This should be mandatory reading

[ShotgunWilly]

So, this isn't directed at any one person, but at anyone and everyone.

I quite often think that, for the sake of mine and everyone else's eyes, this stuff should be mandatory reading before writing a fanfic

theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar

At the very least, read this: theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

I mean, seriously, some of the stuff I see... lol

And now for a funny comic: theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year

[Silvertongue]

*snicker* There are so many words they could have added to that spelling list.

[ShotgunWilly]

Yea, but those are the worst. I see "Defiantly" or "definately" substituted for "definitely" way too often, especially the former. Also, the Literally one is also good at quite literally making me roll around on the floor laughing my ass off, well, it would be if I was on the floor.

Beware the Gayroller 2000 ;D

[Silvertongue]

Ugh. I hate that "Definitely" thing. Has anyone else seen Avada Kedavra spelt Avada Kadavara? Bugs me so much!

[ShotgunWilly]

that too.

[G. Novella]

I love the oatmeal, if your a fan, you should also read smbc-comics.com or xkcd.com.

Smbc is a bit more obscure and tends to lean a bit more on the sciency edge. Xkcd is very mkre sciency and quite often the references are more targeted towards science, politics, etc. You'll either love it or be confused, but they are definitely worth looking at

[Dimcairien]

That senior comic was funny as I just graduated from high school. I do have this disagree with the Imperial vs metric system. I'm American and have used the imperial system my entire life and to me it makes more sense than the metric system. It also doesn't help that I think abstractly a lot as well as thinking literally.

For the most part, my grammar is decent. Yes, I will occasionally get words mixed up or spelled wrong, but I know how to use them or to spell them, and when I realize I've made a mistake, I feel like an idiot because I know how to write correctly.

The only time I don't use correct grammar when writing is when writing dialogue, especially with a young child. The majority of the time, I use correct grammar in dialogue, but as many people don't speak correctly, if it fits their personality to have bad grammar, I'll write it that way. Otherwise, I try to keep everything neat and in the correct tense and whatnot.

[ShotgunWilly]

^_^ Well, for someone like me who's involved in Engineering and sciences, the metric system is my lifeline. I still do use english units, but they are much more of a pain to work with in the case of unit-conversions

As for the grammar and such, don't take it seriously. Everyone makes glaring mistakes, this was just supposed to be tongue-in-cheek more than anything. Though, I was somewhat serious about the spelling poster. >_>

[Silvertongue]

I prefer the metric system mostly. I think it makes more sense. I like rounded numbers instead of random ones and I was always taught the metric system over the imperial system, though I still measure my weight in stones and pounds and distance in miles.

I wish some writers in America (not all, just the stupid ones) would do their research on Britain properly when writing in the HP fandom. I see people even spelling Britain wrong by adding an extra 't' or spelling it Briten. Seriously? Do we spell America wrong? If you don't know whow to spell it, why not just use UK? And making the characters say things like "dude" or "Oh Em Gee". We generally don't say that stuff. Especially not in the 90's. And especially not Hermione or Snape. I've seen people have Snape say things like "Yeah, that was totally uncool". These are the people who fail at life, not just writing.

[Serena R. Snape]

lol, perhaps we should make a list of all the misspellings that we find the most hilarious. XD

I remember reading a lot of stories where they spelled Hermione's name Hermoine. ^^ll

[Dimcairien]

I try my hardest to write British. I've gotten called out on a few terms and the like and generally try to correct them as soon as possible.

One of the things that bothers me the most is when people write 'Mom'. I'm American and even I know it's 'Mum', which even sounds nicer.

[Serena R. Snape]

I try to write British English as well, but I don't know if I'm writing it right - mainly because I'm not a native English speaker...

[Silvertongue]

I prefer Mum to Mom too but I might be a little biased.

One of the most basic things is Color (Am) = Colour (Br) and Favorite (Am) = Favourite (Br). We like to add 'u' to words.

Also, Meter, Center and Theater (Am) = Metre, Centre and Theatre. We like to swap 'e's and 'r's.

And the most annoying difference is Jam to Jelly to Jello.

For us the American Jello is what we call Jelly. American Jelly is what we call Jam. So when Americans say Peanut Butter and Jelly, we immediately think 'jello' and pull a face, then remember that it's American and they mean 'jam' (which makes no sense to me anyway, ew).

[Serena R. Snape]

Perhaps when you have the time you could write a post about the differences here on this forum as advice for other writers.

[Silvertongue]

Hmm, maybe I should do that. I'm sure I've seen it done on a couple profiles on FFN actually. I'm not sure I'm the best person to do it though. I'd forget tons of stuff and only remember the stuff that really bugs me. Maybe I'd have to add bits to it if I find something in a fic.

[ShotgunWilly]

Jun 7, 2012 16:04:18 GMT -5 Silvertongue said:

For us the American Jello is what we call Jelly. American Jelly is what we call Jam. So when Americans say Peanut Butter and Jelly, we immediately think 'jello' and pull a face, then remember that it's American and they mean 'jam' (which makes no sense to me anyway, ew).

We use Jelly and Jam interchangeably, as far as I know. Thinking of it, I only tend to use "Jelly" in the contest of sandwiches, on toast or anywhere else, I think of it as "Jam." All the same, there are even differences in slang and usage from city to city, so meh.

