual. Society is largely hostile towards Black people speaking AAVE, so language self-policing becomes a survival tool. Nile had also just spent an indefinite amount of time in the US military, which has its own style which has its own style of speaking as well which she would have been using. And then she basically got kidnapped by mostly white people, some of whom have noticeable accents, so having her speak AAVE would’ve been an odd character choice, but not totally implausible.

The way that Nile switches between formal and colloquial English is a type of code switching that I would honestly refer to more as style-shifting. Because she isn’t actually speaking AAVE, I can’t say how the dialect factors into her speech patterns. I think it’s possible that Nile’s ability to style-shift between formal and informal language could have been an ability that she developed as a result of needing to code switch between AAVE and Standard English in an educational environment. I do want to make it very clear however, that when I’m talking about Nile style-shifting, it has very little bearing on the vernacular features of her speech, but rather the colloquial features like contractions, verb choice, ellipsis and her use of phrasal verbs. It’s possible that she uses code switching in the same way, however we don’t have evidence of that in the movie.

Booker

Booker uses most contractions, but not all, and with much less consistency than Andy or deliberate purpose like Nile. He uses contractions for auxiliaries and their inflected forms for personal pronouns. When speaking casually, he uses contractions, but when he’s upset, he uses them far less consistently. He doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected form of have (i.e. “had”).

Booker uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there", "where" and “how. He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Booker uses both the simple future and the going-to future construction at various points in the movie. He doesn’t seem to have a preference either way.

Simple future: “They will get to learn your secret.”

Going-to future: “It’s gonna take time.”

Booker always uses the colloquialism “gonna” when using going-to future construction.

Booker doesn’t seem to use the phrasal verb “have got” but I could only find one instance of him using the verb “to have” in the present tense, so this isn’t definitive either way. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that, like Andy, he uses “to have” and “have got” interchangeably.

Even though Booker speaks less than Nile and Andy, he uses close to the same amount of discourse markers as them, meaning that they appear far more regularly in his speech. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Booker uses discourse markers to start sentences, as responses, as interjections, etc. The discourse markers he uses are:

Sentence openers: come on, hey, oh, well, listen, I mean, ooh (expressing pleasure), yeah

Sentence closers: right, of course

Responses: yeah, alright

Interjections: hey, ow! (expressing victory)

Connections: by the way, tell you what

Of all the characters, Booker uses the most fillers when speaking. The fillers that he uses are: oh, uh, um, yeah 

Booker pauses and repeats himself as needed. He only does this when he’s upset. Otherwise, he seems to use fillers instead.

“Everyone you love is gonna... is gonna suffer and is gonna die."

When Booker repeats himself for emphasis, he always does it in pairs.

Booker often uses elliptical construction, and the most frequent type seems to be null auxiliary construction. He does use other types of ellipses though (For more about ellipsis, see Nicky). 

“Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting.”

Booker uses answer ellipsis, but almost to the point of incomprehensibility. Dude just gives the bare minimum. That means that when he answers questions, he speaks in sentence fragments rather than full sentences.

Answer ellipsis: [You found Copley?] “Nothing, but dead ends” instead of “[I found] nothing but dead ends.”

Booker frequently uses sentences with a truncated null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Lost the plot after that” instead of “I lost the plot after that”

Booker frequently uses null auxiliary construction and zero copula when asking questions that normally use subject-auxiliary inversion. For more information about zero copula, see Nile.

Booker says “You good?” instead of “Are you good?” and “You have someone?” instead of “Do you have someone?”

When asking questions, Booker almost always uses either the method described above, or intonation. The only time Booker asks a question without dropping the auxiliary is when he says “Are you all right, boss?” to Andy in the cave. 

Intonation: “Oh, she gave it back?”

Booker doesn’t generally use the subordinating clause “that,” but he will sometimes.

“What I do know is she was alone for a long time before she found anyone like her.”

“And they will tell you... that you don’t love them.”

At two separate points in the movie, Booker references Elizabethan literature. “Misery loves company” is from Dr. Faustus by Marlowe and “That way madness lies” is from King Lear by Shakespeare

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Booker: all in, by the way, calm down, change of clothes, come on, dead ends, give [her] time, give me your hand, how’s it going?, I’ll see you soon, in the open, leave no footprints, let’s go, lost the plot, moving out, misery loves company, reach out, stick to the plan, take time, tell you what, what’s going on, won’t hurt

Profanity used by Booker: shit, putain de merde

Sentence composition**: 59% of Booker’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 9% are complex sentences, 1% are compound-complex sentences and 4% are not in English

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 16% of Booker’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Booker’s sentences. 

Languages spoken on-screen: English, French, Italian

We know from Booker’s backstory that he’s French and he’s from Marseilles, and other people have spoken about how Booker’s native language would likely have been Occitan, although he speaks French as well. Like Andy, Joe and Nicky, English is not Booker’s native language, although he does speak it with a high degree of fluency. While there are aspects of Booker’s speech that are more related to him being a non-native English speaker, I wanted to talk about French first. It’s worth noting that French is the only Romance language that isn't a null subject language (and as far as I can tell, Occitan isn’t either). This means that when Booker uses null subject construction, that’s either something he picked up from another language or from being around people speaking colloquial English. The thing that stands out to me the most about Booker’s speech though, is actually the way he uses intonation (and to a certain extent, null auxiliary construction as well) when asking questions. While French can use subject-auxiliary inversion, for the most part, you just ask questions by intonation. In the French dub of the movie when Booker asks “You travel?” he says “T’as voyagé?” which in English directly translates to “You travelled?” or “You’ve travelled?” While I could get into semantics about verb tenses, do-support and modality, what I’m getting at here is that both “You travel?” and “T’as voyagé?” mean the same thing and are expressed in a form that feels semantically similar to me even if it’s not syntactically similar, in the same way that ending a question with the tag “right?” (which Booker uses a lot) feels the same as the tag “non?”

There are a couple of things that I think are interesting about Booker’s manner of speech. Booker primarily speaks in simple and fragmented sentences, which is pretty normal, but what’s different about him is the way that a lot of his speech is referential. What I mean is that Booker relies on a lot of common phrases, common clauses, clichés and quotations when he speaks. In a lot of ways, Booker speaks the way your typical action hero is supposed to. You get a sense of Booker engaging in a broader cultural and literary conversation. I don’t know how to explain this exactly, but when Booker speaks, you just know he reads and that he watches tv and movies. And not just that, but that he borrows and imitates aspects of what he reads. But besides the pragmatic element of Booker’s speech, all of the things that are notable about Booker’s speech are things that you also see in Andy, Joe and Nicky. Syntactically, there’s nothing about Booker’s speech that is distinctly unique to him, unlike the rest of the characters who all have their own little quirks. It’s almost like Booker is imitating the others, or borrowing someone else’s words. There is one notable exception, and that’s when Booker is talking to Nile in the cave. As the conversation goes on, you see this breakdown of Booker’s language as he attempts to tell his own story. Suddenly, a lot of the conventions established about Booker’s speech prior to this scene don’t apply. Obviously there are multiple explanations for this, ranging from English not being his first language to the fact that he was talking about something deeply personal and traumatizing to someone who was essentially a stranger. But what makes this scene stand out is the fact that in his next major scene, Booker is clearly on the verge of a full breakdown, but because he’s again relying on this established lexicon, you don’t see it reflected in his speech the same way that it is in the cave.

Joe

When Joe bothers with personal pronouns, he usually uses contractions with auxiliary verbs (e.g. I’m, she’s, it’s, etc). The exception to this is that Joe doesn’t use contractions with the past tense inflected auxiliary form of have (i.e. “had”).

Joe uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there". He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Joe only uses a future tense once in the entire film, and when he does, he uses going-to future construction. When he uses going-to future construction he uses the colloquialism “gonna"

“What are you gonna do?”

Joe doesn’t use the colloquial “have got” and always uses “to have”. 

“We have to find her”, “Well, now you have even more.”

This may be because Joe isn’t in the movie as much as the first three, or that he just genuinely doesn't use them often, but he uses considerably fewer discourse markers. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organize and manage sentences while speaking. Joe uses discourse markers to start sentences, and as interjections. The discourse markers that Joe uses are:

Sentence openers: oh, so, well, yeah

Interjections: hey, what

After Booker, Joe uses the second most amount of fillers. He uses more fillers when having a back-and-forth style conversation with someone than when he’s essentially monologuing. The fillers that Joe uses are: mmm, uh

Joe sometimes uses ellipses when speaking. Again, not super noteworthy, but I wanted to mention it nonetheless. 

“He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold.”

Joe uses answer ellipsis in the movie, but he doesn’t actually speak in sentence fragments when he does this. While answer ellipsis is pretty standard in English, Joe’s commitment to saying more than was asked of him isn’t.

[So... you’re even older than him.] “Nicky and I met in the Crusades.” instead of “[Yes, we are.] Nicky and I met in the Crusades.”

Joe uses sentences with a null subject (i.e. he doesn’t use subject pronouns).

“Depends on the century.” “Fought thousands of battles side by side.”

Joe uses sentences which have both a null subject and uses copula deletion. See Nile for more details on zero copula.

“Very pissed off.” “Faster than the elevator.”

In the movie, Joe only really asks wh- questions. He does ask a few using intonation, although most of those questions act more like additional tags on a wh-question, rather than a question by itself. As such, it's unclear whether Joe uses null auxiliary construction or the zero copula when asking questions.

Intonation: "Bedhead?” “So we just leave her out in the open?”

When Joe repeats himself for emphasis, it’s usually in groups of three. 

