# Agrivating things even professional writers do



## Kathmandu (Dec 2, 2007)

It is a pet peeve of mine to buy a book from a major publisher and find amateurish mistakes in their stories. The one that drives me up a wall is common in fantasy stories. The author uses made-up, foreign sounding names which, in itself is fine, but they will then have a second character with a similar made-up name. "The mighty Thanor drew his enchanted sword Thramor, forged in the mountains of Thimor by the master smith Thindor. He won the sword by defeating Thindor in a game of Thinerin. He then slayed Thindor of Thimor by throwing Thramor and thrashing him thoroughly." Lisanne Norman's last book in her furry trilogy for an example of how bad this can get. Even though I love the books, it makes my teeth grind to work through this sort of thing.

Anyone have any other examples of this or other mistakes like this?


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## Rilvor (Dec 2, 2007)

drawling lines upon lines of description that really is not needed and is irrelevant to the story, you end up skipping over it because its crap filler. Stephen King does this from time to time .-.


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## Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage (Dec 2, 2007)

Relating to what Kathmandu said, I once read a book where three main characters had very similar names, all with the initials JD, and somehow I got the idea they were actually all the same person. I ended up being quite confused.

I have noticed authors seem to fall in love with certain adjectives or adverbs and waiting for that descriptor to turn up is practically a drinking game. For example, the rather unusual word "mellifluous" is sure to turn up at least once, if not several times, in Doug Preston & Lincoln Childs' Pendergast books.


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## TakeWalker (Dec 2, 2007)

Typos in published novels. D: They make my teeth hurt.

Give me a thousand bucks and a few days and I'll fix that shit for ya, all right, all right!


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## TheGru (Dec 2, 2007)

TakeWalker said:
			
		

> Typos in published novels. D: They make my teeth hurt.
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> Give me a thousand bucks and a few days and I'll fix that shit for ya, all right, all right!



Those actually crack me up; here they have this work that was supposed to be looked over by professional editors and they miss on average, five to eight typos in the book. Then I get my hands on the thing and I've noticed two of them within the first chapter! XD

I'm sorry but it seems to me some of the pros need their reading glasses adjusted.


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## Xipoid (Dec 2, 2007)

TheGru said:
			
		

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Well, they're human right? Wrong. If you're getting paid to edit someone's work you had best be damn perfect.


I cannot say how much it irritates me (and amuses me) to see "doesnt" or other such typos in a novel (or any professional work)


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## gust (Dec 2, 2007)

TheGru said:
			
		

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To be honest, five to eight typos in a 300 or so page book seems miniscule to me.  Mistakes like that don't really take away from a book as a whole.  Plus I barely notice things like that anyway.


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 3, 2007)

I hate it when professional writers write crummy books.


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## kiro (Dec 3, 2007)

gust said:
			
		

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Agreed, and when you consider that even the best editors have to run through at least one book a week, not reading it the way we do, but actually examining every word on every page, it's a lot harder to criticize missing 5 to 8 or even 15 typos in a book of 300 or more pages.  Hell, the author wrote the stupid thing and he missed them, what makes an editor more perfect?  An editor's job is a lot harder than people think it is.


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## Poetigress (Dec 3, 2007)

There used to be proofreaders.  Maybe that got downsized and now the editors are doing it.

Actually, I suspect they're now relying mostly on regular spell-checker software.  I think this because lately, when I run across typos in a book (David Clement-Davies' _Fell_ recently was particularly bad in that regard--and mediocre in others, but that's a different thread), the typos tend to be not just transposed letters or punctuation errors, but a typo that creates a real word (say, "treat" instead of "threat", or "silver" instead of "sliver"), so my assumption is that the computer spell-check didn't catch it.  

Maybe there aren't humans doing that job anymore?


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## Digitalpotato (Dec 3, 2007)

Even the Great Tolkein is guilty of similar sounding characters - In the Hobbit, how many dwarves are there? And what are their names? Dori, Lori, Kori, Tori, Hum-de-dori, gori, etc I couldn't keep track of them.


Proofreading isn't really something humans do anymore - it's mind numbing work and sometimes they start correcting non-existent typos after awhile.


