Re: Story - TCOAIW

H. S. Teoh wrote:

> > http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/create_tcoaiw.htm
> > [snip]
>
> Ah, I see. Hmm, very nice story. I don't know about the Shakespearean
> English part, but I found the frequent use of 'd in the narrative a bit
> awkward. Maybe it's a peculiarity of Australian colloquial English, I
> don't know.
I'm not sure what you mean. A search shows eight instances of words
ending in apostrophe-d, including five in the first scene, which is
not surprising as this scene describes events that occur before the
story begins which naturally incurs the use of the past perfect. This
proportion is by no means unusual for fictional or other types of
non-formal prose. I'm surprised that you find it awkward; expanding
it to "he had", etc would look inappropriately formal, IMO.

The use of Shakespearian English to represent the dialectal variation
between the main character (a visitor to the world) and the
inhabitants of the world he visits, was my co-writer's idea. I think
it will work, provided that we get a consultant to edit the affected
parts to certify their authenticity.

Anyway, I thought people on Conlang might like see this.

Adrian.

Reply