Joe says “what” when he doesn’t hear something/doesn’t understand something

As previously mentioned, Joe uses some formal words like "thus" and the impersonal pronoun "one". Here are some other words to consider having Joe use unironically as well: alas, amidst, await, behest, ergo, hence, latter, much, nor, notwithstanding, promptly, quite, shall (modal), thence, thereupon, thoroughly, whereas, whom (used correctly of course), yield

Even though Joe speaks quite formally a lot of the time, he never uses the subordinating conjunction “that” when it can be omitted.

“The first immortal Andy found.”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Joe: all in, attention to detail, come on, I guess, out in the open, measure and reason, over a [time period], piece of shit, proved [their] case, side by side, way back

Profanity used by Joe: goddamnit, shit

Unrelated to word count or time spent speaking, Joe says the least amount of sentences out of the five main characters, although this doesn’t mean very much, considering Nicky says exactly one more sentence than him. 

Sentence composition**: 57% of Joe’s sentences are simple sentences, 21% are sentence fragments, 5% are compound sentences, 4% are complex sentences, 4% are compound complex sentences and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 29% of Joe’s sentences. Adverbs and adverb phrases appear in 8% of Joe’s sentences.

Languages spoken on-screen: English, Italian

The best way to describe Joe’s manner of speaking is that it’s like he has two different styles. You get the sense that sometimes Joe just says whatever and sometimes he says something that he’s rehearsed in his head. Joe is a Maghrebi Muslim man from the Islamic Golden Age so he comes from a culture and time with a rich history of and respect for both written and spoken poetry, both impromptu and memorized. I think he carries that tradition quite well. When Joe is orating (van speech and Quynh backstory), his sentences are much more structured and he uses more formal language. He doesn't speak in sentence fragments, he doesn't use any colloquial language besides contractions and he doesn't use discourse markers or fillers like he does in the more casual back-and-forth conversations. If you look at Joe's sentence composition percentages, you'll notice that Joe has comparatively less sentence fragments than other characters and that’s purely because when he orates, it's in full sentences (minus poetic ellipsis, but that's allowed). That's why it seems to me as though Joe rehearses some of what he says in advance. I don’t know the extent to which he does that, but at the very least it seems like he’s sat down and thought “how would I explain Quynh to the new immortal?” or “What would I say to someone belittling my relationship with Nicky?” Even in the delivery of the line “Faster than the elevator” there is quite a long pause between him seeing that Nile jumped out a window and actually making the joke, as if he’s thinking about it first. The majority of the sentences Joe says are in the van speech and while telling Quynh’s backstory. In casual conversations, Nicky seems to take the lead more than Joe.

I’d also speculate that Joe is quite literate. Obviously there’s his own affinity for storytelling and oration, but his use of language hints at a larger vocabulary. You see him use a frequently neglected pronoun in English and a relatively formal adverb. He also uses adjectives like “grotesque” and “infantile”. He does end sentences while prepositions though, so he obviously does not give a fuck about John Dryden and Joshua Poole. That being said, I think the idea of rearranging Joe’s sentences so they don’t end in prepositions is funny and fits his whole vibe.

Joe uses null subject construction in English, and while that’s pretty common in everyday speech in English, it is worth noting that both Italian and Arabic are null subject languages. The way that Joe uses null construction in English is far more similar to Italian than Arabic, which requires a change in sentence sequencing but I still think it’s neat. The thing that Arabic brings to the table that I’m more intrigued by is the fact that it’s a zero copula language. It’s not a matter of copula deletion like AAVE, there straight up is not a copula in the present tense, so the lack of a verb (and specific sentence sequencing) is the copula in the present tense. When Joe drops both subject and verb in the present tense he is, in effect, simulating a similar situation due to the ambiguity of the sentences themselves where the only way you can correctly interpret the sentence is by understanding that the missing verb must be a copula. He gets rid of a subject pronoun as a shout out to Italian, I guess, but also because it would sound so silly if he didn’t. I don’t think Joe necessarily picked up this habit from Arabic, but I do think it’s a fun coincidence.

Nicky

Of all the characters, Nicky has the least consistent contraction usage for personal pronouns and auxiliaries (e.g. I’ve, you’re, it’s, etc). There are examples throughout the film of him using a contraction and then in the next scene he just doesn’t. Unlike with the other characters, who have a discernable pattern (Andy always uses contractions, Nile uses contractions for dramatic emphasis, Booker becomes more inconsistent with contractions when upset, Joe doesn’t use contractions in certain tenses), Nicky is totally random in his contraction usage.

My personal favourite example of this is: “She’s more alone than she has ever been in her entire life.”

Nicky uses contractions with demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns, however this usage is just as inconsistent as with personal pronouns. He also uses contractions with "there.” He uses contractions with negative modal verbs.

Outside of contractions, Nicky doesn't seem to use colloquialisms in the movie.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial going-to future construction and relies on simple future construction

“You will not be able to give him what he wants”, “If it’s now Andromache’s, nothing you do will stop it.

Nicky doesn’t use the colloquial phrasal verb “have got” and instead uses “have”

“I have something for you”

Nicky only has a few discourse markers in the movie. Discourse markers are words that are used to connect, organise and manage sentences while speaking. Nicky uses discourse markers to start sentences, as interjections and as responses. The discourse markers that he uses are:

Sentence openers: so

Interjections: hey, wait, what

Responses: yeah

Nicky doesn’t use any fillers. Instead, he pauses and repeats himself as needed.

"I believe it's because we... we are meant to find each other"

In my other post, I mentioned that Nicky speaks in full sentences, and while that is mostly true, it’s a bit of an oversimplification. While that kind of a statement is fine for an overview post, I felt it would be disingenuous to leave it at that. Nicky speaks in sentence fragments just like everyone else. In fact, he speaks in sentence fragments more than Joe does. He uses ellipsis, but the way he does it is functionally different from the specific methods of null subject, null auxiliary and zero copula that I’ve talked about with the other characters. While the others are quite formulaic about their usage of ellipses, Nicky’s is far more nebulous because it’s very much dependent on context. 

Nicky uses answer ellipses, like the others.

[Bedhead?] “Nicely tousled.”

The next way that Nicky uses ellipses might better be described as anaphora. That means when he’s eliding words, the omitted words in the sentence can be found through the context of the sentence preceding it. 

The sentence “The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet” is missing a past participle. The missing verb is found in the previous sentence: “Everything has to die, Mr. Merrick.”

In fact, almost all of Nicky’s use of sentence fragments and ellipses can most easily be characterized this way. If the sentence that Nicky says is incomplete in some way by itself, that’s usually because he’s referring to something either he, or someone else, has said. In some cases, it’s as if he’s continuing or adding additional information to the sentence preceding it.

“We killed each other.” “Many times.”

“It was a woman. A Black woman.”

Another way of characterizing some of his use of ellipses is to imagine he’s using answer ellipsis to a question nobody asked him. 

[What did you see?] “Dirt floor, clay walls.”

In one particular instance, Nicky says the noun phrase “A fine justification.” It’s already an example of anaphora, as it is referring back to Kozak’s “I believe this can change the world.” Nicky’s sentence bears some similarity to Joe’s “Faster than the elevator” as it’s also an example of a sentence which is missing both verb and subject, however when Joe uses this kind of construction, he only does so before an adjective phrase. One could extrapolate from this that Nicky uses null subject and zero copula construction with adjective phrases and Joe similarly uses it for noun phrases, but that’s just speculation.

The final way that we see Nicky use ellipsis is honestly the most baffling and I’m still not entirely sure how to best explain it. The sentence is “Spend eternity in a cage.” It is clearly not the imperative mood, it wouldn't make sense for Nicky to be telling Nile to spend eternity in a cage. Unlike the other examples of Nicky’s use of ellipsis, the preceding sentence (“That’s the reason we dread capture”) provides context but not specific form. Breaking it down from an English language perspective, the only thing that makes sense to me is that “spend” is actually the infinitive phrase “to spend” where the infinitive "to" has been elided and there is an implied “[We are afraid][to] spend eternity in a cage.” I want to be clear here: I understand this sentence. I know what Nicky is saying, I simply have no idea why I know what he's saying. I don't understand why this sentence works. For further theories, look at the section on sociolinguistics at the bottom.

Sometimes Nicky adds unnecessary pronouns to a sentence.

“But then, Andy and Quynh, they were accused of witchcraft themselves and they were trapped and caught.”

Nicky does use the subordinating conjunction “that” but there are also times when he doesn’t. The common Nicky pattern of *shrug*

“The only reason we haven’t... is that it’s not our time yet”

“As much as I like watching you sleep, I’m glad you’re awake.”

When Nicky asks questions, he doesn’t use any kind of null auxiliary construction or zero copula for subject-auxiliary inversion questions. Nicky is also the only other character (after Andy) polite enough to ask indirect questions, and he uses them when talking to people who kidnapped him, which is kind of a power move. Nicky doesn’t seem to use intonation much when asking questions either.

Subject auxiliary inversion (yes/no questions): “Are we too late?” “Are you sure?”

Indirect: “I don’t suppose it would be possible to get these chains off of us?”

Intonation: “Nile?”

Phrases, expressions and idioms used by Nicky: as much, cast off, do you know, get some rest, getting away, I suppose/don’t suppose, judge of character, love of my life, 

Sentence composition**: 47% of Nicky’s sentences are simple sentences, 24% are sentence fragments, 3% are compound sentences, 15% are complex sentences, 2% are compound complex and 9% are not in English.

Adjectives and adjective phrases appear in 23% of Nicky’s sentences. Adverbs appear in 6% of Nicky’s sentences. Nicky doesn’t use adverb phrases.