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## Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage (Dec 3, 2007)

Professional Mary Sues. 
When I read a book that I paid for and the main female character has an unusual name, a huge rack and color-change eyes, is so rich she owns a whole island, is a Lady, has such great musical talent she is allowed to play incredibly valuable Stradivarius violins to keep them in tune, ALL the other characters love her except the bady guy, her main 'flaw' is that she likes to eat a lot, continually does stupid things so she gets captured by the bad guy and has to be rescued, and the main male character who up til now has been undemonstrative, distant, and doesn't even like being hugged falls in love with her AT FIRST SIGHT . . . well, I'm ready to toss the book out the window of a moving car. 

And yes, I'm referring to a character in an actual book.


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## zontan (Dec 3, 2007)

Kathmandu said:
			
		

> It is a pet peeve of mine to buy a book from a major publisher and find amateurish mistakes in their stories. The one that drives me up a wall is common in fantasy stories. The author uses made-up, foreign sounding names which, in itself is fine, but they will then have a second character with a similar made-up name. "The mighty Thanor drew his enchanted sword Thramor, forged in the mountains of Thimor by the master smith Thindor. He won the sword by defeating Thindor in a game of Thinerin. He then slayed Thindor of Thimor by throwing Thramor and thrashing him thoroughly." Lisanne Norman's last book in her furry trilogy for an example of how bad this can get. Even though I love the books, it makes my teeth grind to work through this sort of thing.
> 
> Anyone have any other examples of this or other mistakes like this?



I've never heard of an actual novel with something _that_ bad in it. But yeah, that does happen. That's why I always make sure my characters have inventive names (because normal ones are BORING). Except for Kerda and Kordan, but that's really because they're kinda based off each other. Meh. Maybe I'll make 'em siblings.

@Le_Demon

Oh god. I feel your pain. In my opinion, anyone who is too perfect to be accept into a roleplay (or, for that matter, real life), should be shot. Actually, that boundary's a little fuzzy. Maybe a few people in real life, too. But moving on.

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And don't blame the editors. Editors are people too. Even if yes, there are tons of books with typos that I could have fixed. What are really annoying are typos that the editor misses because he/she doesn't understand the book. If an author names a sword, or a spell, or a person, or something, and then it turns up being spelled differently, it can get confusing. Especially if used in conjunction with the first error you pointed out. "Oh, wait a minute! The author didn't actually make up some new place called Thikor, that's just a typo."

Also, sometimes errors where everything is a word, but it just plain doesn't make sense in the context of the book, but the editor doesn't catch it because he doesn't really understand it in the first place.

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Also, I dislike it when covers don't match descriptions. I noticed it most recently in the _Dragon Jousters_ series. Cover has a bunch of dragons on it, red, blue, gold, etc. Every single one just a single block of color. However, in the books, _every single dragon_ has multiple colors. The main dragons are red fading into gold, and blue fading into emerald fading into gold. Every other dragon that is described is similar. Sometimes I really wish cover artists would actually read the descriptions of the stuff they're drawing before they draw it.


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## Hakumei Ookami (Dec 3, 2007)

I love typos, because I can actually spot them.

I also love grammatical mistakes; problems with sentence structure and the like.

What I don't like is an instance when cover images used don't fit the book, as zontan has said. Why have a picture if you can't get it right? I'd prefer to leave the images to the discretion of the reader.


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## Digitalpotato (Dec 3, 2007)

Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage said:
			
		

> Professional Mary Sues.
> When I read a book that I paid for and the main female character has an unusual name, a huge rack and color-change eyes, is so rich she owns a whole island, is a Lady, has such great musical talent she is allowed to play incredibly valuable Stradivarius violins to keep them in tune, ALL the other characters love her except the bady guy, her main 'flaw' is that she likes to eat a lot, continually does stupid things so she gets captured by the bad guy and has to be rescued, and the main male character who up til now has been undemonstrative, distant, and doesn't even like being hugged falls in love with her AT FIRST SIGHT . . . well, I'm ready to toss the book out the window of a moving car.
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> And yes, I'm referring to a character in an actual book.



The lead of almost every single romance book ever made?


