Why you shouldn't write accents, or "Sto' fu'in wry'in' li' thaa', aar'ssol'."

[burntcopper]

witchqueen was griping about this. (though she was also adding a bit about racism in hers) Basically, most of the time it doesn't work. Writing dialect, yes, but attempting to reproduce accent in written form is often doomed to failure, especially when your audience is from different areas - simply the fact that they won't pronounce what you thought a fairly accurate phonetic spelling the same way. First time I read Trainspotting It took me a while to figure out what they were saying until I forcibly said the words out loud. Yeah, I'm completely guilty of this on occasion. When it's for a short bit for humour or to point out how incomprehensible someone's accent is to the main characters, it's fine. Just please don't inflict a main character's accented speech on us. They can say 'like' or 'ee ba gum' as much as they like, just don't try and reproduce the accent. It's a bad and wrong thing.

:cough: I shall now try and phonetically write me when my accent goes really broad. (Estuary (Thames Valley) English, subset West Berkshire, subset Reading, subset Purley, subset West Lea, then add the influence of public school and Geordie absorbed from relatives - and for those who think I'm nitpicking, there are people who can identify your accent from within a street of where you were raised)

Phonetically, with accent : "Y'wo'? Iyen' blu'ee wry'in ths shi' f' noawunn." (for the full effect, imagine this with extra slurring and all the ends of the words given so little emphasis they're almost not there. Also, very, very fast.)

Translation "You what? I ain't bloody writing this shit for no-one."

See my point? First one, it's barely recognisable as English. (mind you, considering the multitude of accents you get just within England, that could be a moot point) Second, everyone understands what I've written, due to the lovely thing that is standardised written English. Most people understand me when my speech devolves that far, depending on speed. (when the mood strikes me, I talk *very* fast) I know for a fact that most Americans and several of my mates wouldn't understand my Geordie relatives when they really get into it.

Some is acceptable, especially if it's a recognised and commonly used method of writing. Examples : Y'all. Wot. Eff off. Innit. 'Em. Everyone's quite used to these, they're used regularly in publications. Every other attempt to phonetically reproduce an accent? Don't do it. It really, really gets on the wick of readers, and you know what happens when something gets on the wick of readers? Same thing as unbelievably bad grammar. They attempt to get past the first paragraph without making their brains hurt, fail, and don't read any further. You've lost 'em. They don't rec your work to their friends.

So for your edificiation, remember this statement and let it guide you every time you get tempted to write an accent rather than just putting the dialect and speech patterns in. (look back at the previous example for clues on what I'm saying)

"Sto' fu'in wry'in' li' thaa', aar'ssol'."