Languages: English, Italian, Nuer

Before I start this, I want to say that despite having a strong accent, I think Nicky is quite proficient in English. He knows the subtle differences between words like “unethical” and “immoral,” he’s aware of and capable of using expressions with irregular syntax and he uses sophisticated linguistic phenomena in English. He uses so many complex sentences it makes my head spin. Leaving all that aside, I think that Nicky probably translates from Italian into English while speaking. Like Nile, Nicky is very deliberate about his language but in a different way. While Nile uses style-shifting to accomplish a number of different things, Nicky is primarily concerned with clarity. I think that Nicky’s tendency towards more formal language is a kind of overcompensation to make sure that he’s being understood. Another thing worth noting is that I think Nicky has actively studied language before, in a class setting or by himself, and has at least some knowledge of linguistics (specifically syntax). At the very least, he is knowledgeable about both Italian and English syntax.

This theory is largely based around the idea of overcompensation. Nicky is primarily concerned with the clarity of speech and because of that, he doubles-down on grammar and structure. Italian is a null subject language so you actually see Nicky use null subject construction when he says “Sono qui” and “Dovremmo tonarci” but you don’t see anything similar in the way that he speaks English even though all the other characters frequently rely on truncated null subjects. He demonstrates a clear awareness of the standard language restrictions of English and how that compares to the restrictions of Italian. And not just that: there’s actually an example in the movie where Nicky adds an extra and unnecessary pronoun in English. In another sentence, Nicky could have used a contraction on two separate instances and deliberately only contracted one of them because the contractions were two different tenses. For the most part, this overcompensation makes it so Nicky’s speech—while unconventional—is still grammatically correct. That’s how you get things like Nicky saying, “The love of my life was of the people I’ve been taught to hate,” which isn’t how most native-speakers would intuitively phrase it themselves and as a result, a further layer of nuance is added by the use of the Present Perfect Continuous. Despite the fact that Nicky uses some unconventional phrasing in English, he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it or concerned about it. He’s more than willing to experiment with his speech and seems very confident in it as well. That’s why I think he has some kind of formal language training with English, because he clearly understands the system that he’s working with but is less aware of some of the common ways of speaking. I seriously doubt that Joe and Nicky spend much time speaking to each other in English.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning: while Joe seems to thrive while orating and speaks relatively simply otherwise, Nicky is the exact opposite. Nicky’s language capabilities are on full display when he’s engaging in discourse, but when he’s telling Nile about Quynh, you see a lot more irregular syntax structure from him. It’s during this discussion that you hear the line “Spend eternity in a cage,” that I’ve struggled with above. The other possible explanation for the use of this unconventional sentence construction was actually given to me by @rhubarbdreams, who said that the sentence actually makes more sense syntactically in Italian, which has an impersonal imperative. In fact, in the Italian dub, that’s allegedly what it does (“per non passare l'eternità in una gabbia.”) Whether Nicky’s apparent tendency towards unconventional speech in this circumstance is a chronic tendency from overthinking while speaking English or a result of the specific topic they were discussing is up for personal interpretation, although I do think it’s interesting that Nicky was the one primarily leading conversation up until Joe took over specifically when they were recounting a story. I think this is especially interesting considering Nicky was apparently a priest, however this might just be a limitation to him in languages he doesn’t use as often. 

Bonus: Quynh

Quynh doesn’t have that many lines, so it’s not really possible to do any kind of meaningful analysis about her speech patterns (she says 16 sentences and 10 of those are screaming “no” or someone’s name). That being said, I do want to look at all the lines she presumably said in English (I’m ignoring Lykon’s death scene because if Lykon really did die in the 6th or 7th century, then they absolutely weren’t speaking Modern English, you know?)

So first we have the lines from the witch trials:

“I’ve never been burned alive before. What do you think it’s gonna be like?”

“Just you and me.”

Okay so obviously there’s some ambiguity over exactly when this happened, since Joe said 500 years in a box and TOGTH lists it happening around 1750. In the comics, Noriko fell overboard around 1590. I simply think the 1750 date is incorrect based on when people were being burned at the stake for witchcraft and heresy. I could talk more about that and my own headcanons about when it happened, but this is a post about linguistics, so what’s important to take from all this is that it probably took place at the earliest sometime in the late 15th century and, at the latest, the very beginning of the 17th century.

Taking all that into consideration, I can say almost certainly that all of Quynh’s lines are some kind of misremembered modern translation of what she actually said. She uses two contractions (I’ve and it’s) that were maybe in use, but likely uncommon. “It’s” was used, although you would be far more likely to see its counterpart “tis”, and contractions with “have” and “had” were only becoming common towards the end of the 16th century. There’s also the problem of the pronoun “you” and how singular “you” would not have been used in this informal context. And since “you” should be the singular “thou”, the archaic singular second-person conjugation of “do” would instead be correct. And finally: going-to future construction may have been used at the time (I can’t speak to the commonality of it), but I honestly can’t say with any certainty whether the colloquial “gonna” was in use. The first recorded use seems to be the 19th century. I’m sure there are other things that are anachronistic about the speech but I don’t know enough about Early Modern English morphology and syntax to speculate any more about it. 

So yeah, Andy and Quynh’s conversation is either Andy’s misremembering of it in Modern English, it was never in English in the first place like the other scene, or just Hollywood movie magic for the viewers (I would love to see someone attempt to translate it back into Early Modern English though, I’m just saying).

“It’s nice to finally meet you.”

The one line that I feel has legitimate value in the analysis of Quynh’s speech patterns in English is the final one that she says to Booker. She’s using ME, obviously, with its contractions and singular “you.” She’s also using a modified idiom, “Nice to meet you”, which is interesting because that absolutely wouldn’t have been used when she went under water considering the word “nice” was derogatory at the time. All of this implies to me that Quynh has definitely spent time on land before she finds Booker. Also she split the infinitive ("to meet"). I don't know what that says about her speech, but I sure am looking at it.

Fun Quynh fact: of the 6 times that Andy’s full name is used in the movie, half of them are said by Quynh

**A note on sentence composition: I intentionally didn't go into detail about sentence composition outside of brief mentions. If any of you are curious about it, you can ask. I'm more than willing to discuss sentence clause structure, but I didn't want this to become even longer and more convoluted than it already is. Part of why I’m reluctant to give it any weight here is because of how lenient I was with what was considered a sentence fragment vs. a simple sentence, as the characters are speaking colloquial English. A movie isn’t formal writing and to evaluate dialogue by that same metric is silly. Also, I considered interjections sentence fragments to start and then realized halfway through that that was a bad idea and they should have had their own separate section, but at that point I was in too deep, and didn’t want to go back and do it all again. In the same way, there are sentences that I considered compound or complex sentences, but that “technically” aren’t because a lot of characters drop pronominal subjects and like. Officially you can’t have null subject clauses in English, because that’s not how the language works on paper (imperative mood aside). Or they elided part of the sentence so that technically it's not a clause. But people don’t actually care about stuff like that when they talk. Also I may have messed up a few times, because complex sentences are hard and sometimes I get phrases and clauses confused. It can be difficult to tell when there’s a lot happening, you know? (this is about Nicky. Sir, why do you talk like that) 

If you’re a fanfic writer, I’m going to advise that you take the part about sentence composition with a grain of salt or ignore it entirely, unless you’re already familiar with sentence clause structure in English. It will not be helpful to you for writing character dialogue until you’ve actually put in the work to understand it and practice. As mentioned, I still mess it up sometimes if a sentence has too many phrases. Basically, if you think too hard about it, I guarantee it’ll stress you out.

#the old guard #andromache the scythian #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #nile freeman #sebastien le livre #quynh #tog meta #tog linguistics #long post #like reallyyyyyyy long #it's around 9.5k words #anyway i'm really excited to chare this with everyone!! #i've been working very hard on it #also in terms of formatting i like how it looks on ao3 much more than here so that's how i would recommend viewing it

[adamsvanrhijn]

is it a very big difference writing in past tense vs present tense? i'm asking you because you're a writing prophet (and nice to your anons)

:-3 thank u... I try my best @ both

This is a fun question & actually something I have talked about before but rarely on this blog I think? There are actually a few elements to this!

So caveat that I'm only talking about English because that's my native language and the one I write in. (Almost wrote "right" just now which would destroy any credibility in making this post ajfnjsjd I just woke up.) Additional caveat that this is all very subjective and up to personal opinion. :-)

On the surface and in terms of the end result, no, it isn't. A well-written piece of prose that is converted into another tense really shouldn't be so different as to make it confusing or unreadable.

But, a well-written piece of prose in one tense will be written with that tense in mind. Converting the tense of a text after it has been written can indeed result in clunky structures and require some fiddling around, and the word count can actually be pretty significantly affected dependent on writing style.

People do think differently when using different tenses, to the point that in psycho/neurolinguistics there is ongoing debate about whether or not, & how, lexical (vocabulary, parts of speech) and morphological (word form, tense, possession) language structures take place in the same parts of the brain in the same way within categories and I have seen at least a couple of studies about verb tense. It is a very controversial topic but developments in this area would mean a lot for e.g. language rehabilitation for stroke patients, anyone with forms of aphasia, etc. It also has implications with regard to formal and functional linguistics, universal grammar, and a lot of other stuff you didn't ask and probably don't want to hear about hahaha.

But regardless of where in the brain it happens, I think a writer is generally going to approach tenses differently, consciously or not, because verb forms serve different functions.