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 3, 2007)

Last I checked, the person who does spelling/grammar types of revision is called the copy-editor.  Maybe copy-editors are getting lazier... though really, missing 2 words in a 200,000 word manuscript is what I would consider 'acceptable margin of error'.  I mean, that's... 0.001 percent. :|


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## Summercat (Dec 3, 2007)

Digitalpotato said:
			
		

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Anything by John Ringo?


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## Rilvor (Dec 3, 2007)

This thread gets the grammar nazi stamp of approval. :roll:


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## TheGru (Dec 3, 2007)

Rilvor said:
			
		

> This thread gets the grammar nazi stamp of approval. :roll:



Zeig Heil!

And yes I'm that bad at times, even though mine isn't perfect either.


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## pinkplushii (Dec 3, 2007)

Once I was playing a video game and somebody forgot a space. 

And yeah, I hate unneeded description too. I like description, but I do not need to know every detail about the leaf on the tree, only to go on description the next leaf on the tree! Oh, I also hate when authors randomly stick foreign language in a book. I was reading this one book and they character would randomly speak in French and then another character would reply in English. It was beyond frustrating.


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## Molotov (Dec 3, 2007)

Sadly, I even go "what the frux?" when I see this too, even from some of the good writers stories I read from. But, oh well.

There's always other books with less, or no (thank the lord), errors ^^.


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## Keaalu (Dec 4, 2007)

pinkplushii said:
			
		

> Oh, I also hate when authors randomly stick foreign language in a book. I was reading this one book and they character would randomly speak in French and then another character would reply in English.


Oh, I hate that. Especially if the author has just spent the preceding two chapters explaining just how alien and non-human the character are, then they go and spatter human slang through the text. (What really confused me was when the alien characters were all speaking in English (as you'd expect), then one asked the other "Capiche?" :| )

Getting "then" and "than" is beyond annoying, too, and I can't believe how published authors sometimes muddle them up. "But I pronounce it the same way" is not an excuse for using the wrong word. GRR


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## Poetigress (Dec 4, 2007)

Keaalu said:
			
		

> Getting "then" and "than" is beyond annoying, too, and I can't believe how published authors sometimes muddle them up. "But I pronounce it the same way" is not an excuse for using the wrong word. GRR



Don't even get me started on that...  >_<


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## Rilvor (Dec 4, 2007)

I'm reading Stephen King's The Stand right now, and something that threw me off and was mentioned earlier was the random insertion of foreign language. While I understand it as French for so-so, it still threw me off my flow of reading ._.


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## Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage (Dec 5, 2007)

Digitalpotato said:
			
		

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Give me a little credit. You couldn't get me to read a romance novel under any amount of duress, up to and including gunpoint. This was a kinda techno-thriller.


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## Anilothei (Dec 11, 2007)

Oh good, I'm not the only one!

I could sit there reading a 1000 page book (Which already all my real life friends say "You're freaking crazy.." til I got them into it too) and they think I'm completely whacko when I find the word the spelled, say, "teh", or there is no period at the end of a sentence, or the author uses a semi-large word only to miss spell it - and I jump up and down and point it out to them.

I mean, yeah, 1000 pages and few errors at all, or hardly any fragments or mess ups really is amazing, but I'm a stickler for correct spelling and grammar, and can't SPELL CHECK pick up "teh" or the missing period? D: Oy, I'm probably too picky or something but it just seems like you could click spell check and go through everything it says is wrong once and problem solved, usually ~.~


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## WolfoxOkamichan (Dec 11, 2007)

Christopher Paolini.

Nuff said.


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## twilightiger (Dec 27, 2007)

Crazy names that don't make any sense. For example in C.J. Cherryh's chanur's legacy. An entire alien race has names like hjkl-rthw-qsdv I kid you not. That's how they're spelled. Every, single, time. They don't even use pronouns in their speech. 
Add that to the fact that if they got stressed out in any way shape or form. They would snap and a completely new personality would appear. With an entirely new name. Two of these aliens had a conversation. It was horrible.


