Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Editor Pet Peeves

General Writing Discussion
#41

People really need to chill about the double space. Two spaces isn’t wrong, per-se, though it’s also not necessarily right. A single em-space is closer, but use whatever you like to read. The half-em is too small for my preference, but look—when (if?!) your work is typeset, it won’t matter what you used, and I certainly don’t care what form of whitespace exists, unless it’s there for specific stylistic purposes.

Just like everything else here, adopt whatever convention you prefer, and when the interior design/typesetting is done everything will be adjusted accordingly. If you’re targeting an editor, just adapt your copy for their preference or whatever the style-du-jour may be. Just please don’t tell people that any particular way is “wrong”.

Remember, a manuscript is source code for a book. Care about content, not style. ^.^

-Fox
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#42

Exactly this.

-Fox

#43

It must show my age, but I’ve never heard of having to use two spaces after a period. :wink:

Still, at risk of sounding facetious (I’m not), my favourite pet peeve is when any editor, critic, reviewer or reader forgets that saying “I don’t like X” doesn’t mean all literature must not use X. Personal opinions are not unequivocal statements on literary practice, and just because you don’t like a certain practice doesn’t mean that work has no literary merit. Yes, the interpretation of literature is subjective, but that doesn’t privilege your opinion about the text above all others.

To give an amusing example I found, there’s a piece of academic literary criticism about John Meade Falkner’s The Lost Stradivarius that interprets the scene where the violin is found in a sealed cupboard as a literal ‘rape’ of the cupboard. I’m not joking!

#44

One of my pet peeves is that I wish someone would come up with an English-language standardized spelling of the French blond/blonde. The old definition of blond for men and blonde for women has long ago been forgotten, and today people spell it either blond or blonde for both genders. And nobody in the English-speaking world cares about the word applied to non-humans; blond/blonde horses or wood or whatever.

#45

It’s a funny one - I think of ‘blond’ for males as a US thing, because I grew up using ‘blonde’ for both sexes, and only came across ‘blond’ when I started reading Man from UNCLE fanfic, in reference to Illya Kuryakin :slight_smile:

It would fit with Americans pronouncing French words (omelette, soufflé) in a much more French way than the English do.

#46

I seem to remember reading recently that “blond” is preferred as the adjective form and “blonde” as the noun, but I could be remembering that wrong.

#47

The whole blond/blonde thing always made me twitch. Does any editor out there know of any general preferences anywhere? Even if it’s just a little nudge this way or that?

#48

Several US style guides prefer “blond”, as “blonde” is considered to be more of a European spelling to them (similar to theater vs theatre), but as long as you’re consistant with it, I haven’t run into it being a problem yet.

#49

From Grammar Girl:

#50

Very interesting. I always just used ‘blonde’ because I felt it looked more complete and no one had corrected me otherwise (not even my creative writing teacher x.x). This would be kind of fun to toy with :3 Thank you both!

#51

Coming from a French-Canadian background, I feel that pain. I recently had to grit my teeth and smile when someone tried to correct me on “Noire doesn’t have an ‘e’ in it!”.

#52

Some of us have had fights with teachers and relatives over the one/two spaces after period thing, so it’s touchy from past experience. :stuck_out_tongue:

#53

Ah yes, I forgot Phonic Spelling and otherwise Butchered Dialogue to designate an accent in every bit of that character’s dialogue.

Makes me want to chew on my chair.

#54

Oddly enough, I’ve sort of adopted the practice of using ‘theatre’ for places that hold live performances, and ‘theater’ for places that show movies.

Recently after spotting a misuse of “confidant” vs. “confident” in a publication by one of the big three furry publishers (“confident” is an adjective meaning having confidence; “confidant” is a person in whom one confides), I checked online to verify this and discovered there is a third form, “confidante”, which was sometimes used in the past as the feminime form of “confidant” but is now considered obsolete with the latter being used regardless of gender.

#55

I tend to think of it that way, too.

#56

Same!

#57

Fourthed!

#58

I haven’t, but that sounds so ‘right’ that I’ll adopt it from now on.

#59

Looks like Mwalimu has started a trend.

#60

And then I’m just an English heathen who uses theatre for live performances, and cinema for places that have movies.