The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Apr. 4th, 2008 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
speaker_to_customersThe good: yesterday I discovered Fever Beats by Thea Gilmore. Only six years after it was released but better late than never.
The bad: I read (courtesy of a good Friend, no way would I pay for it) Buffy Season 8 issue 13. As usual it filled me with an intense hatred of Buffy. This does make it rather difficult for me to get on with writing Buffy-centric stories. It didn’t even contain any useful plot hooks for Giant!Dawn crackfic. Really the whole thing was crackfic, or even badfic, and it’s very hard to parody utter drivel.
The ugly: In order to cure my Buffy-hatred I went to Just Rewards and read some classic Spuffy fics. Unfortunately I’d had a reading spree recently in which I’d re-read all of Enigmatic Blue’s, Barb’s, Tales of Spike’s and a few other favourite authors' stories; I had to fall back on some fics by writers who are rather less skillful. I kept being jerked out of the mood by sloppy word usage. ‘Loose’ for ‘lose’, ‘loathe’ for ‘loath’ and vice versa, and one I had never seen before and which totally cracked me up; ‘in loo of’ for ‘in lieu of’. One perennial error inspired me to write the following drabble set at the end of ‘Not Fade Away’...
The e-mail was flagged as ‘urgent’ and came from the Senior Partners. Grazz’durtak, demon administrator, opened it immediately and read the message.
‘Renegade Los Angeles CEO Angel is in the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel. Send a demon hoard.’
Grazz’durtak frowned. Strange. Still, his not to reason why...
- - - - -
The rain poured down on the bedraggled band as they stared at the hoard.
“Okay,” said Gunn, “you take the thirty thousand on the left.”
“I had hoped to do more violence,” said Illyria, scooping up gold coins and gems, “but this tribute is... acceptable.”
- - - - -
“‘Hoard’? It was supposed to say ‘horde’!”
The bad: I read (courtesy of a good Friend, no way would I pay for it) Buffy Season 8 issue 13. As usual it filled me with an intense hatred of Buffy. This does make it rather difficult for me to get on with writing Buffy-centric stories. It didn’t even contain any useful plot hooks for Giant!Dawn crackfic. Really the whole thing was crackfic, or even badfic, and it’s very hard to parody utter drivel.
The ugly: In order to cure my Buffy-hatred I went to Just Rewards and read some classic Spuffy fics. Unfortunately I’d had a reading spree recently in which I’d re-read all of Enigmatic Blue’s, Barb’s, Tales of Spike’s and a few other favourite authors' stories; I had to fall back on some fics by writers who are rather less skillful. I kept being jerked out of the mood by sloppy word usage. ‘Loose’ for ‘lose’, ‘loathe’ for ‘loath’ and vice versa, and one I had never seen before and which totally cracked me up; ‘in loo of’ for ‘in lieu of’. One perennial error inspired me to write the following drabble set at the end of ‘Not Fade Away’...
The Last Hurrah of the Golden... Handshake?
The e-mail was flagged as ‘urgent’ and came from the Senior Partners. Grazz’durtak, demon administrator, opened it immediately and read the message.
‘Renegade Los Angeles CEO Angel is in the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel. Send a demon hoard.’
Grazz’durtak frowned. Strange. Still, his not to reason why...
The rain poured down on the bedraggled band as they stared at the hoard.
“Okay,” said Gunn, “you take the thirty thousand on the left.”
“I had hoped to do more violence,” said Illyria, scooping up gold coins and gems, “but this tribute is... acceptable.”
“‘Hoard’? It was supposed to say ‘horde’!”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:28 am (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:31 am (UTC)And yes, Illyria would find it acceptable.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:01 pm (UTC)'Cannon' for 'canon' is another one; but at least that one gave me the material for at least a dozen puns in 'Dojo Hard'.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:39 am (UTC)The one that always cracks me up is "Los Angelus"
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:08 pm (UTC)I see some horrible spelling mistakes at work when I'm signing off International Money Transfers. I can forgive people for misspelling 'Kyrgyzstan' etc., but many of our staff can't spell 'Australia' or 'Belgium'. I've even seen 'Spain' and 'New York' spelled incorrectly!