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## TakeWalker (Dec 27, 2007)

There is a place for things like that -- crazy names, alien modes of speech, wacky crazy people -- but that definitely sounds like the butt-end extreme. c.c


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## Tucuxi (Dec 27, 2007)

twilightiger said:
			
		

> Crazy names that don't make any sense. For example in C.J. Cherryh's chanur's legacy. An entire alien race has names like hjkl-rthw-qsdv I kid you not. That's how they're spelled. Every, single, time. They don't even use pronouns in their speech.
> Add that to the fact that if they got stressed out in any way shape or form. They would snap and a completely new personality would appear. With an entirely new name. Two of these aliens had a conversation. It was horrible.



I can't stand that either. I do my best to get people's names pronounced correctly in real life. I do care. But in a book, I don't think it's necessary for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER to be labeled with something resembling a Polish surname.


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## Rhainor (Dec 27, 2007)

Kathmandu said:
			
		

> Lisanne Norman's last book in her furry trilogy for an example of how bad this can get. Even though I love the books, it makes my teeth grind to work through this sort of thing.



Little more than a trilogy, there.  Currently 7 books in the series, she's working on the 8th and last I heard she was planning on a 9th.

Back on topic, though, I haven't noticed the phenomenon you speak of in that series.  Exactly which book are you talking about?


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## Sin-Fang (Dec 28, 2007)

You know what I hate... How Hagrid 'alk lik' 'is 'll the' time >.< Its kinda annoying and it distracts me from the reading. There are other ways to express an accent other than using ' all the time... I use to hate reading Hagrid when I was a kid.


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## themocaw (Dec 28, 2007)

Summercat said:
			
		

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To his credit, they're at least entertaining Mary Sues.  I actually got up to the fourth book of Paladin of Shadows before I realized, "You know, why do I keep spending money on his books when I could just read them from the library instead?  It's not like I'll ever re-read them."


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## Yves-Alphonse (Dec 28, 2007)

WolfoxOkamichan said:
			
		

> Christopher Paolini.
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> Nuff said.



He must have sold his soul to the devil. . . how else can utter crap be published AND make the NY Times best sellers AND have a motion picture made about it in less than half a decade?


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## Vore Writer (Dec 28, 2007)

When authors have charactes go from one world to the next in a heart beat. House of Chains by Steve Erikson(I think I spelt his name right) is a good example of that. Unless I was reading it too fast, there's been times I had to re-read pages to understand what the hell just happened.


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## TakeWalker (Dec 28, 2007)

Sin-Fang said:
			
		

> You know what I hate... How Hagrid 'alk lik' 'is 'll the' time >.< Its kinda annoying and it distracts me from the reading. There are other ways to express an accent other than using ' all the time... I use to hate reading Hagrid when I was a kid.



When dealing with written accents/vernacular, it helps to read the words out loud, just as they're written. A good enough writer will have mastery over the language, and be able to convey alternate pronunciations to the reader. After all, it would be very bland if everyone spoke the Queen's English, no?


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## Renian (Dec 31, 2007)

Let's see... I hate characters that have extremely similar names (as in a difference of about three letters), overly elaborate descriptions that take up five pages just to tell how a forest looks, huge blocks of spoken text between more than two people without giving at least some direction of who is speaking to whom, characters that simply appear once and are obviously fairly well know by the main characters and who are never seen again (exception being for either humorous purposes or because the character would probably be either killed off within the next few pages), and of course overly obvious plot events, especially supposed plot twists.


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## Adelio Altomar (Dec 31, 2007)

Yves-Alphonse said:
			
		

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How true and sad that must be.
I tried to read Eldest, the second book of the now Inheritance CYCLE (yes, now it's four books, not three). 
Yeah...
I've been on page 132 since October of 2005. He uses too much in useless descriptions. Plus it drags on alot.


			
				Yves-Alphonse said:
			
		

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How true and sad that must be.
I tried to read Eldest, the second book of the now Inheritance CYCLE (yes, now it's four books, not three). 
Yeah...
I've been on page 132 since October of 2005. He uses too much in useless descriptions. Plus it drags on alot. And I sent him a letter to see what advice he would give. If ya want, I can post it on here.


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## Poetigress (Jan 3, 2008)

I _know_ I wrote a reply to this already, but for some reason it didn't post.  Must have hit the wrong button or something.  Anyway...



