Grammar Questions

[maxonennis]

In the following sentence should the T be capitalized, in quotations, or both.

At the top of the T was the hovel.

I'll have more questions later.

Thanks!

[Necroben]

Wouldn't it be easier to just write, tee?

[maxonennis]

I did, in the first draft 

Now I'm no the second, and I want to clean it up a bit. I'm not the best with grammar. Little things like this fly right over my head. Right now I believe that I've found no less then a dozen times that I've used set instead of sit (of course I don't even think about editing while I'm writing the first draft).

Any who, I'll probably have more questions after a bit.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Chicago Manual of Style 7.67 Letters as shapes

Letters that are used to represent shape are capitalized and set in roman type (an S curve, an L-shaped room). (To use a sans serif font, as is sometimes done, does not aid comprehension and may present difficulties in typesetting.)

There you go. I do often see books where they use a bold sans-serif font for the letter shape. That's up to your publisher's production department to decide though. When you're writing the manuscript, just use a normal bare capital letter.

[maxonennis]

Thanks! That's one grammar error down, an uncountable number left.

[Silk]

Huh. That's the way I would have suggested it too, but I didn't know it was an actual "rule".  Learn something new, I guess.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Style guides have to have rules for these things because they come up all the time. This one came up in the Forgotten Realms book I just finished copyediting.

[Silk]

Well, I'm glad we have people like you around to get it right, 'cause I learn all my grammar from fiction, not style guides.

Ooh, ooh. Out of curiousity, what's the Realms title? Can you share?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

City of Torment, the second in the Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy. It's the sequel to Plague of Spells. The author is Bruce R. Cordell.

[maxonennis]

Q#2: Furrow (verb) is a word. Is un-furrow a real word? I want to use it, but...

[Peter Ahlstrom]

If you're saying something like "he unfurrowed his brow" no one will misunderstand you. If you can't think of a better way to say it, then go for it. According to Google, brows are unfurrowed less than 1% of the amount that they are furrowed, which means it's not nearly common enough to be considered standard English.

[maxonennis]

If you're saying something like "he unfurrowed his brow" no one will misunderstand you. If you can't think of a better way to say it, then go for it. According to Google, brows are unfurrowed less than 1% of the amount that they are furrowed, which means it's not nearly common enough to be considered standard English.

Lol, awesome as usual, Ookla. 

[Renoard]

If brows are only unfurrowed 1% as often as they are furrowed that would explain the need for plastic surgery.

Is coining new words really a huge problem for writers/publishers of speculative fiction.  It seems that it's a necessary element in order to invoke alieness (for example).  Another thread was referring to the problem of introducing common usage into fantasy worlds and to what degree this is jarring.  It seems possible that some non-standard language, as long as it follows the rules of grammar and construction, might actually be indispensable.

I'd like to hear some thought on this?  Thanks.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I agree with you that neologisms have their place in speculative fiction. The important guideline to keep in mind is that there's got to be a point to the new word. There is no point inventing a new word for something that already has a perfectly acceptable term, like a seatbelt.


http://www.xkcd.com/483/

[Bookstore Guy]

LOL!

This reminds me of the Crazy/Hot Scale from How I Met Your Mother!