# Minor Details that Annoy You in Fiction
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 3, 2013, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016 "2013-06-03T09:13:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/141 "2013-06-06T05:23:52Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> The OP specified things that weren’t crucial to the plot, but I still have to give a shout-out to the idiocy of _The Handmaid’s Tale_ where, in a world of declining birth-rates, the handmaids are given three chances to get pregnant (by a 60+ year old man, nonetheless) and if they don’t get preggers by that third time they’re cast off to live in some radioactive/toxic wastelands.
>
> Stupid, stupid, stupid.
It makes sense within the context of the story. Like they’re going to blame the man?
---
### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/142 "2013-06-06T05:32:49Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> The OP specified things that weren’t crucial to the plot, but I still have to give a shout-out to the idiocy of _The Handmaid’s Tale_ where, in a world of declining birth-rates, the handmaids are given three chances to get pregnant (by a 60+ year old man, nonetheless) and if they don’t get preggers by that third time they’re cast off to live in some radioactive/toxic wastelands.
“Three chances” didn’t mean three times having sex with the same man, though. Each “chance” was a period of two years, after which the handmaiden would be assigned to a different man. And handmaidens who couldn’t bring a healthy child to term in six years weren’t banished to the wasteland for that reason alone, it was because only women considered criminals under the new regime could become handmaidens in the first place. Male criminals and those female criminals who weren’t young and fertile were sent directly to the wasteland.
This still doesn’t seem like a great arrangement of course, but it’s supposed to be a dystopia.
ETA:
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> It makes sense within the context of the story. Like they’re going to blame the man?
IIRC, it’s actually stated in the novel that the new regime doesn’t believe that male infertility is even possible.
---
### Author:  [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2013, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/143 "2013-06-06T07:03:46Z")
> [@Lamia](#):
>
> “Three chances” didn’t mean three times having sex with the same man, though. Each “chance” was a period of two years, after which the handmaiden would be assigned to a different man. And handmaidens who couldn’t bring a healthy child to term in six years weren’t banished to the wasteland for that reason alone, it was because only women considered criminals under the new regime could become handmaidens in the first place. Male criminals and those female criminals who weren’t young and fertile were sent directly to the wasteland.
>
> This still doesn’t seem like a great arrangement of course, but it’s supposed to be a dystopia.
>
> ETA:
> IIRC, it’s actually stated in the novel that the new regime doesn’t believe that male infertility is even possible.
Handmaids were fertile women who were not eligible to become Wives. The narrator had an affair with a married man, who later divorced his first wife and then married her. She had a child with this man, which proved that she was capable of conceiving and bearing a live child. So, on the one hand, she was considered to be an immoral sinner, but on the other hand, she was a valuable resource. In fact, she was tattooed to show that she was the property of the state/country of Gilead. And make no mistake, she WAS property, not considered to be fully human. She didn’t even have a permanent name, she was called Offred, Fred being the first name of her current assignment.
Women were offered a choice to be Handmaids, but their choices were something on the order of “Become a Handmaid, or you get to clean up hazardous waste without protection”, so neither choice was really all that thrilling. There was a third option that wasn’t talked about…the state of Gilead had brothels, and a young attractive woman could work in those brothels. The brothels were for hospitality to men of other nations, and as perks for men who were highly placed in Gilead.
Young women of good moral character were considered proper Wife material, and were also assumed to be fertile, though if they never managed to get pregnant, their husband would be assigned Handmaids if they reached a high enough rank.
The official doctrine was indeed that men were always fertile, and that a woman could control her fertility to at least some degree by being pious and obedient. Unofficially, both Offred’s doctor and Fred’s wife acknowledged that there was a good chance that good old Fred was shooting blanks. The doctor offered his services as a stud, and Fred’s wife suggested a liaison with the chauffeur/assistant. Both of these people offered this solution to Offred’s problem, but both were mostly thinking of the benefit to themselves, not to Offred.
Basically, the rulers of Gilead only wanted certain men to reproduce, but they wanted all the fertile women to be popping out babies on a regular basis. The privilege of marriage was not granted to every male, and a fertile woman did not have much of a choice as to whether or not she wanted to have babies. Either she was married off, or she was a Handmaid, or if she rebelled and they couldn’t break her, she was put in a brothel or put in a work gang.
Handmaids were examined monthly by doctors, to determine whether they were ovulating or nearly ovulating, and there was a big ceremony every month with the whole household participating, with a bit of TV watching (a rare treat), a Bible reading, and then the Commander, the Wife, and the Handmaid went to have a fertilization ritual. And it was a ritual, with prescribed positions for everyone.
---
### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/144 "2013-06-06T20:43:57Z")
On 21 Jump Street, Officer Anthony “Mac” McCann introduced himseld by saying he grew up in “mun-AU-chee”, New Jersey.
If you grew up in, or if anyone on the entire TV production crew of the show had bothered to call the Borough Hall of, Moonachie, New Jersey, they would have known it’s pronouced “MOON-au-kee.”