			
				TakeWalker said:
			
		

> When dealing with written accents/vernacular, it helps to read the words out loud, just as they're written. A good enough writer will have mastery over the language, and be able to convey alternate pronunciations to the reader.



True, but a good enough writer will keep phonetic spellings to an absolute minimum, and use other tools like syntax and word choice to help the reader hear how a person speaks.  There's more to accent and vernacular than just dropping letters and changing pronunciation, after all.

Rowling (and Brian Jacques) both abuse phonetic spellings IMO (Fleur's dialogue especially drove me nuts).  It's like a strong spice: a little is good, but it gets overpowering very fast.  A reader shouldn't have to read something out loud just to figure out what the character's saying -- to me, that's the sign of a lazy writer.


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## TakeWalker (Jan 3, 2008)

Poetigress said:
			
		

> I _know_ I wrote a reply to this already, but for some reason it didn't post.  Must have hit the wrong button or something.  Anyway...
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Lazy, really? I'd have thought it takes some serious application to be able to get that vernacular transcription down just right. :| Then again, I've never had difficulty in deciphering written accents, or made-up foreign languages, or names with too many consonants. And up until reading this thread, I'd have thought it was an easy enough skill to have. I guess not!


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## Poetigress (Jan 3, 2008)

> I'd have thought it takes some serious application to be able to get that vernacular transcription down just right.



It takes some figuring to decide which words are best spelled phonetically, so that you get a touch of the right sound in there without confusing the reader.  But most of the articles and books I've read frown upon overuse of it, at least for things being written now.

For example, this is a passage of dialogue from Ann Rinaldi's _The Ever-After Bird_.  The book is set in Georgia in 1851, and the speaker is a slave named Roselle, who is telling her premonitions to a young girl:

"You kin tell him anythin' I tell you.  Course, bein' a man of science, he likely will say it's no-count, my power.  Second thing.  Now listen.  There be two mens in the woods.  Look like wild mens.  They gots long hair down their backs and hair all over their faces.  Scare the bejesus outa you.  The back o' their shirts all bloody from livin' in the briar patches.  They be runaways."

There's some phonetic spelling there -- "kin," "anythin'," "bein'," "outa," and "o'."  But there's also grammar and syntax here -- "there be," "they gots", and slang like "no-count" and "bejesus" that also add authenticity to the voice.  Notice the rhythm of the sentences, and you can hear the pauses -- that's a factor, too.  It should also be noted that this is the minor character's longest speech, and that most of her dialogue includes only one or two phonetic spellings per sentence, but her voice still comes through loud and clear.

Admittedly, the game changes with each different accent, and some may rely more than others on phonetic spellings, but as with the passage above, they should still be as simple as possible for the reader to decipher.  Readers have enough distractions, and for many people, if they can't get the dialogue, they'll lose interest.

(And as a postscript -- IMO there should never be anything used for "I" but "I."  No "Ah" or "Oi" or whatever; it's probably the most confusing change that can be made, and the most overused.)


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## Keaalu (Jan 3, 2008)

Poetigress said:
			
		

> There's some phonetic spelling there -- "kin," "anythin'," "bein'," "outa," and "o'."  But there's also grammar and syntax here -- "there be," "they gots", and slang like "no-count" and "bejesus" that also add authenticity to the voice.  Notice the rhythm of the sentences, and you can hear the pauses -- that's a factor, too.  It should also be noted that this is the minor character's longest speech, and that most of her dialogue includes only one or two phonetic spellings per sentence, but her voice still comes through loud and clear.



*agrees* - I hate it when people think that you can carry off an entire accent/vernacular/whatever simply by transposing one word for another ("Yer" instead of "you/your"), and not changing the tone of the piece. (Admittedly I'm guilty of it myself, a little, but I'm working to get out of the habit. Probably why I hate it so much!)


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## Raul (Jan 3, 2008)

Digitalpotato said:
			
		

> Even the Great Tolkein is guilty of similar sounding characters - In the Hobbit, how many dwarves are there? And what are their names? Dori, Lori, Kori, Tori, Hum-de-dori, gori, etc I couldn't keep track of them.


Dunno if its already been said, but thats the kinda the point.


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