Native English readers and Jordan's prose/style

[szilard]

Questions I've always wanted to ask...

 

1. Jordan always uses Oxford comma in the early books, then there are some changes in the middle/later books. Are these errors, or he just wants to give us a different accent, 'changing personality' ect?

 

2. When he uses more Scottish words in certain chapters, are these situations normal for you, or he just wants to give us a different accent, 'changing personality' ect?

 

3. 'round

 

According to dailywritingtips.com:

 

The strange form ‘round crops up in both British and American contexts, but as round is not a shortening of around, and as there’s no law against the American use of round to mean around, the apostrophe makes no sense in either dialect.

 

So, how do you see it? Iirc, Eg uses that form alot, then later others 'join' her.

 

4. Oh, one more question.

 

his tongue ran over his lips as if he could not find enough spit to moisten them.
Rand tried to wet his lips, but he had no spit in his mouth.
Rand found he had spit in his mouth again

He tried to work moisture back into his mouth.
Rand worked his mouth to get enough moisture to speak
Rand worked his mouth, trying to get a little moisture.

he felt his mouth watering
that made his mouth water.
made his mouth water.

 

Do you care about these differences at all? The third form is strongly missing from middle/later books

 

In short, should I just lay back, and enjoy the ride (after always reading his books only in English for decades), or do you notice these things too?

[Occams whiskey bottle]

Eye of th World was published in 1990, so he began writing the series in the mid to late '80s. Knife of Dreams was published in 2005. I think what your seeing is the evolution of Jordan's writing style over the course of close to 20 years. I personally never noticed so I could be wrong?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

Most of this things I never noticed.

 

The Oxford comma was probably an editorial decision. I know it's not the preferred form where character count matters (like newspapers, etc.; when I was in school we were taught that the extra comma was redundant and incorrect, so if he was educated in the US before the 80s he'd have likely been taught the same).

 

He does a lot of dialects. And some of them sound Scottish to me, like Illianer. He tries to give most groups their own dialects. A bit like mark twain though not as successfully.

 

I've seen 'round in other lit, and some of the writers Jordan said he likes do like a lot of apostrophes and commas and many words where few would do. It never struck me as odd.

 

I'm not sure where the spit vs moisture vs water is from... of the three the only one that would bother me is the spit one because it sounds ... icky. It's not the way I would think most of the main characters would phrase something in an internal monologue. Moisture might be a little fancy, and water a little more common?

[Shad_]

1) When I was a kid I was taught to not use the Oxford comma.  I did anyway, because I thought it was silly and ambiguous not to, and eventually that became the norm anyway.  It's sort of odd that he transitioned away from this rather than towards it--goes against the general flow of things--but I wouldn't make much of it one way or the other.  I generally associate its absence with British English.

 

2) I have tae tell ye, accents can really paint a character better than any sort o' description.  I would wager, though I dunnae as a matter o' fact, that his usage o' exotic expressions be a way o' distinguishin' the personalities and cultures o' his characters.

 

3) Round refers to a shape.  Around refers to proximity.  They're similar words but don't really mean the same thing.  Spoken English often leaves off opening vowels, and if you want to write out a dialect, you often use ' to designate an intentional omission (as opposed to say, a typo).  If Jordan wrote something like "the ball was 'round", that's pretty weird.  If he wrote "Meet me 'round 2 o'clock", that reads more 'correctly' than leaving out the apostrophe.  Including it makes the reader naturally assume a dialect.  Excluding it kind of jolts you out of the setting a bit and makes you wonder if the author just made an error.

 

4) I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here, but I can tell you that in general a lot of Jordan's phrasing is sort of... exotic to me.  He thinks in a thick southern drawl, as best I can tell based on the completely bizarre pronunciation guide at the back of the books.  I can't bring myself to pronounce half of his character names the way he intended without typecasting all of them as southern Americans.  I generally just give them my own mid-west reinterpretations in my head.  I think a lot of his writing style is likewise colored by a colloquial form of English that is distinctly foreign to me.  I ended up reading Eye of the World three times before I was able to make amends with his style and really embrace the world he was presenting.

[Guest]

Not a native english speaker but I know English better than most and I never really noticed any of those things.

 

The first thing could be an editting inconsistency, or it could be that he forgot what he was using earlier on in the series and he started preferring the other form, didn't care about keeping it consistent.

