GramrgednAngel

GramrgednAngel, 6 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

There's a brief scene in which the doctor, who's been an alcoholic from childhood, chooses to pour out his flask on a rock before he takes his last breath.

"I done it. I'm goin' out dry."

Something in that image and those words hit me hard just now.

Words have such power.

GramrgednAngel, 6 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

Watch out for mismatched numbers of body parts.

"The creatures bared their teeth and pounded their chest."

Surely each one pounds its own. They're not sharing one body among all of them. "Chests" is correct here.

GramrgednAngel, 6 days ago to edibuddies

TIL that "extraterrestrial" as an adjective dates to 1848, but as a noun it was first used in 1950.

These things matter in historical fiction, or in #SpecFic set in a historical period.

Given that this tale is set at least 20 years after the earlier date, we're safe using it as a descriptor.

#AmEditing @edibuddies

GramrgednAngel, 6 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

Today in #SpellcheckCannotSaveYou

QUAFFED is not COIFFED

Those fancy women in New York were not, I'm fairly certain, being drunk by others as though they were liquids.

GramrgednAngel, 7 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

No, I'm sorry, but I won't allow "junk" as slang for male genitals in a story set soon after the end of the US Civil War.

The phrase "don't touch my junk" is dated to 2010. WAY too late, my friend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_touch_my_junk#:~:text=The%20word%20%22junk%22%20is%20American,through%20a%20full%20body%20scanner.

GramrgednAngel, 8 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

TIL The singular form of "viscera" (you knew that was plural, right?) is "viscus."

A pretty unfamiliar word, sadly, so inappropriate for a fun read (for values of "fun" including cryptid autopsies). We'll stick with "organ." (It's an unknown body part.)

GramrgednAngel, 8 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

A typical marginal comment:

"Gizzards" are specific to birds. "Innards" works here and has a similar sound. "Guts" would be all right, too.

GramrgednAngel, 8 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

Remember to praise your clients when they do something well!

"His mouth was catching flies in disbelief."

SO much more evocative than "His mouth hung open."

GramrgednAngel, 8 days ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

It's tricky, I know, but generally speaking we'll say "the body" when it's a corpse (and has been for some time). When someone's just this moment been killed, it's "her body/his body/their body" as appropriate.

E.g. Someone's been attacked by a creature and flung from a platform. "He was dead before his [not the] body hit the ground."

I don't know of any usage guide entries about this. It's a syntax thing. "The body" in that example could be someone else's.

virtualbri, 14 days ago to books

Trying to get through the audiobook of "Titus Groan."

Someone told me a lot of the Locked Tomb series owed a debt to the Gormenghast Trilogy.

And I know it's on some 100 best fantasy books of all time, but it's not doing it for me. What am I missing?

#Books #Fantasy

GramrgednAngel, 15 days ago to random

Reminder that every one of is us a rando to someone else.

#Wisdom

APBBlue, 15 days ago to random

I'm clearly a dumbass. Can someone tell me if I return this package via UPS or USPS? Or is it either one?

GramrgednAngel, 22 days ago to random

Well. It's time to decide when to say goodbye to the Dowager, who is in kidney failure. The vet was wonderful about explaining exactly what's happening right now and laying out probable futures. Even with aggressive fluid therapy, requiring three days' hospitalization, the best we could expect is "maybe a year." And that, he explained, is a long shot at her advanced age.

I have some pain meds and some appetite stimulants, but I know that inside a week we'll say farewell.

#SuperSeniorCat

jeffpalmer, 24 days ago to Artist

FYI: If you own an LLC in the USA you need to file a Beneficial Ownership Information Report (BOIR) or you may face fines.

I had not heard about this and only came across this randomly, so I'm hoping that this will help some of you get ahead of this.

If your LLC was formed before the beginning of 2024, you have until the end of the year to file.

You can read more about this and file a BOIR here (it took me 5 minutes): https://www.fincen.gov/boi

#SmallBusiness #Artist

GramrgednAngel, 28 days ago to edibuddies

Been doing quite a bit of research into Civil War–era foodstuffs and packaging today, all in the service of ensuring a list of goods provided to a party taking a wagon into the Appalachians on a mission is presented with the proper verisimilitude. Sacks. Casks. Cones. Bushels. Tins.

#AmEditing @edibuddies

GramrgednAngel, 28 days ago to edibuddies

The copy editor's pickle: I'd love to change "bowler hat" to "derby" in this story, but "derby" isn't recorded until 1870 in the US. (It then became the American English term preferred over the British one.) Even if this story is set in 1870, which isn't clear (it's after the war, but how many years isn't stated outright), I can't assume the MC would know this yet.

Sigh. Stetting "bowler hat" and moving on.

#AmEditing @edibuddies

GramrgednAngel, 1 month ago to edibuddies

#AmEditing @edibuddies

"OK" is an American word dating to the very late 1830s. (The form "okay" dates to 1929. See Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.)

When I see it in fantasy that isn't set in the US , I twitch. Hard. If it's a project I'm editing, I provide options for the client to use instead. Same when I see it in historical fiction of an earlier time and different place.

Words matter.

GramrgednAngel, 1 month ago to random

FUUUUUCK

Just saw the news about the layoffs at Dictionary.com.

Grant Barrett
Kory Stamper
John Kelly

And others.

New owner. So of course, as a colleague said, "Buy a dictionary, lay off the lexicographers."

I'm angry and sad and disgusted.

GramrgednAngel, 1 month ago to edibuddies

"He held the bottle up" is the wording. The character is holding a bottle of whiskey.

Word's editor, in its infinite wisdom, tells me to consider "bottled" instead. I suppose that's because "up" follows it.

NO, Word. You're still an idiot. Let me do my job. You're good for finding double words, but that's about it these days.

#AmEditing @edibuddies

GramrgednAngel, 1 month ago to edibuddies

I have a personal quirk when editing, in that I keep track of how many paragraphs begin with the same word. If I see three or more, I recast to change structure. (We know that repetition can be used with purpose, but this is more often accidental and therefore subject to change.) I do the same with sentences within paragraphs, but there I'm l looking for SV structures. If every sentence is built the same, readers get bored.

#AmEditing @edibuddies

GramrgednAngel, 1 month ago to edibuddies

The past tense of TO GRIND is
GROUND.

"Grinded" is clearly nonstandard. I could perhaps see a character using it if the background information supported it, but this particular narrator would never.

And that's what I said in my comment to the client.

#AmEditing
@edibuddies