Eye Dialect

[Guttersnipe]

What are your thoughts on using eye dialect (spelling words according to the accent of the speaker)? Do you use it much, or have you found it a hindrance?

 

[CTRandall]

The closest I've come was trying to write words as they sound--kind of phonics but not quite--for a semi-literate character who was trying to read a letter. It worked for that scene but I haven't had need of it otherwise.

When reading, I have to be convinced of the accent. Eef eet eez joost a veree baaad Frrrench aktsent, then it really bothers me.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I sometimes use it when introducing a character, but only briefly to alert readers to the accent. The intention is for them to then 'hear' that accent whenever that character speaks.

I get irritated very quickly when it's overdone in novels as I find it interferes with the flow.

 

[sknox]

Flowers for Algernon

It's always worth looking at published works to see the writing idea in action. Here's another case where "it's fine, if done well." The trick is the "done well" part.

 

[Biskit]

Well you learn something new every day - I didn't know there was a term for it.

I use it occasionally, and sparingly, either in brief passages to make a point, or just a handful of words throughout to keep a particular tone for a character.

I would echo the points made above - it can get very annoying for the reader, and can work if done well.

 

[HareBrain]

Any mention of this makes me flash back to trying to make sense of Joseph's dialogue in Wuthering Heights at school. You're lucky I'm not litigious.

 

[Boneman]

I recall becoming so irritated with an Eric Van Lustbader novel that I gave up reading it in disgust. In order to portray an English record producer (or somesuch...) he resorted to butchering the word 'can' to show us he was a brit; "you c'n always bug out" is one that took years of alcohol therapy to get rid of. And he kept doing it, over and over again...

 

[.matthew.]

I would say... noooo?

I think sknox has it right with only if it''s done well, but even so, I don't like seeing it at all. To me, it looks like the lazy texting I'd do where I can't really add dialogue tags without coming across as a weirdo.

If doing it for accents, all I can think is 'Allo 'Allo

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm for moderation.
Show some examples, but get over it quick and move on.
One thing that is only slightly related might be in Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things. Is his aliens have a weird language and have problems with pronouncing English and he inserted his own Cyrillic like characters into those words. That was a bit annoying yet at the same time it worked, However he lost me when the main character addressed them in their language for a few pages and I have no idea what he was telling them.
It was a complete waste of several pages.

Anyway--to get back to eye dialect--

'Don't you dare look at me in that dialect--let alone that tone of eye.'

 

[JS Wiig]

It’s been a while since I read it, but I recall Crichton doing a good job in Timeline setting up the Elizabethan speech, but not carrying it through the entire novel, with the implication it was still being spoken.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I would say only use if it's your native dialect or one you're fluent in. There's nothing worse than American or other throwing bits of Doric or even worse using a hodgepodge of Scots language dialects in one book, because of course there is only one Scottish dialect. I've friends who write amazing stories entirely in dialect.

Dialects are generally more than words with different punctuation etc

If you're going for a mass appeal only do it as a flavour.

In my opinion one of the best at balancing local language, dialect and tone is Gervase Phinn (school inspector).

I wouldn't write a whole book in either Scots or Scouse.

But then there is Trainspotting.

 

[Dave]

I thought this would be a thread about broad Suffolk accents. There is a place called Eye just south of Diss. Unfortunately, they don't seem to capitalise on the name and their High Street was rather dead when I visited in the Summer (between lockdowns). I fully expected to see a café called 'Be Seeing You' and selling 'Eye Screams,' a hardware shop called 'Just What Eye Wanted,' and the 'I Care' opticians, but it was all rather disappointing instead.

I'm from North East England originally. When I was much younger there was a series of books entitled "Larn Yersel' Geordie" (which appear to still be in print) Larn Yersel' Geordie by Scott Dobson | Waterstones

These books spell the words out the way they are spoken, although they are probably incomprehensible to a non-Geordie. I had no idea (pun intended) that there was a name for spelling words that way.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'd recommend (strongly) to drop in the odd word spelled phonetically, and leave it at that, perhaps allowing dialogue tags or narrative to deepen it.

The beginning of my WIP has a Geordie vicar. My family is from the Northeast and I'm familiar with the Geordie patois but to write it authentically? No way. It would be inscrutable for most - if I said 'divvent dunshus' would you be able to parse meaning - probably not.

But perhaps more of an issue for me (I'm the kind of reader who is happy to stop reading and go off on an internet search for a word or phrase I don't understand - or even a scientific principle), is the annoyance factor. I recently read Hard Times by Charles Dickens and at the end a lisping character has a lot of dialogue. Pages and pages of it. It drove me mad. Even in Great Expectations, Joe uses w in place of v's and although it's rare, I still get irritated by it.

I think we aim for verisimiltude in our prose, but on matters like this, it's important to favour the reader.

pH

 

[tinkerdan]

@Phyrebrat Dickens always sends me to the dictionary. And yeah I have to agree that sometimes the overuse of certain affectations is like fingernails on chalkboard.