Anyone
who read the first two books of my Faerietales series – “Not So Human” and “To
Err Is Faerie” – may very well have noticed some stuff that looks a whole lot
like typos.
If
you thought I screwed up and missed an edit, that’s understandable. But I swear
that isn’t what happened. They’re what I call “Scottishisms.”
Way
back in January – I believe for my first blog post, actually – I wrote that I
had made a fool of myself with my Scottish editor, writing “British” and
“English” as synonymous terms when they’re not at all.
For
those of you who didn’t read that blog and who are on the same ignorant level
as me, “British” means any citizen of the British Isles, i.e. the United
Kingdom; whereas “English” means someone from the much more specific geographic
locale of England. Makes sense, right?
Editor
Alan Freeman was exceptionally helpful in pointing out that kind of
blush-worthy mistake, and he’s also responsible for helping me flesh out my
setting with lines like:
“The dense cityscape gave way to seedier
neighborhoods, and then again to suburban high-rises until the last of even
those buildings disappeared. The limousine kept rolling through flyovers and
farmland, and finally into a hilly scenery that was downright stunning.”
That’s
from “Not So Human” when Sabrina takes in the Scottish countryside. I had
already seen that years ago, so I was able to remember the following thought
without any outside help:
“Sabrina had heard people talk about the
forty shades of green in Ireland, but she couldn’t imagine seeing more human
versions of the color than what she saw on the thirty-minute ride.”
But
Alan was the one who prompted the very next lines of:
“And when they drove into a brief rain
shower, the following delicate light dancing off of both watery leaves and
roadway made the journey even more picturesque.
“Staring out the tinted windows, Sabrina
made an offhand comment about the strange weather, only to learn that it wasn’t
strange at all. According to her driver, whose partition was down, the Scots
had a saying: four seasons in one day.”
Love
it, right? And there were plenty of smaller edits he also suggested, such as
changing:
·
“Wouldn’t”
to “wouldnae”
·
“Not”
to “nae” or even “no”
·
“Brook”
to “burn”
·
“Such”
to “suchlike.”
Oh,
and apparently the Scots don’t say “mate” like the Brits – excuse me, English –
do. They’re much more likely to say “pal.”
Overall,
I was pretty delighted with the changes he recommended. Though I do have to take
some issue with the vernacular edits he made to the English Dr. Stewart’s dialogue in
Faerietales 3: “Up in the Air” (which is out April 24 on Amazon.com).
Some
of them were just downright creepy! I mean, I know I intentionally designed
Stewart to be a wretched jerk, but he even had me shuddering with his new
vocabulary choices.
Ugh!