People often say that the vibe between tenses (and POVs) is different—e.g. the idea that third person limited point of view in the present tense is dream-like, or choppy (in a full-of-action way). Some people say it makes more sense, or, vaguely, just feels right/better to have first person point of view with present tense. Or that past is better for lots of narrative prose and exposition.

I don't necessarily agree with those associations but I know I do tend to have some differences in style when writing different tenses? And some people are most comfortable in one tense and will just stay in that zone as often as they can, so the writing process can indeed be different and have different associations with it in general which is the simple answer to your question.

And then just on a conventions/syntactic note you do have to use different tenses to get across variation in modality and, for dialogue, what I forgot the English terms for but in French is called indirect & direct discourse which is basically, are you quoting someone directly —

He said, "fuck, I forgot my keys."

or referencing/rephrasing what they said, like —

He swore and said he had forgotten his keys.

In present tense that's

He says, "fuck, I forgot my keys."

and

He swears and says he's forgotten his keys.

And this is obviously up to personal interpretation and extremely subjective but personally, I'm not fond of that instance of indirect when it's written in present. My instinct actually was to change it to "tells me he's forgotten his keys", even though that connotation isn't necessarily reflected in the direct version, whereas "told me he'd" in the past tense example doesn't do it for me as well as said does. So for me at least, voice and style do change when I am writing in different tenses.

Modality or mood is like, indicative, interrogative, subjunctive etc. In some languages these are reflected in how the verbs are structured (verb morphology). English subjunctive is somewhat out of vogue and has some complicated standards I myself am inconsistent with, especially when writing across tenses. So thinking about that and putting it into practice can be a different experience for the writer, especially if they're more competent & have a better understanding of e.g. past subjunctive more than the present.

Anyway IDK if that actually answers your question but I hope it at least makes sense haha. Ty for the compliment & in general I hope people feel comfortable coming to me w/ Qs about stuff!! (I don't get to every ask though unfortunately.)

#writing talk tag #i have a linguistics degree tag

[thesinglesjukebox]

LIZZO - GOOD AS HELL

[7.55]

We look forward to "Juice" hitting the top 40 sometime in 2021..

Katie Gill: It is infinitely amusing that with Lizzo's career trajectory, her songs that are 2-3 years old are getting the radio play instead of her current work. Granted, "Good As Hell" is an absolute banger. But it's an absolute banger that is obviously a product of Lizzo's earlier work, especially when compared the the musical evolution she shows on Cuz I Love You. It's also an absolute banger that seems tailor-made for inclusion in movie trailers or makeover montages but hey, get that bread Lizzo. [7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Lizzo singles don't expire after three years; they're just like chardonnay, get better over time. [8]

Thomas Inskeep: Goddamn, Lizzo can wring every bit of strength out of a female empowerment lyric, can't she? And she nails the rapping/singing combo like no one since -- I dunno, Lauryn Hill? In fact, maybe she's the rightful heir to L-Boogie's throne? And she does it all so damn joyfully to boot. Talk about fresh air on the radio. [8]

Joshua Copperman: After enjoying Big GRRL Small World, I remember hearing that Lizzo signed to Atlantic, working with the insufferably goofy producer Ricky Reed. It felt like a classic "sell-out" moment even if the term has lost all meaning. This song felt destined to blow up, but went nowhere. Neither did "Phone," and neither did "Truth Hurts." Cuz I Love You could incorporate her earlier, more political work in ways that felt authentic... but then "Truth Hurts" got massive, and "Good As Hell" is well on its way. There's a sense that Lizzo will go further in the shouting party anthem direction. She's a great interview, and a fantastic live performer, but it's disappointing to foresee a Bruno Mars-style trajectory when there's so much more to offer. At this rate, Big GRRL Small World could see a rerelease as the darker, more ambitious follow up, but she's still clearly happier making mindless party music. If she saves the thoughtful political commentary for when Terry Gross calls her "brave", that's okay. [6]

Stephen Eisermann: It is so hard to fault Lizzo's older material. While it's very easy to be cynical about self-empowerment anthems today, Lizzo has consistently shown that she excels at putting herself, a plus-size black woman, first and showing other people how to put themselves first. It's hard to separate her past hits from whatever current story she is involved in (like that horrid Postmates debacle), but, fuck, you are full lying if you say you don't smile on even your worst day when you play this chorus. The background vocals, the energy, the personality -- no part doesn't hold up. There is no chorus like a Lizzo chorus, no matter how long it has taken people to notice. [8]

Alfred Soto: Lizzo released a terrific album this year, you know, on which her sense of rhythm and how a star in waiting presents her material meshes wit the body-positivity messages. [6]

Tobi Tella: Sometimes the strength of a song is enough to push past any factors trying to stop it from entering the public conciousness. "Good As Hell" is a little corny, sure, but it's also empowerment without pandering, an uplifting song that doesn't feel the need to insert generic platitudes. Most of all, it's fun, which is something I think 2019 music totally misses most of the time. [8]

Kayla Beardslee: Personally, I'm looking forward to a couple singles from now, when Lizzo's team will be looking so far in the past for singles to push that they'll arrive at a point before her music career began and encounter a time paradox. If "Truth Hurts" can go #1 two years after its release, anything is possible, and why can't that include Lizzo deconstructing our understanding of time as a linear concept? Oh, and I'm supposed to review the song, too. Yeah, "Good As Hell" bops, will bop, has bopped, bops in the subjunctive, etc. The vocals are fantastic, and the piano riff gives the song a constant feeling of forward motion. It's the kind of track that makes you want to sing along, and even if (like me) you fail at imitating Lizzo's attention-grabbing vibrato, "Good As Hell" is so relentlessly fun that you'll feel happy about it anyways. [8]

Kylo Nocom: The power of hindsight is very strange. I used to see talk go around about how "Good as Hell" sounded like it could have been a hit, and now that it is one, is that underdog appeal still here? I used to think that her being compared to Natasha Bedingfield in Pitchfork's review of Cuz I Love You was unfair, but in hindsight, it's not really that far off. Values PSAs had "Where Is the Love?" then, and the soundtrack to them would be "Good as Hell" now. That's not a condemnation: corny stays in fashion, and with sounds as lovely as the ones Lizzo selects (namely, the drum kit of the chorus and the sampled vocal belts) it's easy to ignore how ultimately juvenile the message feels. [8]

Jackie Powell: Right now as we speak, "Good as Hell" sits at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was featured in the third film in the cult series "Barbershop," which starred fellow women in hip-hop Eve and Nicki Minaj, both whom Lizzo currently eclipses in relevance. Like the film, this track came out three years ago. This sleeper hit, along with Lizzo's career, has emerged from the ashes. They are a collective rising like a phoenix but with slightly more swagger and chock-full of sass. How is all of this possible? Lizzo's entire being defines what it means to be living in 2019. Self-care, inner strength, and an IDGAF attitude. That's why "Good as Hell" hit harder in 2019 rather than three years earlier. Zane Lowe has referred to this track as an "instant vintage vibe" and that's due to clean but predictable production from Ricky Reed. Lizzo's delivery functions in between a bounce in the verses and sweeping call and response in the pre-chorus and the hook. Her magic remains in the way she works to make her raps more digestible for listeners who live on the throwback playlists on Spotify. She's creating a similar product to Mark Ronson in that they both aim to bring sounds from then and now together in a triumphant union. Thank goodness for Lizzo, someone who has the secret recipe to make anyone feel "as good as hell," a task far from effortless. [7]

Vikram Joseph: It seems kind of fitting that I'm writing this before work on a wet Monday morning, because "Good As Hell" is transformative in a way that's hard to resist. Taylor Swift might have recently claimed that she "want[s] your dreary Mondays" (ok, not yours, Joe Alwyn's), but "Good As Hell" simply will not allow them to exist -- at least for 2 minutes and 37 seconds. It achieves this mostly because of the melancholy that lurks in the corners of the song, and because of the way that classic descending chord progression confers a sense of unconditional positivity in the face of chronic adversity. The delivery of "baby, how you feeling?" should win awards -- most singers would sell it as uncomplicated celebration, but Lizzo sounds incredibly empathetic, concerned even, like she half-expects the answer might be "like shit, Lizzo, I feel like shit." And the song's instant meme -- "hair toss, check my nails!" -- is actually a performance piece in putting your best self out there when your heart feels bruised and tired. The strange, wonderful alchemy of "Good As Hell" is that, through method-acting feeling good as hell when all of your instincts tell you that you really don't, it actually makes you feel fucking incredible. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Lizzo #pop #music #music review #writing

[mst3kproject]

Skullduggery

I do a lot of complaining about movies that aren’t about anything.  Well, here is a movie that’s trying far too hard to be about something, to the point where it leaves its storyline an utter incomprehensible shambles.  It has in common with The Final Sacrifice that it’s a low-budget Canadian production, and there are a few terrible ‘medieval’ sequences as awful as anything in Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.  Mostly, though, I’m reviewing it because it’s just fucking weird.  We’re talking Overdrawn at the Memory Bank weird here.

Long ago, some wizard laid a curse on all the descendants of some guy.  In the 1980’s, either the last descendant or the reincarnation of the cursed guy is a dude named Adam, who works at a costume shop and plays Dungeons and Dragons with his friends in the basement.  At a talent show where nobody shows any sort of talent whatsoever, the curse takes over and Adam becomes unable to distinguish real life from his D&D game, so he goes on a killing spree.  When the Dungeon Master tells him his character has been hired to assassinate a sorceress dressed in white, he goes out and kills women in nurse’s uniforms. Told to fight the Apostles of Hell at the Villa Evil, he goes to a club called Villa Evil and murders a bunch of the cultists who hang out there.

