Do accents alter the way you write?

[Mouse]

(I wanted to put 'affect' but wasn't sure if it should be 'effect...' )

Ok, so what I mean is - I write how I talk. I have a westcountry accent (think a female Samwise Gamgee and you wouldn't be far off!) and people who know me and have read my work have said that it sounds westcountry. I do the passive sentences and the backwards sentences.

A Polish friend once told me I sounded like a pirate Yoda after I'd announced "Bloody starved, I am."

And I've been told in the critique section here (long time ago now!) that some of my sentence structure was odd because it was backwards.

K, so (I'm waffling) the passive sentence thing... I can't stop it! I can go back and correct it after I've done it, but I do it automatically. I guess I just need to get used to not doing it.

Again, I'm blaming my accent. Was talking about it with another writer friend and used 'I was sat' as an example. I would say and write 'I was sat on the chair' which is passive.

But I'd also sometimes say 'I was sat sitting.' Because 'sat' is what I was and 'sitting' is what I was doing. I need to get into the habit of talking proper, like! My writer friend (who's Irish) said she saw the comedian Russell Howard (who's also from the westcountry) and he was constantly saying 'I was sat' and it just made her think of what we were talking about.

So do accents really affect your writing? And how do you stop yourself from doing it?!

(hope this is the right section for this!)

 

[The Ace]

I tend to write in BBC English with the occasional Scots word thrown in.

Having seen so many authors mangle a Scots accent, I would never write in accent, because I don't want to offend people unnecessarily.

Certainly it wouldn't be the first time I've literally thrown away a book after reading a couple of sentences in some moron's version of my own accent, and would never willingly inflict this on another living soul.

 

[Mouse]

Yes, Brian Jacques (Redwall) version of a westcountry accent makes me very angry so I know what you mean!!

I mean accidentally though. I don't purposely try to write with an accent it just happens.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Good question, and this is the right place for it.

I don't know the answer, by the way. I've recently been told by people who only know me through the written word that I "sound" like Dame Judy Dench. Since I have lived my entire life in California, this is more than a little odd. I think perhaps I write like the books that I read (although according to that theory, there was a period a few months ago when I ought to have written with a New Zealand accent, courtesy of Ngaio Marsh).

Of course I have no idea how much reading you do, but maybe you need to do more of it. (Which is good advice for a writer anyway.)

 

[Mouse]

I do read a lot - probably more now than I used to, so I'm hoping my writing is now less westcountry-like.

It is a weird thing, isn't it! A while ago I wrote a short story set in the 1920s, so I had that very clipped accent in my head the whole time I was writing it and I don't think there was a backwards sentence in sight!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

In your posts here you really don't come across as having any particular accent. And the problem you have with making everything in your writing passive is actually quite common. Many, if not most, writers have to go back and edit for that sort of thing, and particularly new writers who aren't yet aware that it is a problem.

So if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about pieces like the one you just posted for critique. You did say that it was an earlier attempt, didn't you? So you have learned more since then, you recognize the problem, and you should be proud of that.

 

[poisonoustea]

I don't know what English I write in since it's not my native language, but I tend to evaluate what I've written only after I read it aloud, which I do in some kind of uhm... non-rhotic Chicago accent. If it sounds good in my voice, I keep it.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Why Chicago? I've known a number of people from Chicago, and I am not picking that up from your writing.

(But now I'm curious. I'll try reading your posts with that accent after this, and see how that works.)

 

[poisonoustea]

Why Chicago? I've known a number of people from Chicago, and I am not picking that up from your writing.

If I write with that accent in mind, I don't know. But the imprint I try to give to the ideal reading of what I write is some kind of central-american accent, which is also the accent I speak in when I'm talking in English (sadly not so often). I think Chicago is the accent that gets closer to how I talk.

I once had a girlfriend who'd grown up in the US, and she told me I had a Texan Accent... but hell no, I don't speak like Texans. With all due respect

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

This thread is right good, eh?

Na, accents would never effect (affect? Damn english words are confusing) my writing. Mainly because I make a conscious effort not to include anything that is close to local dialect (Not including the Canadian spelling of words. I always use those. Weird Americans and your hate for the letter "u"). I also try to avoid any french phrases. They lack a certain je ne sais quoi.

I do, however, try to make my character speak with an accent.

 

[The Judge]

Since I talk in perfect RP -- think Charlotte Green on Radio 4 -- *cough cough* this doesn't affect me at all...

Interesting question, Mouse. I note you refer to accent in the thread title, but your examples are mostly dialect usage rather than accents per se. I wonder if there is a difference between the two in the effect it has on one's writing?

When I'm writing I try to make my narrative as much RP as possible, so much so it sometimes sounds as if it's got a broom stuck up its... ahem... When it comes to characters I try to write the dialogue with some kind of accent in my head, though being useless at accents in real life, and wholly unable to distinguish a Texan from an Alaskan when it comes to Americans, I don't imagine they come across particularly well, unfortunately.

 

[Boneman]

All right, my lover? I think you done a proper job there.