 

The second thing you would need to give an example of, because outside of charicaturised accents, I don't know what you could mean by "scottish words." Scottish people speak English unless they are speaking Scots (which is sort of English) or else Gàidhlig, and the first he never uses except what you would get if a stereotypical movie pirate mated with someone who only occassionaly spoke Scots and the bastard child managed to inherit the accent of such a union while the second he of course never uses. 

 

The last thing you pointed out is just something a lot of authors do to "change things up" - for example, if you describe anytime a male character sweats as "He sweated profusely," and there is a lot of instances of that, such that there are a lot of "he sweated profusely," people may notice and it may look like you have a small vocabulary or you don't know how to write creatively or aesthetically, so you could alternate things like saying, "he broke into a cold sweat..." "[Name] began sweating when..." "he felt beads of perspiration..."

[wheeloftimetv]

The vast majority of native English speakers wouldn't notice these things. Narg for example has never even heard of a 'oxford' comma.

[Shad_]

You'd recognize its use (and absence) though.

 

Today I met Narg, a fool and an idiot.

 

Sounds pretty insulting.  But I ment no offense mate, I just don't use Oxford commas.  In fact, today I met Narg, a fool, and an idiot.  Three people.  But this peculiarly acceptable grammatical norm fails to make that distinction.

[Shad_]

You could argue that the misinterpretation is grammatically incorrect anyway; if I'd intended an insult, I should have used a double dash instead of a comma.  That character doesn't even exist on a standard keyboard though.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

You'd recognize its use (and absence) though.

 

Today I met Narg, a fool and an idiot.

 

Sounds pretty insulting.  But I ment no offense mate, I just don't use Oxford commas.  In fact, today I met Narg, a fool, and an idiot.  Three people.  But this peculiarly acceptable grammatical norm fails to make that distinction.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/do-you-need-the-oxford-comma-2013-9

[wheeloftimetv]

Nargs head hurts after reading all that.

 

"You'd recognize its use (and absence) though."

 

Only if Jordan phrased something as bad as your example, which he clearly didn't as Narg no notice its absence.

[szilard]

First of all, THANKS!

 

You know, when I'm reading the series, I always sometimes read different editions per chapters. And when I 'read back' certain paragraphs I see things like that:

 

"Jonai managed to seize his son’s frayed collar" vs "Jonai managed to sieze his son’s frayed collar"  - different editions, different word. When I see things like that, I usually change to 'another mode' and I'm telling myself, he's almost dead, so even the words cannot be properly spelled, if you know what I mean.

 

Dictionaries tell us that sieze is a common misspelling of seize, but how do I know that expression was not RJ's choice? Or is it just an error like the constant mixing up of saidin and saidar in earlier aditions? An editor told me that she has to fight with writers all the time, because they do now want to use the 'official' language at all. Many linguists back them up with: language is not  strict structure etc. 

 

 

Eye of th World was published in 1990, so he began writing the series in the mid to late '80s. Knife of Dreams was published in 2005. I think what your seeing is the evolution of Jordan's writing style over the course of close to 20 years. I personally never noticed so I could be wrong?

 

This is mostly correspond with my personal experince. For example, when I'm reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1nos_Kornai earlier works, then some of his later works, the difference is huge. But there are many writers, who use the same phrases, same spelling through their life without any change. One of them told me: "My language was good enough for me 50 years ago, so why should I change it?" Another Hungarian example (I know, I should point out works of native English speakers) Memoir of Hungary by Marai (his plays, novels are terrible - his diary, and his feuilletons are excellent), his language is totally consistent, despite being in the making more than 40 years. (It's a long diary.)

 

Most of this things I never noticed.

The Oxford comma was probably an editorial decision. I know it's not the preferred form where character count matters (like newspapers, etc.; when I was in school we were taught that the extra comma was redundant and incorrect, so if he was educated in the US before the 80s he'd have likely been taught the same).

He does a lot of dialects. And some of them sound Scottish to me, like Illianer. He tries to give most groups their own dialects. A bit like mark twain though not as successfully.

I've seen 'round in other lit, and some of the writers Jordan said he likes do like a lot of apostrophes and commas and many words where few would do. It never struck me as odd.

I'm not sure where the spit vs moisture vs water is from... of the three the only one that would bother me is the spit one because it sounds ... icky. It's not the way I would think most of the main characters would phrase something in an internal monologue. Moisture might be a little fancy, and water a little more common?