Guess how it ends.  Did you guess that the cops shoot him down without asking any questions? Congratulations.  That’s exactly the caliber of shitty movie we’ve got here.

I’m going to get my most pedantic complaint out of the way first.  Throughout the film, Skullduggery’s characters use the Latin phrase Diabolus me adiuvet, meaning so the Devil help me.  Thing is, diabolus me adiuvet is in the indicative case, and means the devil helps me as a statement of present fact.  If it’s a thing the speaker wishes should happen, as in may the devil help me, it ought to be in the subjunctive: diabolus me adiuvaret.  This is what happens when you get your Latin from fucking Babelfish.  Also, does anybody actually play tabletop games like it’s a ritual, with candles burning and solemn expressions on their faces? The games I’ve been to tended to have episodes of Scrubs on TV in the background and impassioned arguments over whether Courtney was allowed to roll diplomacy against the wasps.

Skullduggery has several themes.  The one I find the most interesting is that of costumes.  Adam works at a costume warehouse, commits most of his murders while in various costumes, and goes to a masquerade party.  The movie toys with the idea that dressing up as somebody else brings out our true self, but where it really seems to be going, especially with Adam’s multiple costume changes during his Club Evil killing spree, is that costumes give us anonymity.  Adam can kill because he’s anonymous, and is caught when he accidentally reveals his name. The partygoers at Villa Evil can live out their fantasies because they are anonymous and will suffer no consequences – once we know their names, they have to die.  Anonymity brings out the worst in humanity, as anybody who’s ever turned on anon asks can attest.

But costumes are a relatively minor motif here.  The movie’s main theme is that of temptation.  We see several images of the temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden: a mysterious figure assembles a puzzle bearing a medieval-style image of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, and the first victim of our protagonist (also named Adam… perhaps the ‘curse’ is not so much about the wizard but about the expulsion from Eden?) is a girl playing Eve in the talent show.  In the opening scene the evil wizard offers the medieval lord a poisoned apple, and it seems to be the sight of the apple in the play that triggers Adam to kill the actress.  Adam is ruled by temptation.  When the lust for blood comes over him, he never even tries to resist it.

He is not alone in this plight.  Other characters are shown to be tempted by various things, and respond with immediate indulgence.  The two nurses are tempted by sex, to the point where one comes very close to attempting rape.  One of the players of the D&D game makes sexual innuendos at every opportunity. The actors at the talent show dive on the beer and nachos the magician offers to them.  The medieval guy at the beginning sold his soul for power.  When Adam arrives at the Villa Evil, the cultists offer him all his fantasies made real, and one of the women there tells him there are only two absolutes: money and power.  I never actually counted but I’m pretty sure all seven sins show up and nobody ever even tries to say no.  The Devil, through his temptations, rules us all.

The Devil appears in Skullduggery in multiple forms. He lurks in the back of random scenes in the shape of a jester puppet with a nightmare-inducing grin.  Once the police have gunned Adam down they find only the puppet inside his costume, suggesting that the devil has indeed claimed him body and soul.  He also appears as Dr. Evil, the head of the satanic cult that meets at the Villa Evil – the DM says that the leader of the Apostles of Hell is the Devil himself, and we also watch Dr. Evil putting together the Adam and Eve puzzle, which harks back to the fortune teller informing Adam that his life is a puzzle only the devil can solve.

Since Dr. Evil also turns out to have been Chuck the DM, the implication is that the Devil is the game-master not only of this particular roleplaying club, but of all the characters’ lives.  It also seems to tell us, perhaps not intentionally, that Jack Chick is right and roleplaying games are a gateway to Satanism!  By obeying the DM’s orders to murder and pillage within the world of the game, the players are allowing the Devil to rule their souls, and they will all be destroyed by him as surely as Adam was!  Or something.

Then again, maybe not – because Adam kills the various cultists and at the end the suit of armor, which appears to represent his ghost, murders the GM, who was Dr. Evil.  The fortune teller said that if Adam were lucky God could also solve his puzzle… so maybe this whole time Adam was actually an instrument of divine vengeance? The people he killed can be seen as sinners – the proud actress, the lusty nurses, the decidedly shifty fortune teller, and the rapists and temptresses at Club Evil.  Perhaps the movie is reminding us that even the Devil is part of God’s plan, that in the words of an anonymous fifteenth century poet, nor had one apple taken been, the apple taken been/then had never our Lady a-been heaven’s queen.

So yeah, there’s all of that in a movie the filmmakers clearly thought was very deep and meaningful, and since I can tell what they were on about for the most part, they must be said to have met with some success.  However, all this heavy symbolism and pessimistic outlook on human nature is crammed into a crappy slasher movie with a terrible script and abysmally low production values!  Much of Skullduggery is so dark you can barely tell what’s going on, and there’s not a single line in it that sounds natural.  Characters say things like so hard to say where the game begins and life ends.  I think the only direction given to the people in the ‘talent show’ sequences was act badly.  Once we get to Club Evil, the plot just wanders off to have a coffee and leaves us to sit and watch Adam wandering around murdering random people.

Then there’s the apparently symbolic content I did not discuss above… and I honestly can’t decide if these parts are symbolic or if they just got thrown in there because somebody thought they sounded fucked-up and cool.  What’s up with Simcoe the lipstick-wearing Magician, who shows up, does his act, and never appears again?  What is the significance of the one girl's itchy ankle? What’s up with the horny doctor in the gorilla suit?  Why is there a guy in a bathrobe with a tic-tac-toe game on the back of it?  Why do characters call a phone sex line that actually just tells lame jokes?  Why does Adam wear a bunny suit to kill the woman obsessed with Sarah Bernhardt?

Or maybe Adam’s not killing people at all.  He stabs the fortune teller in the neck with a dagger, but the news report claims she had a heart attack.  The same thing happens to one of the nurses: he stabs her in the temple, yet she’s found on the floor by her colleagues who also diagnose a heart attack.  Is this evidence for the ‘divine justice’ theory?  Or is it meant to suggest that Adam is just happening across people who are about to die, and hallucinating that he is killing them – as Dr. Mustache suggests in It Lives by Night?  But how does that tie in with the cops arriving and finding a bloodbath at Club Evil?  Does witnessing deaths drive Adam to murder?  I don’t know!  At this point I’m as confused as Spoony!

MST3K could have done so much with this one.  I’m positive Simcoe the Magician would have visited the SOL to puzzle and amaze.  Tom and Crow could have played D&D with Pitch the Devil as their DM.  The horny doctor in the gorilla suit could have made things very uncomfortable for Pearl and Bobo.  They doubtless would have heaped more abuse on Canada, but I can’t deny that our indie movie scene is pretty fucking weird.  Anybody out there seen Phil the Alien?

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #skullduggery #tw: rape #80s #just fuckin weird

[ricekrispyjoints]

Dima’s top 12 quick and dirty hacks for sounding more proficient in French

Bonjour à toutes et tous !

A friend recently asked for some French help, and I…  got carried away. And made this list. There are probably similar lists out there, but I had a lot of fun making this so OSEF (that’s on s’en fout, or “who cares”).

I realize it’s basically all for spoken (or very casual written) French, but hey, talking is hard, but at least you don’t have to spell anything.

I have more or less put these in the order I (from personal experience) consider to be the easiest to the more advanced/difficult to implement. You may have more luck with one further down the list, who knows. À chacun son style !

(NB: I’m a native speaker of American English currently living in France. I started learning French in 8th grade (~13 years old) and fell in love.) 

Click here to listen to the sample sentences used in the list.

If you would prefer this list in .pdf format, or have any questions/corrections contact me here. 

(Other than typos, I would prefer that only native speakers offer corrections if there is a definition/usage concern.)

At the end of the list is a (short) list of my top English-French resources.

edit: the part about verlan has been updated, thanks to @fcktaken for pointing out the over-simplification.

Bref ! On y va, c’est parti !

1.     Oui= Ouais

Okay, this is an easy one. Instead of saying a strict “yes” all the time, try a “yeah” in your speaking. (It sounds like “weh”, in case you weren’t sure.) Ouais, ça va.

2.      Double subjects French, especially spoken or casual writing, likes to double subjects. It emphasizes who you’re talking about, especially when you’re discussing or comparing multiple subjets.

Use the direct object version and then the subject version of the pronoun:

Moi, j’aimerais bien. Toi, tu as un stylo à me prêter ? Lui, il est parti. Nous, on a déjà fini. (Notice here that “nous” corresponds to the « on ». see trick 3 for more on « on ».) Vous, vous êtes satisfaits ? Eux, ils parlent espagnol.

It also works for objects (at higher levels you will get yelled at for doing this in academic settings but everyone does it so fight me).

La chaise, elle est confortable ?

Le cahier, il est où ?

Le français, c’est une langue compliquée. (Fun fact:  the c’ in c’est comes from ça which comes from cela, which is the official subject form “it”. I did not know this until literal years into my French education. Don’t worry about it.)

 In questions, the direct object version (moi, toi, lui, etc) goes at the end :

Tu as des sœurs, toi ?

Il a réussi à l’examen, lui ?

3.      “Nous” is out; « on » is in Especially when speaking, but also in more casual writing (and even in some scientific research papers, despite what my professors all say), instead of saying “nous”, use “on”. It uses the same conjugation as “il/elle” singular. –Caroline, qu’est que tu as fait avec ton amie hier ? –On est allées au ciné le soir. On s’est bien amusées ! (Note: you must show agreement with whoever the « on » is referring to! That’s why there’s an extra e and an s here: two girls = es ending.)

Nous, on a déjà fini le projet.

