Wednesday, June 16, 2010
This Needs A Title For Bo'sun's Sake
I use a lot of idioms in my writing. We all do, I’m sure. They’re part of the English language, part of the way we think and speak and write.
One of my favorite parts of the show NCIS is watching Ziva struggling to learn English idioms. On a technical level, her English is flawless. Her grammar and sentence structure perfect. And then she’ll say something like, “I think he’s on a goat.”
“A sheep, maybe?” she’ll say when all she gets is funny looks. “Oh, a lamb! He’s on a lamb!” Uh, you mean he’s “on the lamb,” honey. As in, he’s on the run. But to a non-native speaker, “he’s on a goat” makes just as much sense as “he’s on the lamb.” It’d be easy to get confused.
I got to play with this recently in my own WIP. My hero is Spanish. He speaks perfect English, but he doesn’t know idioms, like most non-native speakers:
But the bigger problem I’ve run into is Josephine’s idioms and language. She’s Irish, not American. She doesn’t use the same idioms American English-speakers use. And until I had to pull every idiom out of her dialog and narrative, I had no idea how many I used.
Take this for example:
Can you spot how many American-specific phrases and idioms are in just those two paragraphs? Words and phrases an Irish woman wouldn’t understand, let alone use. (And just so you don’t think I always write like this, I added more just for the example :))
So let’s try a fun exercise today. If you write contemps, pretend the characters of your current WIP are British, rather than American. Give your characters a British accent and expressions. Stick them in a lift, eating biscuits, or watching the telly. How different do they sound, just by swapping American phrases and idioms for British ones? Or, if you write historicals, try giving your characters modern dialog. How differently to do they think and speak if they lived in 2010 rather than 1815?
p.s. -- I won't be able to reply until after noon today, but have fun without me and I'll catch up as soon as I can!
One of my favorite parts of the show NCIS is watching Ziva struggling to learn English idioms. On a technical level, her English is flawless. Her grammar and sentence structure perfect. And then she’ll say something like, “I think he’s on a goat.”
“A sheep, maybe?” she’ll say when all she gets is funny looks. “Oh, a lamb! He’s on a lamb!” Uh, you mean he’s “on the lamb,” honey. As in, he’s on the run. But to a non-native speaker, “he’s on a goat” makes just as much sense as “he’s on the lamb.” It’d be easy to get confused.
I got to play with this recently in my own WIP. My hero is Spanish. He speaks perfect English, but he doesn’t know idioms, like most non-native speakers:
“You need more protection,” he said. “I want someone in this flat with you at all times, preferably me.”
“No.”
“No? You’re sitting here like a duck.”
“It’s sitting duck,” I said absently. “Not sitting like a duck. Sitting like a duck doesn’t make any sense. It’s--”
“Josephine.”
I met his eyes across the table. His were soft, concerned. Almost pitying. “I don’t need your protection,” I spit out. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And I bloody well don’t need your pity.”
But the bigger problem I’ve run into is Josephine’s idioms and language. She’s Irish, not American. She doesn’t use the same idioms American English-speakers use. And until I had to pull every idiom out of her dialog and narrative, I had no idea how many I used.
Take this for example:
Growing up inside the leadership of the IRA gives you certain talents. Knowledge the average civilian would never gain while sitting on the couch, munching french fries and staring at the television.
I heard Luken’s “Go, go, go,” felt the subtle change in the air that signaled a change in who had the upper hand, and hit the deck face-first. That split second, before the automatic rifle-fire opened up above my head, saved my life. A civilian would have put their hands in the air, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights, and then promptly would have been riddled with bullet holes. I was nice and cozy—and bullet-hole free—on the dusty rock floor.
Can you spot how many American-specific phrases and idioms are in just those two paragraphs? Words and phrases an Irish woman wouldn’t understand, let alone use. (And just so you don’t think I always write like this, I added more just for the example :))
So let’s try a fun exercise today. If you write contemps, pretend the characters of your current WIP are British, rather than American. Give your characters a British accent and expressions. Stick them in a lift, eating biscuits, or watching the telly. How different do they sound, just by swapping American phrases and idioms for British ones? Or, if you write historicals, try giving your characters modern dialog. How differently to do they think and speak if they lived in 2010 rather than 1815?
p.s. -- I won't be able to reply until after noon today, but have fun without me and I'll catch up as soon as I can!
