Grammar, Typos, and Omissions

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. - William Safire

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July.

Last Monday at Mystery Writing is Murder, Elizabeth Spann Craig blogged about "Little Mistakes - How Much Do They Matter," which got me thinking (as good blogs should and hers always do) how much do they matter.

I’m not talking content errors – I discussed those in a previous blog titled “Bloopers.” I mean simple little mistakes that have to do with typos, grammar and word omissions. So I began my intensive internet research. OK it wasn’t really a thorough search—more of a diversion to keep from working on a different writing project. Although minor errors are more difficult to track down, I thought I’d share some of what I discovered.

Omitting a three letter word made a big difference in one edition of the Bible. Printed in 1631, the now infamous "Wicked Bible" contains the phrase, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” (News headlines make me wonder if we are still handing out this version to our politicians.)

There’s a theory that the name 'Imogene' from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline was most likely supposed to be the old Gaelic name, Innogen. It seems that a printing error in 1623 created the new name.

In more recent accounts, the books in the Twilight series popped up regularly. It seems along with numerous reports of content mistakes there are also many typos and word omissions. Readers don’t seem a bit put off by the mistakes as the books keep selling. Errors also didn’t keep the books from being made into movies. I can’t imagine Stephenie Meyer is losing too much sleep over any of the slip-ups.

Since the 1950s there’s been an omission of an “a” in Chapter 2 of an educational edition of Lord of the Flies.

Someone thinks the use of the word “Enamored” in Chapter 12 of To Kill a Mockingbird is a mistake as the definition doesn’t make sense in the way the word is used.

There’s a report that six professional proofreaders failed to catch the mistake in a new edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet which read, “To be or to be.”

There are 75 instances in Jane Austen’s six novels where she used ‘their’ instead of ‘his’ or ‘her.’ (For Jane Austen fans, there’s a great site call Jane Austen Information where I ran across the article “Jane Austen and other famous authors violate what everyone learned in their English class.” )

In May of 2008 Princeton University Press recalled all copies of one of its spring titles when they discovered more than 90 spelling and grammar mistakes in the 245-page book. You can read the entire article here.

Other than the above example, what I got out of my research is that if you’ve got a good story, don’t sweat the small stuff. Though I’ll continue to make my writing as error free as I can, I am determined to quit beating myself up whenever I find a mistake in my own work.

I admit it doesn’t bother me if I run across a few grammar errors, typos or word omissions when I’m reading, but if the mistakes become excessive, I do lose track of the story and focus more on finding another error.

Do you have any examples of proofreading oversights in popular books? Have you ever quit reading a book because of mistakes? Are you bothered more by your own errors than those of others?

By the way, I suggest stopping by Mystery Writing is Murder to read Elizabeth’s blog on this subject, and while you’re there you’ll probably want to read a lot more of her posts. They’re always entertaining, interesting and informative.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope to see you next Monday.


Tags: William Safire, Elizabeth Spann Craig, Shakespeare, Wicked Bible, Jane Austen,Stephenie Meyer

Ghostwriting Rumors

I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life. – James Barrie

A recent article, “Denying Shakespeare” by Terry Teachout in the online Wall Street Journal once again brings up the rumor that Shakespeare didn’t write his own material. Mr. Teachout doesn’t believe it’s true. He says:

“…I am, as should be apparent, poking fun at those benighted souls who believe that someone other than William Shakespeare—the most prominent candidates being Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford—wrote "Hamlet," "Macbeth" and "Romeo and Juliet."

“If anything, Shakespeare's story reminds us of the existence of a different kind of democracy, the democracy of genius. Time and again, the world of art has been staggered by yet another "Mr. Nobody from Nowhere" (to borrow a phrase from "The Great Gatsby") who, like Michelangelo or Turner or Verdi, strides onto the stage of history, devoid of pedigree and seemingly lacking in culture, and proceeds to start churning out masterpieces. For mere mortals, especially those hard-working artistic craftsmen who long in vain to be touched by fire, few things are so depressing as to be reminded by such creatures of the limits of mere diligence.”

