On Blue's Waters (Initial thoughts)

Sergei SOLOVIEV · 11 Jan 2012, 14:15 · from 2012-January.txt.gz

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From: soloviev at irit.fr (Sergei SOLOVIEV)
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:15:28 +0100
Subject: (urth) On Blue's Waters (Initial thoughts)
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I agree with Antonio

Sergei Soloviev

Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> Jerry Friedman wrote (11-01-2012 06:04):
>> From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques<entonio at gmail.com>
>>> With the possible exception of Pig's 'eye dialect', how can those
>>> characters' specific ways of speaking be presented other than as they
>>> are? You may say you'd rather they didn't have specific ways of
>>> speaking, or that their ways of speaking weren't so conspicuous (like
>>> those of thieves, soldiers, councillors, and so on), but there I'd just
>>> have to disagree, as I quite like Remora and just love Oreb, for
>>> instance. The one I feel is a bit forced is Incus, but that's in
>>> character also.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're saying here.  I think Wolfe did a good job
>> distinguishing the speech of the characters, except for the ones I
>> mentioned, which are too mechanical for me.  (There might be other
>> exceptions that I don't remember.)
>
> Well, my point is that the characters you mention are done that way on
> purpose. Wolfe could have made them distinctive in ways more similar 
> to the
> ones you like, but he chose to do it that way for those. And I can't 
> believe
> I'm the only one who likes the result. The reason I somewhat dislike 
> Pig's
> speech is that it does get in the way of comprehension for me, and while
> that is also true of that of thieves, there it's just my ignorance of
> english, whereas with Pig it's really a graphical thing.
>
>>>> I have the gravest possible doubts that either the h's or "yer" for
>>>> "you" are part of the dialect Wolfe seems to be aiming at.
>>>
>>> There is no Scotland in the Whorl.
>>
>> Okay, why wouldn't it be better to use one's best imitation of a real
>> Scots dialect (or literary Scots) than a combination of Scots with a
>> feature from Classical Cockney?  Or just let the simple sentences and
>> third-person self-references characterize Pig's speech?  On the other
>> hand, maybe few people beside me were annoyed that they didn't know
>> whether Pig pronounced the "r" in "yer" and "ter".
>
> I think my answer is that it could have been done that way, but it 
> wasn't, so it was a matter of choice, not ignorance or hastiness (this 
> can also be my reply to Thomas, I think). Far from me to suggest that 
> any human work is perfect, but ot1h I don't feel equipped to complain 
> about the choices made by the author of the BSS and otoh it doesn't 
> get on my nerves - except for the <'>, that is.
>
> Getting back to Thomas's point: I personally know people who talk like 
> Remora. How can one express the way they talk if not as Wolfe does? 
> Sure, one may hint - but at some point it isn't the same thing.
>
> And I think Olivine's speech is an important part of her 
> characterisation, one I don't see achieveable by other means.
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