---
### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/145 "2013-06-07T00:07:31Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> On 21 Jump Street, Officer Anthony “Mac” McCann introduced himseld by saying he grew up in “mun-AU-chee”, New Jersey.
>
> If you grew up in, or if anyone on the entire TV production crew of the show had bothered to call the Borough Hall of, Moonachie, New Jersey, they would have known it’s pronouced “MOON-au-kee.”
I’d probably make the same mistake. My town’s name is Wenatchee, pronounced Weh-NAT-chee.
Years ago there was some Washington state based bank chain whose radio marketing campaign revolved around emphasizing that they were a _local_ bank. The commercials featured a bunch of “big national bank” executives holding meetings to discuss ways to pass themselves off as “local”. One ad had them all hilariously practicing how to properly pronounce the names of various Washington cities., like “Puyallup” (correct: pyoo-AL-lup) and “Sequim” (correct: Skwim). Native American names are fun!
It’s also amusing listening to East Coast sportscasters pronounce “Oregon”.
---
### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/146 "2013-06-07T00:39:19Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#):
>
> Cadderly’s rival is another young man serving in the same church-run library. I can’t remember his name now, but I can certainly remember that he has a “angular” appearance. Because every single time he appears in a scene, Salvatore describes him as “the angular young man”. Sometimes multiple times in the same scene.
>
> Drove. Me. Nuts.
Padding. Gets author’s word count up, and the readers eat it up because it’s a fast, super-easy read.
That would turn me off though.
---
### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/147 "2013-06-07T00:47:24Z")
> [@Morbo](#):
>
> And what on Earth could the three-fingered programmer’s super secret password possibly be? Give up? It was “three”
See, if it had been thr33, that would almost have been clever. Almost.
[QUOTE=AtomicDog]
It’s called “tactile telekinesis.”
[/QUOTE]
I have that too, except I call it “picking stuff up”. I also have vocal telepathy, it’s pretty neat.
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/148 "2013-06-07T00:52:42Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> I have that too, except I call it “picking stuff up”. I also have vocal telepathy, it’s pretty neat.
How do you get that to work? Everything I try to pick up breaks.
---
### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/149 "2013-06-07T01:03:01Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> Padding. Gets author’s word count up…
I think it was Mickey Spillane who was asked why his detectives always took six shots to hit a bad guy. His answer was something like, “Hey, I get paid by the word. Every time Mike Hammer’s gun goes ‘bang’ it’s three cents to me. If you think I’m going to let him out of a scrape with fifteen cents’ worth of unused ammo, you’re crazy.”
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/150 "2013-06-07T07:04:42Z")
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> I’ve often heard Americans refer to a “pack of cigarettes.” My father for one. You used to be able to buy cigarettes in singe packs or in cartons which held multiple packs. But I can see your point. That’d be a minor detail that would annoy me as well.
'Twas I–and it was a Yank in a redneck bar asking for a “packet” of cigarettes.
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/151 "2013-06-07T07:19:29Z")
> [@Morbo](#):
>
> Or _Digital Fortress_, the book with 3-fingered security encryption programmerr Ensei Tankado, who used a mysterious partner named NDAKOTA to sell the mysterious encrypted password to his company’s software. Who could this mysterious NDAKOTA possibly be? And what on Earth could the three-fingered programmer’s super secret password possibly be? Give up? It was “three”
That book also had a typo in the secret code–which as proofreader of the paperback, I pointed out, though it wasn’t fixed until the edition _after_ that, which also fell to me. (And I figured it out looong before the fictional team of experts!)
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/152 "2013-06-07T14:52:51Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> This is what made my nuts about Stephen King’s 11/22/63. The main character is supposed to be 35, just a few years older than myself, and his pop culture knowledge is rooted almost completely in the late 70s, which is before he would have been born. I’m not saying it’s impossible for someone to love the pop culture of someone else’s generation, but the main character had literally no connection to any piece of pop culture created after 1979.
I noticed a similar glitch in _Hearts in Atlantis_, where the character is a 60s college student who plays Phil Ochs’s “'I Ain’t Marching Any More” album incessantly. Later, he wonderingly notices the trident-in-a-circle symbol people are wearing. But have a look at that record sleeve:
[http://www.silverdisc.com/images/70/725543971616.jpg](http://www.silverdisc.com/images/70/725543971616.jpg)
---
### Author:  [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/153 "2013-06-07T22:08:44Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#):
>
> In the beginning of _Jurassic Park_, there’s a couple throwaway characters who you never see again. One of them thinks about how crazy it is for the other - his wife - to be worried about her looks since she “was homecoming queen at Rice University.”
>
> (Then their baby is eaten by din[g]os and they’re never heard from again.)
>
> Anyway, the problem there is Rice’s approach to electing Homecoming Queens:
>
> [http://timeline.centennial.rice.edu/entry/367/](http://timeline.centennial.rice.edu/entry/367/)
Sorry, I’m super-late to this thread, but isn’t it quite possible that the scriptwriters put that “mistake” in there as an in-joke?