I’m not a Shakespearean scholar and I don’t have a clue if the rumors are true or not, but I hope they’re not. I can’t put my finger on why, if proven, this rumor would disappoint me. Maybe it’s because while living in London, I enjoyed watching many of his plays performed. "Merchant of Venice," with Dustin Hoffman playing Shylock is one of the more memorable ones. "Much Ado About Nothing," was also unforgettable due to our standing-room only tickets for a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I’ve even read that Shakespeare may not have existed at all—that his name is a collective pseudonym for a group of ghost writers. Tell me it isn't so! There’s an interesting article “Ghostwriting – A History" by Julie-Ann Amos if you want to read more on this topic.

Of course Shakespeare isn’t the only famous writer “accused” of using ghostwriters. According to an article on Opening Page “Who wrote the novels of Alexandre Dumas?” by Chauncey Mabe:

“That Dumas used collaborators or ghostwriters to churn out his romantic swashbucklers is not news. Dumas scholar Claude Schoop, however, says the plot for the Musketeers trilogy — and most of the writing — are actually the work of a forgotten writer named Auguste Maquet, reports the London Telegraph.”

“…When Maquet left Dumas, neither did anything else that was really excellent. But Dumas did nothing more of any note, while Maquet went on to write a lot.”

Another article in the Telegraph.co.uk, “Now we can all believe in ghosterwriters” says:

“In the 1830s Maquet, himself a novelist and playwright, was told by a publisher: ‘You have written a masterpiece, but you're not a name and we only want names’ – nothing new there either.”

I can feel Maquet’s pain at hearing such a statement and I imagine I’m not alone.

Would the enjoyment you receive from reading a book (from classic to mass-market paperback) be less if you discovered the writing was actually done by someone else?

I’m posting an extra blog on Thursday this week in order to introduce Liana Metal. Liana lives in Corfu, Greece. She’s a teacher, book reviewer, freelance writer and artist. I hope you’ll have the opportunity to visit. Thanks for stopping by today.

Tags: Shakespeare , Dumas, Barrie, ghostwriting, Dustin Hoffman, Shylock,

Making Up Words

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;/All mimsy were the borogoves,/And the mome raths outgrabe." From Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

I feel certain authors have been making up words since the invention of writing. Some say Shakespeare alone is responsible for over 3,000 new words. Wikipedia, however, states giving him credit for all these words is a misconception because Shakespeare’s works are often the earliest cited written record. The words may have been used in speech prior to ending up in one of his plays. But whether the actual number is 3,000 or 300, he still made up at lot of words.

Alligator, bedroom and employer, are such common words it’s hard to believe they’ve only been around since Shakespearean times. We seldom hear about the words he made up that didn’t make it, such as attasked, bubukles, relume, and smilets. I like the sound of these words. Maybe someday they’ll get a second chance.

If you’re as fascinated by Shakespeare’s made up words as I am, check out pathguy.com. There’s an extensive list of words and phrases attributed to Shakespeare, along with the play where they can be found. This site is also where I found the list of his words that didn’t work their way into the English language.

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll is a poem full of nonsense words. Chortled and galumphing are now commonly used words, though none from the above quote seem to have caught on. According to Wikipedia the poem has been translated into many languages. This leads me to wonder how it’s possible to translate a made up word. Does anyone know? Maybe that’s a subject of another blog.

Made up words interest me because my own attempts to create a new word have been unsuccessful. I tried coming up with a sound once. I used something like “aaauufff.” My critique partner thought it was a typo even though he didn’t have any idea what I had been trying to type. If someone who knows me and is familiar with my writing style didn’t understand what I was trying to convey, I felt fairly certain other readers wouldn’t either. I changed it to read, “he emitted a sound like air escaping from a sudden puncture in a tire,” or something similar. "Aaauufff" was a much shorter description.

Another attempt to coin a word was one I borrowed from my grandson. (Yes, I am the type of person who would steal a word from a three-year-old.) While playing with his trains one day, he used the word scrumbling. I liked the sound of it and wrote it down. Recently, when trying to come up with an action word, I saw the note I’d written and decided scrumbling was exactly what I was looking for. I was crushed when I checked and found out that scrumbling was already a term used for free-form crocheting. That was not my intended usage. I had to settle for a much-used word like crumpling.

How do you feel when you run across a made up word when reading? Have you created a new word in something you’ve written?

