# Do you hate it when authors write out dialects? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188 "2012-12-06T15:30:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/81 "2012-12-09T23:42:55Z")
> [@Lucky\_13](#): > > Something I’ve always wondered. I remember reading a novel once where a character used the word “bain’t” a lot. Does anyone even say this, and if so, where? According to the [The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form](http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=bain't), which I only just now learned existed, it’s “a dialect word used extensively in the Midlands and West Country of the UK.” > [@](#): > > It bain’t a right cleverish notion > When thinking of crossing the ocean > To have bathtubs in mind > Of the cast-iron kind— > 'Cause they sail with a downwardish motion. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/82 "2014-11-15T16:49:22Z")
I am unfortunately a computer-moron, though a keen computer-user in the most simple reaches of that scene. Although I have been instructed in how to call up / link to in a post, a bygone SDMB thread: trying to do so, following instructions, didn’t work – I’m sure, as a result of my idiocy, not from any inadequacy in the instructions. This being so: I am doing something not well-regarded by the mods, and reviving this “zombie thread” from 2012 – hoping for forgiveness, with my action being caused by incompetence, not laziness / not giving a damn. A problem for many of the posters on this thread, and certainly for me, is fiction authors’ writing and publishing copious transcribed “dialect / mangled English”, put into the mouths of non-standard speakers. I usually find it – if at any length – a maddening distraction, and just more work for the reader, than it’s worth. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > It depends. It can be an effective way of getting into the feel of a place if done properly. I liked Heinlein’s “lunar” dialect in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, and fell into it pretty easily. I didn’t have an issue with it in _Huckleberry Finn_. > > But I absolutely _hate_ it when I can’t make sense of a character unless I sound out every single word. The worst offender I’ve come across is the original printing of Joel Chandler Harris’ _Uncle Remus_. Reading it was torture. (Another poster makes an almost simultaneous and much-alike comment, about _Uncle Remus_). I heartily agree about this one. I have a lovely, passed-down-in-the-family, 1920s-vintage illustrated edition of the work – but Remus’s speech therein, lovingly transcribed by the author, in impenetrable and incomprehensible to me: I’m just not prepared to undertake that amount of labour. Similarly – on the whole, I have a strong liking for Kipling’s works. However, I find a good deal of annoyance in his “Soldiers Three” tales. Out of the “three”, Mulvaney particularly gives me problems. Kipling seems to find no need to “mangle” very greatly, the speech of Ortheris the Cockney – and Learoyd, from the north of England, is a laconic type who parts with words as though they were hundred-rupee notes, so that the reader isn’t bothered with much from him. Mulvaney, though, is a gabby character, and the author’s rendering on the page of his cod-Irish speech, drives me mad. I recently discovered a likely promising Kipling short story, _My Lord The Elephant_; but ended up abandoning it, because of its being narrated “by” Mulvaney, verbatim via the author. > [@RikWriter](#): > > I don’t like it at all. I prefer when the author makes a brief mention (preferably from the POV of a character who doesn’t share the accent) noting that the person has a strong accent and then just leaves it to your imagination. > > As an instance that comes to mind, in the book Island in the Sea of Time, one of the 1200 BC locals named Isketerol has just learned to speak English and has a strong accent. Rather than write out everything he says with this accent, Stirling briefly mentions that when he says “That would take years,” it comes out sounding like “Dat wud tikka yee-ars,” but writes the rest of his dialogue conventionally. I couldn’t agree more – it would be so nice if authors would use this manoeuvre, rather than inflict on the reader pages upon pages of gobbledegook. I have the impression that to a fair extent, lengthy dialect-transcribed passages were a vice more, of authors of earlier times: it’s a thing which mercifully, the less-cheesy of modern writers tend not to do. Is the dislike, one that others coming to this thread, share – or is people’s opinion that I, and other posters hitherto on this thread, are too fussy and hard-to-please? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/83 "2014-11-15T17:14:30Z")