It can also be used to refer to people in general, as in “you have to pass a test to become a teacher”, where “you” is just some person in general, and no one specific. In English, we can also say “one”, as in “one must pass an exam…” but it sounds kind of snooty or pretentious. In French ? Very casual. Very common.

On doit passer un examen pour devenir prof. On dirait que c’est de ta faute !

On est plus fort quand on a bien dormi. (Note : for a general use, no agreement is necessary. So just “fort”, not “forts” or “fortes”.)

4.      Drop the “ne” from your negations Ok so your professor might not like this, and you should definitely still write it. But when speaking, most French people (young and old except for absolute sticklers) do not say the “ne” in a “ne__ pas” (or “ne __ rien”, “ne __ plus, etc.) construction unless they are really trying to emphasize the negative. Again, this is for speaking only. J’ai pas de stylo. Vous êtes pas d’accord ?

Là j’ai rien compris.

Il peut plus continuer à courir.

Vous voyez personne ?

 5.     Contractions with je suis, je sais pas, and tu es/tu as

When speaking quickly, French speakers tend to contract certain sounds. Think of the English “I’m going to” becoming “I’m gonna”. In French, there a few common spoken (or chatspeak 😉) contractions:

Je suis: Chuis contente de te voir! ALSO Chu contente de te voir ! (Remember that in French, « ch » makes an English « sh » sound.)

Je sais pas : Chais pas trop. (Remember, we abandoned our « ne”! For some reason, the affirmative “je sais” doesn’t really get contracted as “chais”.)

 Tu es : T’es très gentille !

Tu as : T’as un vélo, toi ?  

6.      Filler words Get rid of your “um”s and “uh”s and replace them with things like “euh”, “ben” or “fin”: Je suis… fin, je suis pas content de voir ça.

Ben, écoute, il y a plus que ça dans la vie !

7.      “du coup” This is a spoken/casual replacement for “donc” and I swear native French speakers use it in every conversation. I honestly thought it was just a random filler word for literally weeks the first time I lived in France. Any time you want to say “so” or “therefore”, try du coup instead of “donc”:

Du coup, j’ai oublié l’heure du rendez-vous.

J’ai raté le train, du coup je suis arrivé en retard.

On comprend pas les consignes, du coup on peut pas finir le projet.

8.     « N’importe quoi ! »

Okay this is a very self-indulgent because this is like. My favorite thing to say in French. It’s a very flexible phrase, and hard to “directly” translate into English. Here are a few scenarios where it works well:

·       To say « anything »: Tu peux faire n’importe quoi avec un diplôme de Business. (This might be the original usage? But not the most fun…)

·       Someone says something totally false or incorrect and you want to call them out (a tiiiny bit rudely): Mais tu dis n’importe quoi !

·       Something is ridiculous or nonsensical: C’est vraiment du n’importe quoi…

·       When someone is doing who-knows-what: Tu fais du n’importe quoi!

9.     Le subjonctif

Listen. I’m really sorry. As a native English speaker, I had no idea what the subjunctive was. We don’t inflect it in English, and there’s a shit load of irregular stems, and sometimes the use of subjunctive seems random and doesn’t follow the “rules” our teachers give us. (Welcome to language, where everything is made up and rules don’t matter.) However, it’s really common in French. Anyway, even if you don’t master this mood, there are a few common phrases and irregular forms you should pay attention to:

·       Il faut + infinitive: the easiest one. Seriously, you got this one.

·       Il faut que j’y aille : I gotta go ! (aille is from aller) (please don’t ask me what the “y” is for; it’s a pronoun for a place but like… where are you going? Somewhere… Just don’t forget it.)

·       Il faut que je fasse… : I have to do/make… (fasse is from faire)

·       Il faut que tu sois/ça soit/vous soyez … : You/One/Y’all must be…. (sois/soit/soyez is from être)

10. Complain more

You think I’m kidding ? Okay, I am a little bit. But if you have the opportunity, a little whining never hurt anyone. According to my sources, 25% of French culture is complaining.

Here’s a few phrases to try out:

Ça craint! (That sucks!)

C’est chiant, ça. (A bit vulgar, so mind your audience.)

J’ai des devoirs à faire mais j’en veux paaaaas. (really draw it out)

Mais non, c’est pas possible… (with a sense of despair)

 When in doubt, just fais la grève (go on strike).

11.Slang (argot) and swearing (gros mots)

Learning and integrating slang is… difficult. It varies regionally, it doesn’t translate directly, and if you’re only using French in a classroom setting, your teacher probably wants you to use more formal (and polite) French. BUT. It’s fun and if you spend time around native speakers in a casual setting, they will probably use a shitload of it. Here is a small selection of my favorites:

·       Bordel: literally a brothel, you can use this to say something is a mess (J’ai pas fait le ménage depuis longtemps… Mon appart’ est un bordel…)

·       Je m’en fous !: The more aggressive/vulgar cousin of “je m’en fiche” and “ça m’est égal » (all meaning various degrees of “I don’t care”), tell people you don’t give a fuck with this expression.

·       Abréviations communes : la faculté (université) becomes la fac, d’accord becomes d’acc, personnellement becomes perso, ne t’inquiète pas becomes t’inquiète (negation ? don’t know her). There are loads others, but those are the ones that come to mind right away.

·       Putain (‘tain): roughly the French equivalent of “fuck”. Use it as an exclamation, or add “de” and a noun to say “fucking (thing)”: putain de stylo ! Il y a plus d’encre !

·       Merde/marde: literally “shit”, another common French swear. Merde is the French-from-France version, marde is the Canadian-French version that I also use because I think it sounds better. Feeling really angry? Try combining it with “putain” for “putain de merde/marde” for a nice, resounding “fucking shit!”

·       Verlan: I personally don’t like/use verlan, but you might hear it among younger (teen/young adult) native speakers, especially those in urban/immigrant areas. it’s a heavily cultural kind of slang, but many words have entered “mainstream” French. Check out the french wiki for more on verlan (the English wiki is less complete re: cultural significance, but explains the form a bit). This is only on the list so you recognize what the hell people are saying when you hear it. The 2 most common ones I hear are meuf (femme) and ouf (fou).

·       Wikebec.org: If you want to learn a lot of very diverse Canadian French (including slang and swearing, which is a whole art), check out wikebec. It is all in French, so if you’re not as advanced you may need an additional French-English dictionary.

 12. Punctuation (aka I am passionate about silly things you can honestly skip this one I won’t be sad)

Wow, something about formal writing! So this is getting kind of knit-picky, and if you switch your word-processor language to French, it will do this automatically for you. Anyway, punctuation in formal French writing is a little different from English. Obviously, where and how many commas there are is very nuanced and I’m not going to get into much here, but here’s a few stylistic things to consider for the Advanced Schmoozer  Student of French™:

·       Commas in a list (virgules dans une série)

Ok so in English, I am an Oxford Comma Stan. The French have cordially invited me to go fuck myself. Here’s an English example WITH the Oxford comma, followed by the French translation withOUT the Oxford comma:

I bought milk, eggs, and fruit at the store.

J’ai acheté du lait, des œufs et des fruits au supermarché.

(The Oxford comma is the one after “eggs” in my example. It’s not there in French. It’s not a thing in French.)

·      Quotation marks (des guillemets) You may have noticed in this document that for the French words, there are some accent looking things. Those are quotation marks. In narrative writing, these bad boys are largely ignored, but if you use MS Word with a French dictionary turned on, it will automatically turn your English “ “ into French « ». (See next point for further usage instructions.) « Les guillemets français sont différents de ceux d’anglais. »

·       Extra spaces For all punctuation except periods and commas, an extra space is used. This means that colons (:), semicolons (;), quotation marks, question marks, and exclamation points have an extra space. Again, if you set your language to French, MS Word should do this automatically for you, but it looks like this:

 Tu parles à qui ?

J’étais choqué !

Il faut faire attention ; sinon on va se tromper.

Danger : entrée interdite !

Le mot « putain » est vulgaire.

Quelques ressources utiles et d’autres conseils

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the resources that I’ve used throughout my French education. BUT, these are the ones I frequently use and find easiest to navigate.

·       www.wordreference.com Ok if you’re not already using wordreference and you are a fluent English speaker learning French, honestly what are you doing. Love yourself. It’s not perfect, but it’s by far the best online English-French dictionary I’ve used. (There is also a Spanish-French dictionary, but as my Spanish isn’t that advanced, I can’t speak personally to its accuracy.) Highlights of WR: easy to use, free app for phones/tablets, audio pronunciation for most (perhaps all?) main entries (and IPA transcription, if you know IPA), extensive phrases/expressions/idioms per entry, lots of example sentences (though not for every definition), forum with discussions of usage in context.

Just like any dictionary, pay attention to the part of speech and context: don’t just pick the first translation! Make sure it’s the version you want for your sentence.

·       https://www.linguee.fr/francais-anglais

Another good online French-English dictionary, though I don’t use it as much.

·       http://bonpatron.com/ A spelling and grammar checker! The free version has a character limit, but you can just cut your original text into smaller chunks and check it in parts instead of all at once if you pass the limit.

Highlights: Will tell you the general rule for errors it identifies (in English! As long as you make sure the “I’m a francophone” box is NOT checked), distinguishes between “double check this” (yellow highlight) and “just wrong” (red highlight), will check for feminine adjective agreement if you check the “je is feminine” box

·       www.french.typeit.org

If you don’t want to install a French keyboard, memorize keyboard shortcuts, or spend 5 minutes searching for your accents in the “insert symbol” menu of word, typeit.org offers a free, online French keyboard. You can use their shortcuts or click on the button with the accent you want. Only downside is that you gotta copy paste it back into your document, but I used it a lot back in high school for typed French assignments.