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare, made up words,

Dreams of Inspiration

“Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante or Shakespeare.” -H.F. Hedge

A dream was the inspiration for The Ride. However, when I began writing the story, it took a very different direction from my nighttime vision. About the only thing my dream and the finished book had in common was a backyard rollercoaster. (I know, an amusement park ride in the backyard sounds strange but it isn’t. Google backyard roller coasters if you don’t believe me!)

Anyway, back to the topic—dreams. Evidently dreaming and writing goes hand in hand as I discovered in a couple of posts by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, How Dreaming at Night Inspires Famous Writers and Published Authors on the Dreaming and Writing Process.
The information for the blogs came from the book called Writers Dreaming: William Styron, Anne Rice, Stephen King, and 23 Other Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process by Naomi Epel. I haven’t read this book, but I plan to look for it next time I visit the library.

According the posts, Stephen King added one of his own dreams to his book It, without changing anything about the dream.

Sue Grafton and Maurice Sendak say that dreams only affect their work in the emotional sense.

Several writers including Stephen King, Anne Rice and Amy Tan mention a dream-like state while writing.

Be sure to visit both posts if you’d like to read the direct quotes from these authors and others. I found them quite interesting.

From Twelve Famous Dreams, I learned that Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Misery by Stephen King were all inspired by dreams.

I really recommend the article for details about the dreams mentioned above as well as for other interesting information, such as a dream that led to a Nobel Prize in medicine; how Paul McCartney dreamed the tune to Yesterday; and, how Lincoln dreamed of his assassination.

Do you remember your dreams? Do dreams ever inspire your writing? If you’re not a writer, do dreams affect your actions in any way?

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: H.F. Hedge, dreams, The Ride, Shakespeare, Dante, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Anne Rice, Shelley,R.L. Stevenson,

Literary References

“Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

I ran across an interesting list on 11points.com, 11 Literary References People Make Without Realizing It. I thought I’d share a few of my favorites:

Women: Can't live with them, can't live without them. I would assume that few, if any, people realize that this isn't a quote from "I Love Lucy" or a Borscht Belt comedian... it's actually from "Lysistrata", a Greek comedy written by Aristophanes... back in 411 B.C.The translations vary, but the most commonly accepted one is "These impossible women! How they do get around us! How true the saying: 'Can't live with them, or without them.'"

***

Siren song. When we talk about women luring us in through their sweet, sweet voices (like, for instance, my mysterious and inexplicable love of Kelly Clarkson), we talk about their siren song.Which, of course, is a reference to the sirens of Greek mythology, most notably mentioned during the non-boring portion of Homer's "Odyssey".(He also popularized "cyclops." There you go. This entry is a two-for-one. I should go register 12points.com now.)

***

Yahoo. We know it either as a way to describe an idiot or as the Betamax of search engines. But... yahoo is really a term that was coined by Jonathan Swift in "Gulliver's Travels".In the book, Gulliver ends up in a country ruled by horses... where they boss around deformed, brutish, primitive humans, called Yahoos. That's how the term yahoo entered the cultural lexicon as a way to describe low-brow humans. And, apparently, the guys who founded Yahoo.com picked that name because they felt the word yahoo described the unsophisticated, undeveloped Internet at that time.

***

Blood on my hands. This comes from "Macbeth". Little tip for future games of Trivial Pursuit: Anytime there's any Shakespeare quote about blood, it's probably from "Macbeth". That play was blood CRAZY, man. It's like Shakespeare's "Saw 2".

Do you have a favorite literary reference?

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Robert Louis Stevenson, Lysistrata, Odyessy, cyclops, yahoo, Gulliver’s Travels, Macbeth, Shakespeare,

Word Trivia

“Words are all we have.” – Samuel Beckett

Often when I run a across a new word, I am more interested in its origin than its meaning. Such was the case this week. The word I looked up was ‘eonism.’ It is a term used in psychiatry and means the adoption of feminine mannerisms, clothing, etc. by a male (according to my Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

Because of Chevalier Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Thimothée d'Eon (1728-1810), this word was coined. According to The Encyclopedia of Useless Information by William Hartston, d’Eon was a diplomat, spy, dragoon officer, swordsman, lady-in-waiting, chess player and part-time nun. No one was sure of his/her sex. In the 1760’s a whopping $230,000 was wagered on the matter. A judge declared d’Eon a woman and she was ordered to always dress as one. However, the doctor who certified his/her death announced d’Eon was definitely a male, causing the woman he’d been living with for twenty years to faint. The news is said to have also caused King George III’s madness. You can read more about Chevalier d’Eon at Wikipedia.