The record has to go, however, to the person who typed the full name of NatWest as 'National Wesminserer'. Or perhaps to the people who can't spell the bank they work for and put us down as 'Lyods TSB'.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:09 pm (UTC)Some people can't spell well enough to use a dictionary; and people who don't know that they're using the wrong homophone won't think to look it up anyway.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 12:16 pm (UTC)BTW I didn't know the word "hoard" and had to look it up.
and one I had never seen before and which totally cracked me up; ‘in loo of’ for ‘in lieu of’
Now that is hilarious!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:11 pm (UTC)The author who used 'in loo of' is well known for refusing to accept any criticism of her word usage and throwing a hissy fit if anyone dares to correct her.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 02:37 pm (UTC)I'm sure I've missed many an interesting plot line or idea by virtue of the fact that I just couldn't handle the poor spelling/grammar. Spell check is only your friend if you actually know how to spell. Just sayin'.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:15 pm (UTC)I am always put off if there is a spelling mistake in the title or summary. Sometimes I'll start reading the fics anyway, because occasionally I will use a dialect variant spelling or a pun in one of my titles and so I'll give other authors the benefit of the doubt if possible, but inevitably it turns out that it's just the first of so many errors that the story becomes unreadable.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:21 pm (UTC)'In loo of' for 'in lieu of'—seriously? That's hilarious. I hate the way bad grammar really throws you out of a story. Although I think the 'loathe' vs 'loath' is British vs American spelling, which makes both technically correct. I could be wrong on that.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:40 pm (UTC)The person who used 'in loo of' is notorious for refusing to accept any corrections of her errors.
I'm afraid that you are wrong; the British and American spellings of 'loath' and 'loathe' are identical. 'Loath' is an adjective meaning 'reluctant' or 'unwilling'; 'loathe' is a verb meaning 'despise' or 'hate intensely'. An example would be "Buffy claimed to loathe Spike, but Spike was loath to accept that she meant it".
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 03:45 pm (UTC)I could probably (with a struggle) come up with a scene in which 'and so, without further adieu' was correct usage. It would have to involve one of the Musketeers bidding his lady adieu several times without actually departing, a company of the Cardinal's Guard charging in with drawn rapiers, and Athos or Aramis then leaving hastily without further adieu... Perhaps entitled 'Much Adieu About Nothing'.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 04:15 pm (UTC)I think "in loo of" deserves a ficlet of its own.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 04:24 pm (UTC)'In loo of' has me so boggled that I don't think I could possibly construct a fic around it.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:09 pm (UTC)As for the person who used in loo of I hope that she was an American, not a Brit. I expect better from Brits.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:17 pm (UTC)Yes, she is American; from one of the states south of the Mason-Dixon line.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:59 pm (UTC)That would be appropriate for BTVS Season Eight as it's gone straight down the toilet.
pgavigan
P.S. Please post a warning before doing something like this. I was having my morning coffee and am now wearing a different shirt.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:01 pm (UTC)*Cackles*
From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:15 pm (UTC)Magnus
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 08:20 pm (UTC)Thanks for the mention. And also...in loo of? Really? HEE! I think that just made my day.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 08:36 pm (UTC)My most hated word mistakes is taunt for taut. Always used to describe a stomach.
And the Buffy comics are definitely making people hate Buffy. I'm just hoping that it will be like that season of Dallas where it was all a dream.Probably Andrew's. They would probably also piss people off less if they stopped calling it canon and renamed it BTVS season 8 crackfic version!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:03 pm (UTC)I think that having the comics end by revealing that it was all a dream would just make the people who bought them even more annoyed!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 08:50 pm (UTC)One of my biggest peeves is coming across the use of "waste" when the intended word is "waist." The image that comes up (often someone "putting their hands around So-and-So's waste") is absolutely repulsive and makes me run away screaming.
Spellcheck does NOT help people who make these sorts of mistakes. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 11:04 pm (UTC)Yes, that is a particularly dreadful error!