[identity profile] supercheesegirl.livejournal.com
Question: [livejournal.com profile] mirror_mirrin asks, What style options are there for sentences which repeat the same word (e.g., "the," "a," "that")? (ex. John leaned over the table at the mess hall to give Rodney a kiss goodbye before leaving for the war games planned on the Athosian mainland.)

There's not really anything wrong with repeating little words in a sentence, but there's something about it that just doesn't feel quite right, isn't there? The example sentence that [livejournal.com profile] mirror_mirrin gives us is a perfectly fine sentence. It's grammatically correct, it's straightforward, it tells us who's doing what and where they're going next. There's nothing wrong with it at all. But it's an awfully long sentence. If you read it out loud, you're going to have to pause in the middle to take a breath. It sounds kind of clunky with all those little words.

The issue here, fans of grammar, is wordiness. There's nothing technically wrong with a wordy sentence, but the faster the sentence can deliver its information, then the faster the reader will understand it. This is even more important for us today because of the internet--people want to get to the point even more quickly when they read online. And a long, wordy, clunky sentence can turn off potential readers, making your story seem overly long and boring. Let's take a look at some strategies for reducing wordiness and getting the point across in a way that pops.

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[identity profile] verilyverity.livejournal.com
Subject-Verb Agreement with Partitive Nouns

[livejournal.com profile] rykaine asks: How do you conjugate the verb for a subject that has a prepositional phrase including a plural noun?

With examples from Tin Man.

Partitive nouns are nouns that refer to one part or subset of a greater whole, but are set apart from the whole in some way. They hold hands with the nouns referring to the whole by way of partitive prepositions such as "of", like so:

Some of the apples
Half of my sandwich

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[identity profile] green-grrl.livejournal.com
Most writers are aware of major differences between British and American English, and British writers are usually good about changing arse to ass and git to idiot when writing in American-based fandoms. Still, there are a few British quirks that seem to sneak through, even occasionally by writers experienced in the American idiom.

Some of these quirks seem minor, or even sound so "right" to a British ear that the American alternative just sounds weird, but they really do stand out to American readers. The absolute best way to catch Britishisms is to ask an American to beta. Another tip is to keep a list of the phrases or expressions your characters use in canon, and stick to those rather than phrases that come naturally to you.

Here are a few common Britishisms in fanfic that you can watch out for, with examples from Stargate SG-1 and Torchwood. )

So that's a quick roundup of Britishisms I see in American canon fanfic. One of my favorite sites for translating the common language that divides us is The English-to-American Dictionary: http://english2american.com/. Even without a fic project at hand, it's a fun read for its own sake.

Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, please chime in on your English usage, as well!

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