posted
It just seems that in dialog people often say Gonna, not 'going to'. Sometimes putting 'Going to' in intense dialog just seems lumpy and unnatural.
Posts: 556 | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
Spell checking keeps telling me my own name is misspelled. So don't believe everything they say. Use "gonna" if you want to.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Either one would be fine with me, if it fits the personality of the person who's speaking. I often use slightly incorrect grammar in dialogue, because that's how I hear a lot of people speak.
(I'm personally obsessive... I tend to think WHOM in my head whenever 'who' is improperly used. But most of my character wouldn't use 'whom')
posted
Aye gotcha. Watcha doin bout 'em fellas till the cows git home? Din't they axe the question? Huh, you know, eh? No bout a doubt it. Ain't gonna fair what with that wet powder. Yep.
Dialect according to Chicago Manual of Style is perfectly acceptable in prose, as long as meaning is readily apparent according to Merriam Webster's English Usage Dictionary, but to be avoided wherever possible in formal writing according to Morson's English Guide for Court Reporters, a style manual for recordation of spoken word into written word. Overall, usage is the guiding principle, whether it's a prescriptive usage or a descriptive usage; verboten in prescriptive usages and acceptable, if not desirable, in casual descriptive usages.
Ain't has become somewhat of a legitimate word, once upon a time considered dialect, not quite appropriate in formal writing. It's in the dictionary along with a few other dialectal words like irregardless, whereas most dialect word spellings aren't. It has specific meaning. It's not a nonsensical discourse marker like uh, huh, uh-huh, huh-uh, oh, ha, and such which are in the dictionary. Ain't is in grammar limbo as of this writing.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 03, 2009).]
posted
Not about spelling, but I think this fits into the general flow of the conversation:
WARNING: It's in German, but the subtitles are a little, uh, blue. It's still funny, though. So if Nazis talking about grammar doesn't offend you, take a look.
posted
"I ain't gonna use no spelling checker, nor grammar checker neever, in me dialogue," he said, " 'cos it don't sound right if I write it propah."
"Gonna" and "ain't" are in the Oxford English dictionary, defined as "contraction, informal".
"Neever" and "propah" aren't in the dictionary. I made them up, to sound like an East London accent. I think slang (or "informal contractions"), and the sound of the speaker's accent, both have a place in dialogue subject to the usual advice to use such sparingly, in order to avoid making the text too hard to read. One could even use informal contractions in first person narrative, I s'pose ...
posted
I think "gonna" is okay as long as it's the way the speaker would talk. I've used it more than once for children, for instance.
Posts: 299 | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
It's certainly acceptable in dialogue, and maybe even certain narrator voices. But the question of how much dialect to spell out phonetically is always a tricky one.
Posts: 612 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I'd be careful with it. Although it's a word that many different kinds of people use in causal or rapid speech, on the printed page it can imply a rustic or uneducated person, or sound like part of a dialect. If your dialog is otherwise lively and informal, readers will contract "going to" in their minds.
"Hey Sal, could you turn down the TV? I'm going to call mom."
reads easily for me, even though in actual speech there'd likely be a "gonna" (and a "couldya").
posted
One way I use terms like "gonna" or "wanna" or anything like that is to keep it consistent to the character who uses them within the story. One of my characters in one of my writing projects is a seven year old girl. For her, it's completely natural to use "gonna" in her speech. If used consistently as part of the personality of a specific character, I see nothing wrong with it, but I would use it strictly for dialog. JMO
Posts: 1320 | Registered: May 2008
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posted
I haven't checked the site, but I suspect rich means "off-color" or "dirty" when he says "blue." As in "cussed a blue-streak" perhaps?
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
I had a spot in my novella where I wanted the reader to experience what it's like to ride a horse on a muddy trail. So I made up a word to describe what it sounds like when the horse pulls a hoof free from ankle deep mud:
...and his hooves pulled free with a rhythmic thwock, thwock, thwock.
Is this considered acceptable since it's not an actual word? Should I have found another way to describe it? I will admit that I like the way I have it written. I feel it protrays the scene quite well and let's the reader experience what's happening in the scene.
posted
"...and his hooves pulled free with a rhythmic thwock, thwock, thwock."
This is not a word, and nobody should mind. It's a literary device called "onomatopoeia" and is the origin of a number of real words; but it's one area where people can make up words and the grammar police can't touch you. (Not even under the Homelanguage Security Act.)
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