·       http://soutien67.free.fr/francais/francais.htm

Okay, hear me out: yes, this is a site for grade school teachers to help their kids learn French (as native speakers). BUT, there are a BUTTLOAD of conjugation exercises, vocabulary builders, and they all have answer keys! Available in .doc and .pdf format.

“Fiches” is where you want to go for the worksheets. It has downloadable worksheets, and then you can either choose a grade level or just start scrolling. The worksheets are organized by category, like “lire” with short stories and poems (for kids, so eh idk if that’s interesting), “grammaire” (goes more into parts of speech and such, but all in French), “orthographe” (spelling/writing rules), and “conjugaison” (our good friend verbs).

For the niveaux (levels): CP= 1st grade, when kids learn to read. These are likely not what you are looking for. CE1= 2nd grade, CE2= 3rd grade, CM1= 4th grade, CM2= 5th grade. Obviously gets more complicated/harder the higher the level.

So if you can put up with the grade school approach and you want more practice, check out what they have. (If you can’t find what you’re looking for, ask me and I will help you find what you need.)

 If you made it this far…. Félicitations. You either have too much time on your hands, are very dedicated to French, or maybe both. 

Merci et au revoir !!

#french #french resources #learning french #learn french #language learning #speaking french #casual french #french slang #french pronunciation #langblr #french language #mine #sorry about the formatting i... am too lazy to fix it #bc i copy pasted from a word doc #fle

[angie-likes-to-art]

You’re Spiderman? Peter Parker x Reader

Peter Parker x Reader Prompt: Spiderman saved me once, talks to my friend Peter about my crush on Spiderman, discovers Peter is Spiderman, is embarrassed. Warnings: Cussing, gun violence, not dealing with problems, idk

   Maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe this was karma for pulling that girl’s hair in the third grade. Whatever the reason was, I was definitely being pulled into an alley and being held at gunpoint.    “Gimme your money, bitch,” the guy in dark clothes and a bandana around his lower face whisper-yelled at me and holding a handgun to my temple. ‘Sure, rob the broke high schooler. In broad daylight nonetheless,’ I thought.    “Dude, I’m just walking home from school, I don’t have anything you want,” I confessed, holding my hands up and hoping he’d let me go.

   “Give. Me. Your. Money,” he said more demandingly, pushing my head with the gun.    “I don’t have any,” I cried out while trying to back out of his grip, but the brick wall stopped me.    “I don’t fucking bring money to school, man,” I spoke again after he didn’t say anything. He cocked the gun in response.    “You’re stealing lunch money, after lunch? I feel like that defeats the purpose,” a new voice said. Both the mugger and I looked down the alley to the infamous Spiderman, leaning casually on a dumpster.    “Oh, shit!” The mugger put the gun in his pocket before attempting to run off, but a web stuck his hand to the opposite wall.    “Don’t you know stealing gets you detention?” Spiderman asked, cocking his head to the side. “Look, man, I’m just trying to get a few extra bucks for my family,” the dude cried. “Robbery isn’t the best way to do that. A job would be better and legal. Drop the gun and gun and go,” Spiderman replies. The robber dropped the gun on the ground and bolted for the streets. Spiderman turns around to look at me. “I could have done that myself,” I said while fixing my hair, adjusting my backpack straps, and hiding my flushed face. “Your sass would have gotten you shot, so you’re welcome,” the superhero laughed out. “Well thanks for saving me, I guess, but I got to get going. My dad’s probably freaking,” I laughed and threw up a peace sign before heading home.

“Guess who got mugged yesterday?” I asked my friends, Ned and Peter, as I got to our lunch table and sat down. “Who?” the boys asked simultaneously. “Me,” I started, “And you’re not going to believe who saved me.” “Who?” Just Ned asked this time. “Spider-fricking-man,” I exclaimed, censoring myself due to the teachers around. I told them every detail of my experience. “-and he totally gave me a look,” I smiled at my friends. “A look?” Peter asked, laughing. “A look.” I winked at them. “Y/n, he wears a mask,” Ned said. “You guys, I got mugged last night. Just give me this,” I sigh. Looking in between them. Peter laughed, looking down at his food. “Aw, Y/n, do you have a crush?” Ned asks, putting his head in his hands and looking at me. “What? No, do I look like someone who would have a crush on someone after having one conversation?” “Nathan, last year.” Okay, that’s different,” “How?” “I actually saw his face.” The bell rung, cutting off our conversation. Peter got up immediately and walked away without saying anything. I said bye to Ned and ran to catch up with Peter. “Hey, you were acting weird at lunch,” I observed, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Weird? No, I wasn’t,” he contradicted. “Yes you were, but you don’t want to talk about it, so moving on,” I started, “Are we still on tonight?” “What’s tonight?” he asked. “We were going to study for that calc test,” I said and looked up at his worriedly. He usually doesn’t forget stuff, like this. “Oh, yeah. We’re still on. I’ll see you later,” he shouted and ran off to his next class.

I knocked on Peter and Aunt May’s apartment door. Aunt May answered a few moments later. “Oh. Y/n it’s so good to see you again. How have you been?” She asks sweetly. “I’ve been good, how are you?” “Great, are you here to see Peter?” “Yeah, calc test tomorrow,” I tell her holding up the textbook. “He’s in his room, go ahead in, good luck,” she said pointing down the hall, to Peter’s bedroom. “Thanks, May,” I knocked on Peter’s door and waited a second. “Peter~” I drag out the vowels in his name while opening the door slowly. “Okay,” I muttered to myself when I didn’t see the boy in the room. I pulled out my phone and called him. It rang three times before his voice told me to leave a message. “Hey, I’m here… and you’re not so… call be back at 1-800-you’re-a-dick,” I spoke quietly so May wouldn’t hear me. I decided to start studying while I waited for him to come back.

I was so deep in reading about limits, that the sound of the window opening didn’t grab my attention, but Spiderman crawling in and climbing on the ceiling did. I threw my hand over my mouth, to not get his attention. I watched him close the door and drop to the floor. He pulled off his mask and turned around to me. I let out a shaky breath when I saw Peter Parker. He looked down at my shocked face. “Y/n, how’d you get in here?” he asked throwing his mask to the side. “May let me in,” I started, “you’re Sp-” “No, I’m not,” he said carefully, letting his suit fall off his body. “You were just on the ceiling” “No, I wa-” He started “Oh my God,” I said realizing Peter Parker is the Spiderman. “Oh my God,” I said realizing Peter Parker is the one saving people around the city. “Oh my God,” I said realizing Peter Parker is the one who saved me the other day. “Oh my God,” I said realizing  I was gushing about Spiderman to Spiderman at lunch.  I looked up at Peter, to see he'd put on a sweater while I was panicking. “I'm going to go,” I mumbled, grabbing my stuff and leaving the room avoiding eye contact with Peter. “Wait, Y/n,” he shouted after me but I was already out the door and headed to the stairwell.

The next morning I avoided Peter at all costs. Usually, Ned and I would meet him at his locker and walk to homeroom together, but today I went straight to my locker and homeroom.  I scooted my chair the farthest away from Peter as I could. “Y/n, we need to talk,” Peter leaned over and whispered to me about halfway through class. “Actually, I'm here to learn so that’s what I'm going to do,” I spoke, not even looking at him. “C’mon, this is super import-” he was cut off by the teacher. “Peter, Y/n, do we have a problem?” the teacher spoke harshly. “No we're fi-” Peter tried to defend himself. “Yeah, Peter is disrupting my learning, can I move?” I spoke over Peter. the teacher pointed to a seat on the other side of the room. I moved and avoided people's confused looks.

I sat at an empty table at lunch, reading a book. I felt someone sit across from me, so I looked up from my book. “What happened between you and Peter?” Michelle asked me. “What do you mean?” “You guys talk every day in class, but today you called him out, why?” “Well I thought what we were learning today was super important and I didn't want to be distracted” “ Oh yeah, what were we learning?” “Irregular verbs in the preterite” “The subjunctive tense” “Same thing” “No, and since you're not going to tell me what happened, I'm going to give you some advice,” she continued when I didn't say anything, “ talk to him, if you lose each other, you lose half of yourself. Communication is a huge part of relationships and friendships,” she raised her eyebrow when I laughed. “Did you read that in one of Liz's leadership books?” “They have good advice, I gotta go,” she said giving up from her seat. “Thanks” I called out after her. She looked back and shrugged. After school, I found myself at Peter and May’s apartment. I hesitated knocking for a minute, but why should I deny the inevitable? I knocked lightly on the door and step back to take a few deep breaths. “Y/n, sweetheart, are you okay, you look flustered?” she asked sweetly while pressing the back of her hand to my forehead. I laughed lightly at her sudden actions. “Yeah, no, I'm fine, I just have to have a really important conversation with Peter,” I messed with my fingers anxiously. “Why don't you go on in, I'm going to make some camomile tea.” she offered, while closing the door behind me. “You don't mind?” I asked, not wanting to be a bother. “Of course not, go on,” she said and made her way to the kitchen. I went and knocked on Peter’s door. “Yeah, May?” Peter asked from inside. I open the door and stood in the doorway. “It's not May,” I spoke, he turned away from his computer to look at me. “Y/n.. What are you doing here?” He asked and stood up from his office chair. “You said we needed to talk, so let's talk,” I walked further into the room. “Why didn't you want to talk until now?” He sat on his bed and patted next to invite me to sit down. “I don't know, the idea of you risking your life every day, like that, kinda sucks. and you saved me, so that's kinda weird.” “Why does that make it weird?” “Well, that's not what makes it weird..” “What makes it weird?” “Me, gushing over you at lunch,” “But you didn’t know it was me,” “I know. But I was still gushing over you, and I like you, and that's a little on-the-nose, don't you think? Boy saves girl. Girl falls in love with boy. They live happily ever after. You know?” “Wait, you like me..?” He looks towards me with raised eyebrows. “I mean, yeah, I did even before you saved me and I knew who you were, but that's not really the point,” I confess, suddenly very interested in my cuticles. “I like you too, I really wanted to tell you, but I’m not really allowed to, Mr. Stark would have killed me,” Peter speaks, while toying with a loose thread. “Mr. Stark? As in Tony Stark?” he nods, “So that is your internship?” I asked, gesturing to his suit, he nods again. I laugh quietly at how clueless I was. “And.. you like me?” I asked he shrugged while smiling shyly. I see his eyes flick down to my lips and back up to my eyes again. I lean in towards him, waiting for him to meet me halfway, I look up to his eyes to see him anxiously looking back at me. “Can I?” I ask, quietly, he nods rapidly. I place my hand on the back of his neck and pull him towards me until our lips meet. He brings his hand to my cheek and responds immediately. “Aw, I knew you two would get together,” We both jump apart to see May smiling at us and holding a cup of tea. She walks in and hands me the mug. “You two are cute,” she speaks leaving the room. I sip the tea to hide my face and Peter laughs while his cheeks pinken with blush.