D’Eon may be responsible for this one word. Shakespeare, however, according to wikianswers, is responsible for creating 1,500 new words, including the upstairs, bedroom, belongings and bandit.

According to the an article in the Guardian, “The oldest words in the language, such as "I", "we" and the numbers one, two and three, have barely changed over the past 9,000 years, probably because they are so fundamental to everyday communication. The most resilient words were found to be those that are used most frequently, but are also likely to be nouns or numerals.

“Other types of words, such as adjectives and adverbs, evolve more quickly, making them susceptible to dying out and being replaced. Half of the words we use today would be unrecognizable to our ancestors 2,500 years ago.”

If you are interested as to how new words make their way into the dictionary, stop by Worldwide Words.

Do you have any word trivia to share?

Thanks for stopping by.



Tags: Beckett, Chevalier D’Eon, Shakespeare, King George, word origins,

To Prologue or Not to Prologue

“What is past is prologue.” – William Shakespeare

According to Dictionary. com, the first definition of prologue is: a preliminary discourse; a preface or introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel.

In my next novel, still a work in progress, I begin with a prologue. The prologue reveals a major event in which the two main characters first meet. They do not meet again until eighteen months later, which is Chapter One. However, after hearing much prologue bashing, I did away with it when I started my second edit, working most of the material into the first chapter.

Soon, I hope to go through the manuscript for the third time. I’m thinking about bringing the prologue back. However, the more I read on prologues, the more confused I become. In The Problem with Prologues by Rankin, he mentions that the use of a prologue is lazy writing.

Marg McAlister’s, The Prologue – When to Use One, How to Write One states, “…The prologue is a better option than a first chapter bogged down in detail.”

Says Lital Talmor in Where to Begin? When, Where and How to Write a Prologue, “The prologue is much like an outworker, a wildcard that gives you the chance to begin your story twice, at two different points.” She also says, “Unnecessary prologues are a dangerous lot: at best they are ignored, at worst they turn the reader off.”

I’m wondering, as a reader do you read or skip the prologues? As a writer, do you make use of prologues or avoid them at all costs?

Hopefully your thoughts will help me make a final decision on whether to prologue or not.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Shakespeare, prologues,

Brontë and Shakespeare

My edits are complete and the The Ride is once again back at ArcheBooks waiting on the next step. If this foray into the publishing world has taught me anything, it’s that patience is a very valuable asset.

So as I sit patiently waiting for my book’s release, I sometimes enjoy flipping through Chase’s Calendar of Events.

Did you know that last Monday (April 21) was Charlotte Brontë’s birth anniversary? Don’t feel bad, I didn’t either until I came across the entry. It’s been a long time since I read Jane Eyre, and I honestly can’t remember if I liked it or not. But I know it has to be an important book simply because the name “Eyre” appears in almost every crossword puzzle I’ve ever worked. What would puzzle constructors do if she’d had named the title character Jones or Smith?

I also read that Charlotte and her sisters, Emily and Anne, published a collection of poetry together under assumed names. According to Wikipedia, only two copies sold. Obviously, marketing wasn’t her cup of tea either.

In the preface to Jane Eyre, Brontë wrote, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.” I believe that passage, written in the 1800s, is equally significant today. And that qualifies her, in my humble opinion, as a talented writer.

Speaking of talented writers of timeless works, last Wednesday (April 23) was the birth and the death anniversary of William Shakespeare. What are the odds of dying on your birthday? I only hope he had a chance to enjoy his cake and ice cream first.

Readers, I also hope you’ll leave a comment on whether or not you’d recommend that I reread Jane Eyre. Or post a comment about your favorite or least favorite works of Shakespeare.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next week.

Jane Kennedy Sutton
Author of The Ride (to be released by ArcheBooks Publishing)
janekennedysutton@gmail.com
http://janekennedysutton.googlepages.com/
http://www.authorsden.com/janesutton


Tags: The Ride, Archebooks, Chase’s Calendar of Events, Bronte, Jane Eyre, Shakespeare