rionaleonhart | I Want To See The Zoo, She Said, I Want To See The Zoo.

WHILST I'M BEING INSECURE ABOUT MY WRITING: for as long as I can remember, I have used "double quotation marks" for speech in fiction and 'single quotation marks' for all other purposes. No style guide will recommend this: in British publishing convention, single quotes are used for all purposes, including speech, with speech within speech the only context in which double quotes are used; in American publishing convention, the situation is reversed. Does this inconsistency bother you? (Alternative question: do you have similar stylistic quirks?) I just think there's something quite nice about drawing a visual distinction between speaking and 'setting a phrase aside'. If there are two different types of quotation mark, why not put them to use?

Regarding Supernatural: I rewatched 'Fresh Blood' a little while ago, and it reminded me of how awesome Bela can be. I love that she actually seems surprised and a little upset that Dean is so angry with her for telling a murderous madman where to find them. HONESTLY, DEAN, YOU'RE SO OVERSENSITIVE. And then she helps them track him down, because, hey, she didn't know Dean was going to be so unreasonable about the whole thing. I love her.

HERE IS SOMETHING I WOULD LOVE TO SEE: a rewritten Twilight, with Bela in the role of Bella. Edward may be ridiculously strong and fast, but if he can't hear Bela's thoughts he's doomed. She will seduce him, use him shamelessly and then run off with his sister to form an amazing con artist duo. It would be pretty great. And at least Bela's unsympathetic aspects are intentional, unlike those of Bella 'Stupid Unattractive Humans With Their Stupid Being Nice To Me' Swan.

(Jo is welcome to join Bela and Alice in their con-artistry.)

(Also, Ruby can flit between the three of them, although I have not yet decided whether she would assist with the cons or whether she would ruin them for her own amusement by possessing the team members at inopportune moments.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stay quiet! People won't notice! Well, unless you switch between multiple ways of formatting the same thing in the same, say, paragraph. (Since beginning my course, I've been flipping helplessly between single quotes (what I used previously) and italics (the standard formatting in books on linguistics) when I want to indicate that I'm talking about a word as a word. Do I say that Americans say 'pants' instead of 'trousers' or that Americans say pants instead of trousers? I DON'T KNOW.)

Oho, no, they notice. At least two of my friends are professional editors and they BLOODY WELL NOTICE. And with such *language* it makes me cower. I fire your own advice right back at you. I also am tempted to get up and go and look in The Seven Words You Can't Say On Television (or is that 'The Seven Words You Can't Say On Television'?) to see what That Nice Prof Pinker does.

I should say 'most people won't notice'. Most people who are not editors. I do some editing in the holidays, so I hope I would notice such things, as otherwise I am rubbish at my job, but I assume the majority won't pick up on it.

Possibly as an editor I should be saying 'HOW DARE YOU BE SO INCONSISTENT, I AM APPALLED', but in an entry about my own inconsistencies I feel it would be a mite hypocritical.

Ooh, look, I've got The Language Instinct right next to me! He uses italics in there.

Oooh, editing for whom?

I AM JEALOUS. I want that book, and now I have no idea of the ethics of buying anything from Amazon any more. :S

EDITING FOR SOMEONE VERY RESPECTABLE AND NOT A VANITY PUBLISHER AT ALL, NOPE.

Vanity publishers aren't doing too well in the recession; apparently nobody wants to pay to have their book published at the moment. Sigh. NOT THAT THIS HAS ANY RELEVANCE TO MY JOB OR ANY IMPACT ON MY FINANCES OR ANYTHING.

I felt I should boycott Amazon, but then my finger slipped and I somehow ordered Merlin. I don't know what happened there.

THERE IS NO DENIAL IN THIS COMMENT.

APPROPRIATE ICON IS APPROPRIATE.

In any case, I would certainly recommend The Language Instinct, because it is fascinating. It may well have been a factor in my decision to study English Language, which was probably one of the best decisions I ever made (eeeeee language eeeeeee).

I recommend this to everyone, but seriously listen to the Reith Lectures by Dr Ramachandran on neuology, he has a whole section on the evolution of language which is just fucking fascinating - or read his book. >:) LANGUAGE SQUEE.

Do you know

jeebus_uc, btw? She's studying linguistics at Leeds and terribly, terribly smart.

I Want To See The Zoo, She Said, I Want To See The Zoo.

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