---
### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/154 "2013-06-07T23:09:26Z")
> [@straight\_man](#):
>
> Sorry, I’m super-late to this thread, but isn’t it quite possible that the scriptwriters put that “mistake” in there as an in-joke?
I think he meant in the book. Don’t remember that in the movie. Crichton went to Harvard.
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/155 "2013-06-07T23:56:17Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#):
>
> When novels set in the UK use constructions like “three-hundred sixty-five”, “in back” and “write my father”. Many otherwise impeccably-researched books have fallen down at these tiny tiny hurdles. I’m sure it works the other way round too - I recall Neil Gaiman being mildly twitted on these boards for making an American character say “pack of cigarettes”
😕
How else would an American refer to a pack of cigarettes, if not as “a pack of cigarettes”?
---
### Author:  [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/156 "2013-06-08T00:39:21Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> In every superhero movie ever made, somewhere along the way a person falls from a great height, and is safely caught a few feet above the ground. Apparently, all superheroes have a magic inertial dampening field that allows instant, safe deceleration into their arms. In fact, mere touch is usually enough–grabbing a hand moments before impact is just fine.
One reviewer back at the time pretty much panned Superman the Movie for a number of reasons. Many of them were about departing from the writing and even art elements of the comics. He said that the tall, elegant bulidings on Krypton shown going back to the '50’s were the way to go.
He noted that Lois seemed to fly on her own power whenever Superman was in contact, but dropped like a stone as soon as the contact was broken. He speculated, **although reluctantly** , that perhaps Superman could negate inertia at will with his power of flight. And then went on to muse that perhaps that was the reason Lois didn’t break every bone in her body when he caught her.
(I think it was Comic Journal.)
* * *
There was a TV program about half a dozen years back with scientists commenting on the science, or lack thereof, in modern movies. One claimed that “Superman wouldn’t have been doing her any favor…” in the initial rescue scene. Perhaps he hadn’t heard of the theory of extended inertial fields.
* * *
You are right, though, because even Spiderman, in the pre-reboot trilogy, does the same thing with MJ. Since Spidey has no anti-gravity flight power, there is nothing to extend to people he carries and catches. Saving her a few feet (inches) from the ground, while exciting visually, makes no sense. And the scene could have been handled differently, with enough time to gradually brake her speed, starting fairly far from the ground.
* * *
If you are also thinking of Batman, I have no recollection, but it woudn’t surprise me.
---
### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/157 "2013-06-08T00:58:00Z")
> [@Trans Fat Og](#):
>
> You are right, though, because even Spiderman, in the pre-reboot trilogy, does the same thing with MJ. Since Spidey has no anti-gravity flight power, there is nothing to extend to people he carries and catches. Saving her a few feet (inches) from the ground, while exciting visually, makes no sense. And the scene could have been handled differently, with enough time to gradually brake her speed, starting fairly far from the ground.
In the comics, as I understand it (I wasn’t reading comic books at the time), when Gwen Stacy got tossed off a bridge and Spider-Man caught her by shooting a web line at her, Peter later realized that he may have killed her just as dead as she’d have been had she hit the ground. That is, he realized her neck probably snapped when he stopped her fall.
After that incident, he switched up his technique and started catching falling people in web nets instead of trying to snag them with a web line.
So the writers were actually thinking about that kind of thing.
---
### Author:  [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/158 "2013-06-08T01:54:39Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#):
>
> In the comics, as I understand it (I wasn’t reading comic books at the time), when Gwen Stacy got tossed off a bridge and Spider-Man caught her by shooting a web line at her, Peter later realized that he may have killed her just as dead as she’d have been had she hit the ground. That is, he realized her neck probably snapped when he stopped her fall.
>
> After that incident, he switched up his technique and started catching falling people in web nets instead of trying to snag them with a web line.
>
> So the writers were actually thinking about that kind of thing.
That’s pretty awesome! I always wonder about the steep learning curve a superhero must deal with.
At least the X-men have the Danger Room to train in. What about Batman? How does he evaluate the strength of the masonry he’s swinging his grappling hooks from on the fly like that? I think in the 1989 Batman movie, he did ask Vikki Vail how much she weighed before using his equipment with her. That was pretty cool.
---
### Author:  [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/159 "2013-06-08T02:32:34Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#):
>
> I think in the 1989 Batman movie, he did ask Vikki Vail how much she weighed before using his equipment with her. That was pretty cool.
He did; she answers him (I think she says 115 lbs). After escaping to safety, he tells her that she weighs more than what she’d said.
---
### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/minor-details-that-annoy-you-in-fiction/660016/160 "2013-06-08T03:01:58Z")
In the film [Skin Game](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067763/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2) Lou Gosset’s character looks up at the night sky and makes a comment about observing Pluto. The film is set in 1857. Pluto was discovered in 1930, and is not visible to the naked eye.
In an episode of Frasier where Daphne’s mother visits from England, the mother makes a comment about dying and being placed in her casket. That is a purely American usage. An English woman would call it a coffin.
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