I think a lot of dialog transcription is subtly classist, in that writers tend to only spell out accents when spoken by foreigners and poor people, but never the well-educated. The’ll drop H’s at the beginning of words, but they’ll never drop R’s at their endings. In other words, they’ll only spell out dialect when people are speaking “wrong”. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/84 "2014-11-15T19:05:12Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > You want Scottish dialect? Robert Louis Stevenson wrote stories in it, and I’ve read works by more recent authors copying him. Utterly unitelligible (if you’re not Scottish) without a glossary. > Don’t believe me? Try reading _Thrawn Janet_: > > [The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables/Thrawn Janet - Wikisource, the free online library](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thrawn_Janet) Ah dinnae ken why yer fashin’ yerself. I kent it fine. “Eye dialect” is like any other literary device - in the hands of a master, like Twain, it works; in the hands of a less-competent writer, it’s clunky. It took me a page or two to get into the flow of _Trainspotting_, but after that I just accepted it as the voices of the characters. But “Thrawn Janet” might not be a great example, because it’s not written in English - that’s Scots. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/85 "2014-11-15T20:08:01Z")
I agree with the OP completely, even though the quote is pretty much how I sound IRL. 😛 But I don’t write that way for expression, anymore than my singing voice sounds like my speaking voice. And I agree that word choice and sentence structure can convey what’s needed. “Breast of chicken” says something different than “chicken breast” I think, and sounds different, too…almost a melodious drawl. Anything that stops the flow for the reader is “chancey” 😛 and not always worth the risk. Like nudity in a well-made film you have to wonder, “Is it integral to the story?” and even then, use it sparingly for maximum effect. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/86 "2014-11-15T20:17:14Z")
Strongly written dialects do take me out of the story, while lightly written ones I find fun. I guess my wish is that the strength of written dialect be positively correlated to the importance of emphasizing that character’s background. Twain write Roxanna with pretty thick dialect, okay that’s fine. Gabaldon writes Jamie Fraser with a light Scottish dialect, that’s great. Sir Walter Scott writes Iain Bean Lean in middling-dense Scots, okay (actually, I think he didn’t write that character that way, it’s been a long time… but if he did, it would be okay with me). But when Scott starts to write all of Ivanhoe’s dialogue in a dialect he never heard and can’t possibly imagine? Screw that. I’m done with the book. ---
**Author:** ![Oswald\_Bastable](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oswald_bastable/32/214_2.png) [@Oswald\_Bastable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oswald_Bastable)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/87 "2014-11-15T20:46:27Z")
I’m not the biggest fan, although I’ve used it myself in a deliberately obtuse way when writing Edwardian speculative fiction pastiche. My readers didn’t like it either… :dubious: OB ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/88 "2014-11-15T20:59:56Z")
Just found this thread. Yes, I skipped those chapers in Cloud Atlas. I’ve never read Huckeberry Finn,either. I hate it even worse when an author puts whole chapters in italics. Bastards. All the Pretty Horses is the only book by Cormac McCarthy I never read. ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/89 "2014-11-15T21:51:00Z")
Hate dialects, too. I agree with **RikWriter** that S.M. Stirling handles them masterfully, with a very light touch. There’s a point at which I will not read a book for pleasure if there’s too much non-Standard English in it. That said, the type of usage where using AAVE or other forms of English as shorthand to make a character sound uneducated or stupid seems to be disappearing. About time. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/90 "2014-11-16T00:12:23Z")
One of the most challenging books to read is Zora Neale Hurston’s **Their Eyes Were Watching God**. But it’s also one of the best. So no, I don’t always hate when authors write out dialects. I only hate when they see fit to only do it with certain voices. If slaves have to have their voices represented in dialect, so should Missy and Massa. Cuz all God’s chilluns talk funny. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/91 "2014-11-16T00:58:31Z")
> [@singular1](#): > > The first thing that sprung to mind for me is Steven King’s cringe-inducing dialects, especially black dialects. They physically hurt me to read them. King’s dialogue is every bit as weak as his characters. He’s great at plotline and scene setting, but as soon as a person pops up and starts talking, I toss the book in frustration. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/92 "2014-11-16T01:21:49Z")
I thought of another point: spelled-out dialect bothers me less in stories with first person narration. That first person narrator inevitably has a dialect of his or her own. It’s acceptable for that narrator to relate Otherness in dialogue. I have less patience in third person narration. In that case there had better be a good excuse, like a strong POV tie or a need to establish Otherness for plot reasons. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/93 "2014-11-16T14:41:52Z")