A/N: eeeee first actual post here, follow for more, and request if you’d like :)))

#peter parker x reader #spiderman x reader #tom holland x reader #peter parker imagine #spiderman imagine #tom holland imagine #peter parker x you #spiderman x you #tom holland x you #spiderman #tom holland #spider-man: homecoming #peter parker #first imagine #imagine #fanfic #aanngie

[fizzgigfurball]

The Pedantic Pedant Pontificates

I don’t think it is inherently awful to be a pedant. I am one, after all.

People complain endlessly about pedants around grammar, clarification of terribly minute details, and other assorted assumptions. However, these are usually the same people who turn to said pedants to edit their writing within an inch of its life before the piece is turned in, or to make sure they’re using a word correctly out loud. They may even check in with you to make sure their facts are right just before that important meeting…

The fact is being careful about detail and meaning can be a useful trait, and often a survival one for those who have disabilities around social situations, hearing, or cognitive function. It is better to be clear and accurate than to make a mess when a simple question or correct grammar form or punctuation mark would sort it out. The fact that most people find such pedantry irritating is nothing to the irritation many feel finding themselves having to find out why there are complications to what should be been “clear” instructions. I find often the culture of not being allowed to ask questions, which can start from early childhood and last well into adulthood with disastrous consequences, is partially to blame for this constant mass-miscommunication. It should not be difficult, if you know what you’re talking about, to answer someone’s questions to clarify your ideas. Minutiae are vital to make sure that the grand plan goes according to plan, and while it can be utterly tedious, it is necessary to make sure everyone does what they need to, even if it does mean clearing up exactly which brand of soap needs stocking.

Having said that, there is a special breed of so-called pedants, who really should have their own separate category and collective noun. This is the pedant who insults your intelligence by interrupting you to tell you why the idea of concept you haven’t even finished explaining is incorrect, or worse, seeing only the first part of a 3 part explanation of something and having the temerity to thump their chest about how wrong you were, only to discover you covered all their quibbles (and often more) in the other segments. This is the pedant who will insert chunks of information about a topic into the most inappropriate places, as if to triumphantly announce to their stunned audience: “I know something and I’m relevant!”. In both cases no higher order thinking appears to have occurred, and any attempts to bring in higher order thinking or to imply that the interruption was rude or irrelevant (or both, and often is) is met with not an apology but a statement that this person is a pedant, and that should be that.

It isn’t.

To so blatantly ignore social cues or to disregard the feelings and intelligence of others isn’t pedantry, it’s simply rude. So often this behaviour is marked out as the domain of the male aspie, but that seems drastically unfair to those aspies who are perfectly capable of understanding when and how information can be shared and how criticism can be given constructively, and how often men in particular seem fond of this kind of behaviour, aspie or not. Men are often given a huge pass on social faux pas that would see a woman crucified, and often this “pedantry” is the form it takes. It is one thing to have a firm grasp on the use and function of the English subjunctive, or the concept of mediaeval world-building, but to belittle someone without fully understanding the idea they’re proffering, which usually only needs one or two well-chosen questions to clarify, or to awkwardly insert your statistics on engine functionality is not pedantry, it’s bullshit.

To those people who sit firmly in the latter category of this rant, I say this to you: fuck off and get your own word, and no, you can’t have arsehole: arseholes serve a practical purpose and don’t need to be associated with your particular brand of waste. Besides, if you really were a pedant, you’d already know that, wouldn’t you?

#musings #pedants

[konnl]

In Defense of Literature

SAN DIEGO – At my own peril, I’ll venture a thesis: there’s a difference between good writing, on the one hand, and successful writing, on the other. They can coincide, but as often as not, they don’t. Bear with me, I promise I’m not one of those effete literary snots who ruin cocktail parties with soliloquies about the death of literature. I know those people and I avoid them. But facts being the perniciously true things that they are, one has to admit that the most popular fiction of our age includes – how to say this – well, some really crappy writing and in defense of my convictions, I offer you an example from a recent popular travesty:

“Her eyes are brown, like bourbon, but flat.”

Ponder that.

I won’t drag out a vituperation of the commonplace. People like what they like and some of it sucks. It’s only through the bad taste of millions that the Kardashians can keep themselves in imported Lycra. If tawdry, derivative, ill-crafted fluff is your thing, far be it from me to judge.

But with too many an author friend I’ve found myself mired in the discussion of whether writing even matters anymore. I’ve heard the assertion that authorship, in the classical sense of the word, means nothing compared to marketing and micro-genre-targeted, serialized, branded, rote-formula-adhering word salad with a good website. I know, friends; it’s hard. You worry about where the comma goes and know how to use the subjunctive effectively. It’s a shame those traits don’t matter to the masses. But take heart, they do still matter.

Yes, the sheer mass of print an online material today includes some work that would be better left undone but I suggest there are as many good writers today as at any time and, moreover, I suggest those writers are the ones whose work will still be appreciated when shlock like the quote above is (mercifully) forgotten.

There is nothing new about our situation. Writers with under-appreciation complexes have whined for centuries about the notoriety of their less talented counterparts and in every era there have been those who prophesied the death of literature. “We come too late to say anything that has not already been said,” wrote Jean de La Bruyère at the end of the 17th Century, perhaps unaware that Terence beat him to the sentiment by two thousand years. I can think of an author or two who’ve said quite a few new things since La Bruyère bemoaned his literary station. Literature isn’t dead; it’s just resting.

Most readers of this blog can probably name a hundred living authors. But how many can they name from any given decade in the past century? Thinking back over two hundred years of American literature, I can probably name a hundred true literary geniuses from my native land, which is a fraction of the total number of Americans who cranked out a tome in that span. Even across the sea, in England, where they invented my beloved bastard tongue, there have always been more bad writers than good, an example of the former being the oft-cited Edward Bulwer Lytton, whose 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, begins:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Say what you want about contemporary literature; it’s no worse than that!

And yet I recently came across an article in Salon by J. Robert Lennon entitled “Most Contemporary Literary Fiction is Terrible.” Leaving aside the pretense of his title, let us consider the thrust of Lennon’s contention.

“Let’s face it: Literary fiction is fucking boring. It really is. It’s a genre as replete with clichés as any. And when you’re as deeply immersed in it as many of us are, it’s all too easy to stop noticing the clichés. They no longer stand out. They’re just What People Do. And so, we do them. If a writer of literary fiction wants to be great, she needs to poke her head up out of the echo chamber every now and then and absorb the genuine peculiarity of human striving. And that means reading stuff that is not literary fiction, and, sometimes, not reading at all.”

I beg to differ. Literary fiction is not, ipso facto, boring. Some of it is. So is some sci-fi, some romance, some YA, some non-fiction and on and on. But the “literary” in “literary fiction” is just a term we now use to mean “that which is written with attention to style and which does not fit neatly into another category.” If, by “literary fiction,” Lennon means to contemn work that attends to the elements of writing for writing’s sake, then he’s tarring writers with too wide a brush. The fact that the industry even includes literary fiction, often called “serious fiction,” is insulting and misleading, implying that any other fiction is less literary or less serious.

The fact is, some of the best writers working today write genre fiction and they do so with every bit as much literary flourish as so-called literary fiction authors, many of whom (myself included) like to put on airs. Quality is not genre-dependent. Good writing is good writing as sure as bad is bad.

So if you tend to agonize over alliteration or fixate on parallelism, if you prefer metaphor to simile or the other way around and can justify your opinion on the matter, in short, if you still think it’s not enough to write without writing well, then you’re part of a working generation of literary authors. It doesn’t matter what you write; if how you write it is important to you, take pride in that, even if you can’t promote your own books worth a damn. Celebrate your love of language, even if your best efforts at cover design look like a Sunday school collage. Believe that the art has merit, even if your social network consists of your two sisters and your Aunt Bernice.

Literature matters and you know that, even if a million would-be readers don’t.

This post is by Tony Phillips, author of The Fires of Orc.

Tony Phillips is the author of 2017’s The Fires of Orc and a forthcoming historical novel. He lives and works in San Diego and is a frequent contributor to online and print media.

#Discussion #Guest #Tips #Writing #Writing Tips