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37 comments:
I know I won't be missed but in case anyone wonders whether I have expired,I'm just exhausted, like Helli, and am aiming to admire sheep and goats in the Welsh hills for a couple of weeks.
Though Mrs Q is the navigator and has the map so who knows where we'll actually end up! :lol:
Many British idioms are based on cricket and don't make much sense to Americans without a dictionary:
I'm batting on a sticky wicket today so may well come a cropper , especially if you guys across the pond decide to argue the toss and get to the end of your tether . There you are, I've broken my duck
Nice one Hal. 8)
Wow -- accidentally hit "Refresh" instead of "copy" so I wouldn't lose my post. LOL Guess what happened? Grr.
Anyway, I love this post, Hal. A few years ago I dated a guy who grew up speaking French, and didn't learn English until he was 18. (The mixed up idioms were the best part about him actually.)
One day he was telling me this dramatic story, and how somebody was shocked by something. He said they were "white as a SHEEP". I don't know how I kept from busting out laughing. It works, but not in the same way. LOL
Q, I hope you have a great vacay, and I hope you and Mrs. Q find your way back when it's time to return!
I love this post too. On a goat. LOL! :)
There are so many awesome insults I could use if I weren't writing historical. Historical insults just don't carry the same weight as when you can call someone a jackoff or an asshole or whatever. Arse just sounds, well, foolish to me.
Q - have fun on your tour o the countryside!
Awww, we'll miss you, Q! Say hello to my ancestors for me. The first Colley of my family came from Wales in 1690--it was either go to America or be hanged, because he accidentally killed the town bully in a fistfight. Pretty much everywhere the Colleys have lived, we've picked spots with lovely rolling green hills and lots of pasture, but it's not the same, I'm sure as the real place.
Love this blog! Great one, Hal, and very relevant because I think of this quite a bit when I'm writing Adam & Eve. Who I think, every once in a while, would have idioms only relevant to those living in Mesopotamia, thousands of years ago. In my head, I rationalize that they've spent thousands of years in Heaven, with other cultures and idioms, and have just picked up the lingo--but I still think it would be funny if I could find idioms relevant only to A&E.
Poor Adam and Eve sound like modern Americans, with a few English idioms thrown in because their writer is a Harry Potter fanatic and goes around all the time saying, "Honestly!" and "You're barking!"
I love Ziva and her miscues, but they are even funnier because they drive Tony crazy. LOL! He's always correcting her and then rarely can explain when she says, "That makes no sense."
Loucinda MacGary does a great job with her books set in Ireland. She's been there many times and uses the terms Irish characters would use, though I admit to being pulled out of the story from time to time because they sound so strange to me.
That's the danger in this sort of thing, being accurate but not making it foreign to the reader. My MS is set in a small town in Ohio where they refer to soda as pop. So my characters offer a glass of pop. I'm sure that will drive many readers crazy.
I picked up a few from living in the south and have some standbys from growing up in the north. I say "Shoot far!" which is "Shit fire!" with the southern accent. Then I say things like "Jeeminy Christmas" and "Holy Toledo" I picked up from my northern roots. Santa especially loves my "Crime in Itly!" (said that well without the "a") which I'm sure is from growing up around Italians.
Uhm....this blog doesn't have a title. I'm used to clicking the title to get to the comments. Donna is seriously messing with my routine!
LOL!
http://goireland.about.com/od/historyculture/qt/irishidioms.htm
You mean HAL is messing with your routine, unless you think Donna told Hal to exclude the title to make you insane.
Thanks, Hellion. LOL I was trying to figure out what I'd done and then figured out I'd FORGOTTEN what ever nefarious deed I'd done. LOL
Damn it, it was someone. See how messed up this makes me!
Heck, blame Sin. She LIKES being the source of mayhem. LOL
Why are we blaming me?
Nice link, Hellion. Purty cool...