> [@Rollo\_Tomasi](#): > > One thing that really bugs me about spelling out dialects is when it’s used inconsistently among characters. For example, if you read a book with a character from Mississippi, one from Pennsylvania, and one from California, but only the character from Mississippi is having their dialogue spelled out phoenetically. Not only does it come off as condescending, but it inadvertently holds up the other characters’ way of speaking as the “normal” way. After all, people from those two states have their own quirky way of pronouncing certain things Why aren’t those words being spelled out phonetically? But because people more strongly associate the South with a particular accent (and probably because the author is not from the South), they feel the need to practically hold up a sign and say, “Hey, this person is from the South! See, that’s why he’s talking funny!” That’s what I really dislike - that it’s only the “others,” usually common folk, who need stuff spelling out in dialect. As if the rest of the characters are saying stuff exactly as it’s spelt; this is English, so they’re not. JK Rowling did this in Harry Potter, even. Hagrid is perfecty comprehensible, but why the need to write ’ instead of h every time his dialect misses an h? It’s not exactly uncommon to drop the h in Harry, so why point it out? Oh, because he’s a country bumpkin, I see. We definitely needed to know that. > [@Peremensoe](#): > > Why keep the contraction “I’m”? Why keep the colloquial “comfy,” instead of “comfortable”? Because _those_ elements are in _your_ dialect? Because, if the person were writing in a casual style rather than speaking, they’d probably retain those (“I’m” is hardly a dialect form, anyway. Ony robots use “I am” all the time). If every other character is written as if they were writing, in the sense that you write “certain” rather than “sertin” or whatever for your main characters, then the same should apply to the common folk, the country bumpkins and foreigners. There are exceptions, if you have a really good reason for it, like the POV character not understanding what was being said due to an accent or dialect and it being transcribed to show the reason for the lack of comprehension. O if you’re intentionally writing the whole thing in dialect, like in Trainspotting. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/94 "2014-11-18T20:11:14Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > That said, though, I did quite like Chuck Palahniuk’s _Pygmy_, which was written entirely in very strange English. Not sure if you’d call it “dialect” per se, but it definitely took some getting used to. I HATED that book, partially because it was just a terrible book and the dialect part delivered the killing blow. I like some of Palahniuk’s work but pygmy was the beginning of the end of the love affair for me. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/95 "2014-11-18T20:25:49Z")
> [@BurnMeUp](#): > > I HATED that book, partially because it was just a terrible book and the dialect part delivered the killing blow. I like some of Palahniuk’s work but pygmy was the beginning of the end of the love affair for me. It was more an up-and-down thing for me. I liked Pygmy, hated Snuff and Rant, liked Damned, and couldn’t finish Doomed. We’ll see how Beautiful You goes–I have it but haven’t started it yet. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/96 "2014-11-18T20:34:26Z")
I REALLY hate made up dialects. I also hate those that make my reading come to a screeching halt. I have no issues with Huck, as that use of dialect is important for several reasons, and I can read thru it fine. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/97 "2014-11-18T20:43:13Z")
I only really get annoyed if it’s eye-dialect, that is, words written phonetically to imply a rustic or simpleminded character but not actually being a different pronunciation. Things like wuz, sed, or wimmin. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/98 "2014-11-18T20:55:47Z")
Does any book write out zombie speech in dialect? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/99 "2014-11-18T21:12:59Z")
> [@Rollo\_Tomasi](#): > > …if you read a book with a character from Mississippi, one from Pennsylvania, and one from California, but only the character from Mississippi is having their dialogue spelled out phoenetically…it inadvertently holds up the other characters’ way of speaking as the “normal” way. After all, people from those two states have their own quirky way of pronouncing certain things Why aren’t those words being spelled out phonetically?.. Yeah, Californians sound funny. They think that “Hairy Harry rode the fairy ferry to marry merry Mary and tarry with Terry” has homophones in it. It doesn’t. Also, Don and Dawn are _two different names_! Stop saying them the same. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188/100 "2014-11-18T22:08:02Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Yeah, Californians sound funny. They think that “Hairy Harry rode the fairy ferry to marry merry Mary and tarry with Terry” has homophones in it. It doesn’t. Not-very-relevant aside from this, but hard to resist: one of the oddities of the Liverpool dialect, is it’s reversing of the “air / er” sounds – e.g., the local river which meets the sea there, the Mersey: is locally pronounced, “Mairsey”. A bit of Liverpool conversation, told to me long ago: " 'ere, wack ! D’you believe in furries?" “I do; but norrin fairy furries.” (= furry fairies. Probably fortunately, this exchange long pre-dated the “furries” sex thing.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-hate-it-when-authors-write-out-dialects/643188.md?page=6)