 

Yep, there are many problems with commas.

 

On Scottish,French etc words: the English language incorporates words from many language, but I spend a few mintues with my Eng-Hun dictionary every day(trying to learn a few words), and sometimes I see only dead people Scottish, French words, they glued in my memory, and when I'm reading later the day, I'm constantly reminded the origin of certain words.

 

Yes, it is a little weird, but they are coming from a little village, so it is 'acceptable' this kind of language. Was it intentional? Maybe.

 

Oh, "Rand tried to wet his lips", well, he's not Audrey Hepburn from Funny Face - "Wet your lips."

 

1) When I was a kid I was taught to not use the Oxford comma.  I did anyway, because I thought it was silly and ambiguous not to, and eventually that became the norm anyway.  It's sort of odd that he transitioned away from this rather than towards it--goes against the general flow of things--but I wouldn't make much of it one way or the other.  I generally associate its absence with British English.

 

2) I have tae tell ye, accents can really paint a character better than any sort o' description.  I would wager, though I dunnae as a matter o' fact, that his usage o' exotic expressions be a way o' distinguishin' the personalities and cultures o' his characters.

 

3) Round refers to a shape.  Around refers to proximity.  They're similar words but don't really mean the same thing.  Spoken English often leaves off opening vowels, and if you want to write out a dialect, you often use ' to designate an intentional omission (as opposed to say, a typo).  If Jordan wrote something like "the ball was 'round", that's pretty weird.  If he wrote "Meet me 'round 2 o'clock", that reads more 'correctly' than leaving out the apostrophe.  Including it makes the reader naturally assume a dialect.  Excluding it kind of jolts you out of the setting a bit and makes you wonder if the author just made an error.

 

4) I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here, but I can tell you that in general a lot of Jordan's phrasing is sort of... exotic to me.  He thinks in a thick southern drawl, as best I can tell based on the completely bizarre pronunciation guide at the back of the books.  I can't bring myself to pronounce half of his character names the way he intended without typecasting all of them as southern Americans.  I generally just give them my own mid-west reinterpretations in my head.  I think a lot of his writing style is likewise colored by a colloquial form of English that is distinctly foreign to me.  I ended up reading Eye of the World three times before I was able to make amends with his style and really embrace the world he was presenting.

 

1. Are these errors made by editors, typesetters?

2. His solution was simple (and elegant): he uses the word accent. As far as I know, most of the readers do not like reading sentences like yours.

4. The pronunciation is basically 'Hunglish'. It's very easy from a Hungarian point of view. True, that for me, the a in Rand is similar to u in cut when short. I say all the other words in Jordan's style.

 

I read Russian books in English, and when they are properly translated they sound very weird for a native English reader, but for me, as a Hungarian, they sound very clear.

 

Not a native english speaker but I know English better than most and I never really noticed any of those things.

 

The first thing could be an editting inconsistency, or it could be that he forgot what he was using earlier on in the series and he started preferring the other form, didn't care about keeping it consistent.

 

The second thing you would need to give an example of, because outside of charicaturised accents, I don't know what you could mean by "scottish words." Scottish people speak English unless they are speaking Scots (which is sort of English) or else Gàidhlig, and the first he never uses except what you would get if a stereotypical movie pirate mated with someone who only occassionaly spoke Scots and the bastard child managed to inherit the accent of such a union while the second he of course never uses. 

 

The last thing you pointed out is just something a lot of authors do to "change things up" - for example, if you describe anytime a male character sweats as "He sweated profusely," and there is a lot of instances of that, such that there are a lot of "he sweated profusely," people may notice and it may look like you have a small vocabulary or you don't know how to write creatively or aesthetically, so you could alternate things like saying, "he broke into a cold sweat..." "[Name] began sweating when..." "he felt beads of perspiration..."

 

See my answer above to Mrs. Cindy Gil.

 

Some authors use this 'technique', some authors do not. What I wanted to say that he 'abandons' certain form of "spit" or whatever, the exact words are not important.

 

The vast majority of native English speakers wouldn't notice these things. Narg for example has never even heard of a 'oxford' comma.

 

Especially listening to audiobooks while driving... but as the saying goes: "Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else", so I cannot be the only one who notices things like. I'm not special or anything.

 

 

Anyway, THANKS again for your replies.

similar to u in cut when short