I do love how Ziva throws them out there and sometimes, just sometimes they really have no idea what she is trying to say. And if you have to explain an idiom, the whole point is lost.
And she's right, they seldom make sense!
Think they're a regional way to tell the locals from strangers and make sure they stay that way.
Okay, Hal might get irritated, but I fixed it. Really, it was fucking way too much with my OCD.
Is it 4:30 yet?
Why are we blaming me?
Because we Catholic Schoolgirls were taught to blame SIN for Everything!
I'm digging the title.
I'm using that now: "For Bo'sun's sake!"
Giggle.
"blame SIN for Everything!"
We could blame Pooh.
Oh, bother.
Hey, that's a Hundred Acre Wood idiom. I brought the topic back around. LOL! *takes a bow*
I threw in "Holy mac and cheese" into the MS last night. No idea where that came from. Already plan to change it.
Marnee mentioned jackoff and that's one that made me crazy in Pittsburgh. That and jagoff is totally PA and maybe Jersey? Pittsburgh has its own language.
"Yous get the chips-n-at and we'll get the pop, then meet on the souside."
I'm sorry Hal, I really am trying to be serious ... Great Blog. And what a wonderful title, Terri!
Yes.
SIN.
We could blame Pooh.
Because everyone knows ... st!t happens!
*snicker*
Sorry. Really. I'll just try to be quiet and go sit over here... On the Pooh-p Deck!
LOL
eh. the closing italic. gr.
Chance - I love that you don't write historically accurate. I always love stories that drop people in a new time period, if only for the WTF? factor. For some reason, I always thought it would be fun to host someone from the 1800's and teach them about modern culture. When we have time travel and regularly scheduled exchange programs...lol!
Q - have fun on your trip! I had no idea people went around saying "I've broken my duck" - how funny! though I did google it, and while it still doesn't entirely make sense to me (really, what idiom makes sense to anyone??), I think I get it :)
Donna - white as a sheep! LOL!! That one makes sense, because really, more sheep are white than sheets, I'd think, but you're right, the phrase just doesn't work the same.
Marn - I know! I tried to write "arse" in Jo's dialog the other day, because she wouldn't say ass, and I just couldn't do it. Too weird. As a reader, that would definitely cross the line into yanking me out of the story!
Hellie - idioms from Mesopotamia....hmmm....that would be hilarious to break out a few here and there that only they understand.
Did you see "Year One" with Micheal Cera? Not a brilliant movie, but the Mesopotamian references were great
A time traveling exchange school... could be fun. I'd like to see all the historical people being handed all those duke romances and pointing out all the things that simple do not work...and trying to find people they know!
Chance - lol! Can you imagine if someone thought those were true accounts, and started looking through for people they knew or things they remembered? Ha!
Duke Clarence of where? Did I know him? Wait, perhaps he was in my class at Oxford... Yes! He liked to wear the bright yellow cravats!
Ter - yes, it's a very fine line, isn't? If you go too far, it's too unfamiliar to readers, but if you don't do any, you lose that chance for characterization.
I love the northern/southern distinctions. I find it hilarious how even moving within the US can be such a shock to the ears *g*
hilarious Chance!!!
I certainly don't recall his wife being so...boisterous!
Aliens? Well, that explains a few things...
I'm so glad the title doesn't bother you. LOL! But now that I read it again, I can see how that would give the impression this was a blog about titles. LOL!
Where do you get your pictures? *LOL*
google images. *g*. Though first, I googled for "man on goat" and that was a bad idea....
I just wandered on over here from Christie Craig's post on Bookends Lit, and found this post which entirely cracks me up! My mom teaches English as a Second Language to recent immigrants, and some of their struggles with idioms are my favourite stories to hear about. That's definitely something I'd like to be sure to write when writing characters with multiple cultures, for the sheer absurdity of it.
Two notes: It's actually "on the lam".
And when one poster said "My MS is set in a small town in Ohio where they refer to soda as pop. So my characters offer a glass of pop. I’m sure that will drive many readers crazy." -- it also amused me. Any of your readers here in Canada wouldn't be driven crazy, (most) Canadians call it pop too!
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