Hands up those who read that with a Cornish accent? Go back and do so, if you didn't... Actually, since I put the word 'done' in, it could just as easily be a Sarf London accent, and it would be if I put 'fink' instead of 'think'. You can do what you like with speech, and I'm assuming , Mouse, (are you from Mous'll?) that you're mainly talking of descriptive prose. I was sat in my chair the other day reading the chrons, and it didn't feel wrong at all, but when I was sat sitting, I was definitely telling someone about it.

So whilst you might think you're writing with an accent, others don't - as has been shown here. P'raps it's because you're reading it with an accent? I'm sure the dialect thing is correct, my example at the top can be read in many dialects, I particularly like a fractured French accent, they'd mangle English usage the way we mangle French usage. West Indian works really well, too.

I think it might be a mistake to try to write in any accent/dialect/language other than the one your muse is whispering in your ear, because it can always be edited, if it's excessive - the story's the thing, innit?

 

[Mouse]

Teresa, thanks. I think it does tend to be my older writing that I reckon sound more accented...

Judge, so I got the affect/effect usage right?! Confuses me every time, that one!
That's what I've been doing lately, trying to use a 'posher' sounding voice in my head when I write.

Boneman, I read that with a Somerset accent. Not from Mousehole (mowzel!), but it's an awesome name for a place! True what you say, I guess, about people reading in it their own accents. I'll try not to worry about it!

 

[Culhwch]

(although according to that theory, there was a period a few months ago when I ought to have written with a New Zealand accent, courtesy of Ngaio Marsh)

Though I do recall you showing off your new jandals before offering me a DB from your chully bun...

This is a very interesting thread, and I can't say I have ever given much thought to how my accent might affect my writing. Having written almost exclusively within the fantasy genre, I think I've - consciously or not - always tended to emulate the style and voice of what I have read in that genre. I think there is that almost standardised kind of voice that so much of the fantasy genre adopts, and it's fair distance from a Queensland accent. (Though I don't actually think I have any accent - I certainly can't hear it.)

And Boneman, the way I read it was that you were announcing that you and the honourable Judge had something of an intimate relationship going on, unbeknowst to the rest of us...

 

[Boneman]

by Culhwch
And Boneman, the way I read it was that you were announcing that you and the honourable Judge had something of an intimate relationship going on, unbeknowst to the rest of us...

Dammit, our secret's out...

 

[poisonoustea]

Mousehole (mowzel!)

Heheh! I say Ma-zol or sam'tn la'k dat.

The Judge is right, anyway. You're referring more about dialect than accent in the OP.

 

[Susan Boulton]

I suppose I do throw in local phrases, and manner of speaking into both prose and dialogue. Then at times reading my work back it sounds like a BBC accent circa 1940!! Especially in the latest work, as it is set between 1940 and 1947. I must come from having watched so many Brit films of the period, trying to get a handle on characters, place etc...

 

[Window Bar]

Generally I will attempt to match my vocabulary and style to:
* The character in whose voice, or inner voice, the story is being told.
* My audience.

During the years I was active in business, I found myself matching the vernacular of my individual clients, more in speech than in writing. My business was financial management, and I found I was more trusted if my speech blended with theirs.

That much said, the question of regional accents is never simple, but a rule of thumb might be that we get to choose how we'll sound; so if we want to sound like a character from the West Country, we may. If we want to sound like an Oxford don, we may. There is no such thing as truly neutral, but in the UK it would probably be BBC News; in the US it would probably be the NBC News.

 

[Peter Graham]

In most cases, they shouldn't do, although I can see that the common use of the passive in West Country dialect or speech patterns mighty replicate onto the page.

Most people with an accent are aware that "proper English" (or "talking posh") is different to their normal speech and are aware that written English shouldn't be accented. There is a very popular postcard of a handmade road sign near Buttermere, which says "Tek care. Lambs ont road." Every year, it changes a bit, but the correct use of apostrophes on some versions and the fact that "lambs" is not spelt "lams" suggests very strongly that the farmer who wrote the sign knows exactly what he (or she) is doing and it can be no coincidence that it is placed in full view on the road between two of our most celebrated beauty spots.

Received Pronounciation is just a way of pronouncing "proper" written English. RP is as much of an accent as anything else, and frequently fails in its stated aim of being neutral or "proper", usually because London and/or South east accents do indeed affect what was supposed to be an accent free voice. This is perhaps inevitable, given the geographical location of those institutions who created RP, but things like the use of the long A - ("barth" for "bath", "grarse" for "grass") and the (fading, thankfully) pronounciation of "cold" as "kew-uld" hints at regional origins.

Oh, and by the way:-

Effect is a "doing" word. In modern parlance, it is being replaced with horrible words like "facilitate" or "engineer" (when used to refer to anything other than proper engineering of the sort carried out by cheery chaps in grease-spattered boiler suits).

So, whereas nowadays people like to facilitate or even engineer meetings with the head of HR, they used to effect them. You can also effect changes to your life.

Affect is used to describe how something influences something else.

"The music of Brahms profoundly affected Peter."

Regards,

Peter

 

[Ursa major]

..."engineer" (when used to refer to anything other than proper engineering of the sort carried out by cheery chaps in grease-spattered boiler suits).

*shakes head*

Those cheery chaps are more likely to be mechanics than engineers.


Not many engineers wear boiler suits. (Well, not in the workplace. And I'd best not mention grease.)