#but i - alas - was not offered repeated examples of however the fuck people say boot and foot in RP :(

[nostalgia-tblr]

I feel like anyone who's about to embark on attempting to type out a character's accent phoentically (at least as well as one can with English) should probably stop for a moment before they get going and ask themselves, "How would I, myself, feel about a fic where the one character who sounds like me had their speech written out like this and every other character just got their dialogue left in standard spelling?" I feel like a lot of people would tone it down a bit, at least, if they'd done that thought experiment first.

(Anyone who answered "but I don't have an accent!" isn't allowed to write out anyone else's accent, ever. This rule may seem harsh but you need it. Really, you do. Because you've never had anyone treat your accent as abnormal or comical or wrong, so you really don't know what you're inflicting on others here.)

#writing stuff #have you read that fic where the socially prestige accent is the one being carefully typed out “like it sounds”? no? neither have i :( #the obvious note-for-Americans on typing out UK accents is that most of them carry some connotation of class and/or 'education' #within the uk: ask yourself why a Geordie gets typed out but not some dude from the Home Counties #typing out an accent is - usually - a roundabout way of saying “this person talks WRONG! they're not NORMAL!” #you may also find 'Scottish Twitter' informative for the distinction between in-group and out-group 'transcriptions' of accent/dialect #(i use that example only cos I'm Scottish btw) #(oh yes EVERYONE thinks I have an accent! and many of them attempt to replicate it badly in text!) #fun story: one time i had to learn the [IPA] for a linguistics class and the examples were 'standard' English pronunciations #and I went in the next day BAFFLED by why the book insisted that 'boot' and 'foot' don't contain the same vowel sound #(cos they fuckin do don't they?!) #the tutor explained and was v interested in the fact that to me they're the same. i was then asked to demonstrate again for the class. #but i - alas - was not offered repeated examples of however the fuck people say boot and foot in RP :( #(this was IN SCOTLAND btw) #anyway mibbe jist dinnae dae it? mibbe? #and if you do you have use the actual IPA. there now i've made it more trouble than it's worth for most people.