Also, on the differences, here's a bunch of them, as they relate to the HP books. Just as a reference: www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/differences.html

hp-lexicon is an awesome source of info.

[Dimcairien]

Technically, we have Jell-O, jelly, and jam here in America. Jelly and jam are both used on a sandwich, but jelly is more of a spread, it doesn't have fruit chunks in it, whereas jam does have the fruit chunks. Then Jell-O is the gelatin dessert which is positively disgusting, unless it's a Jell-O jiggler which is when there is less water, hence more flavor.

There used to be a guide on fanfiction, but it's been removed. I just sent a message to the author, Pinky Brown asking if he still had it. Hopefully he does and I also asked if I could post it here.

[Silvertongue]

I think that guide might be the one I was thinking of.

See, I'm not the best person to ask about the differences seeing as I didn't actually know how your versions of the words were used.

Will have to check that lexicon info out.

And us Brits most certainly do NOT EVER go to the MALL. It's just not a word we use at all. I've seen so many fics have someone British say it and it just doesn't work. The word doesn't even sound right in our accent. When I say it I really do sound like the stereotypical cartoon parody Englishman. *shudders*

Why do you give us suge horrifically large teeth!? XD

[Serena R. Snape]

What do you use for MALL then? I was thinking shopping centre?

[angelty]

Jun 7, 2012 16:44:31 GMT -5 Serena R. Snape said:

What do you use for MALL then? I was thinking shopping centre?

they are same thing

[Silvertongue]

Yeah we say shopping centre. It's long but...meh. Mostly we just say the name of the centre and people know what we're talking about. Like Westfields. That's the largest 'mall' in London so everyone knows where and what it is.

[Dimcairien]

The difference between a mall and a shopping center, here in America, is a mall consists of many shops in one or two big buildings. If there is more than one, they usually are connected by a bridge. A shopping center is multiple shops as well, but they are separate. You have to exit one and go outside to go to another one.

Are both examples found in Britain and if so, do you distinguish between the two of them?

[lucyolsen]

Jun 7, 2012 16:49:06 GMT -5 Dimcairien said:

The difference between a mall and a shopping center, here in America, is a mall consists of many shops in one or two big buildings. If there is more than one, they usually are connected by a bridge. A shopping center is multiple shops as well, but they are separate. You have to exit one and go outside to go to another one.

Are both examples found in Britain and if so, do you distinguish between the two of them?

In America, what you are calling a "Shopping Center," I would call a "Strip Mall." Sounds dirty, doesn't it?

[Silvertongue]

Jun 7, 2012 16:49:06 GMT -5 Dimcairien said:

The difference between a mall and a shopping center, here in America, is a mall consists of many shops in one or two big buildings. If there is more than one, they usually are connected by a bridge. A shopping center is multiple shops as well, but they are separate. You have to exit one and go outside to go to another one.

Are both examples found in Britain and if so, do you distinguish between the two of them?

We call them both the same thing. Now that i think about it we just say we're going shopping and when someone asks where we say the town it's in like Uxbridge or Bromley.

[Silvertongue]

Just thought of something else that bugs me in HP fanfics. Dollars are NOT used in Britain! We use pounds. With this sign '£', not this one '$'.

AND, people mixing up parseltongue and parselmouth. Parseltongue is the name of the ability and language, whereas parselmouth is what you call someone who can speak parseltongue.

Also spelling that word wrong, with an extra 't', parstletongue.

[ShotgunWilly]

Jun 10, 2012 12:59:39 GMT -5 Silvertongue said:

Just thought of something else that bugs me in HP fanfics. Dollars are NOT used in Britain! We use pounds. With this sign '£', not this one '$'.

Yea... I imagine this one is mostly because of US or other authors who don't want to look up or bother with the unicode for a £ symbol and just find it easier to say "screw it" and use the $ symbol. That opens a whole other rant of mine about authorial laziness; if you're going to do something, go all the way or your stories don't deserve to be published, IMO. Maybe I'm being harsh, but that's just me. Quality over quantity.

That, or they're generally dumbasses who don't realize that most of the rest of the world doesn't use $.

AND, people mixing up parseltongue and parselmouth. Parseltongue is the name of the ability and language, whereas parselmouth is what you call someone who can speak parseltongue.

This. A million times this.

[Kitty279]

Ah yes, you all brought up a lot of my pet peeves in that regard already!

Another thing that irritates me is when the characters use a MP3-player in the early 1990's or similar mistakes. Obviously, the ones who grew up with that sort of technology can't even imagine that they haven't existed 20 years ago, and don't bother to check their facts. It causes me to wince a lot when I read these stories.

[Silvertongue]

HAHA! I don't mind the technology thing when they say that they KNOW they weren't around then. Or that they KNOW technology can't work in Hogwarts. At least they acknowledge that it wouldn't really happen.

About the '£' and '$' thing. British keyboards have both of them anyway, and the € too (though that is sometimes only accessible through the FN key).

[lucyolsen]

Something that bugs me a lot is people's inability to understand the value of a galleon. Instead of looking it up, they'll just price things like it's about equal to $1. And then when I'm reading something, my brain will translate the prices to something 10x higher than the author really meant.

[Silvertongue]

LOL! I haven't actually looked that up myself but then I haven't had a need to because I haven't ever mentioned money in anything I've written.