Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?
Julia Armfield: It changes a lot but possibly “schism” because it sounds like ice in a glass.
GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?
JA: I can’t stand the word “chicanery,” for no other reason than whenever I think about it, it then repeats itself fifteen to twenty times in my head. I think some words do have that sort of earworm quality, like a piece of music from an advert that you can’t stop humming and that slowly drives you insane. It’s happening now, as I’m typing: the word “chicanery” going around and around in my head.
GG: What word will you always misspell?
JA: “Embarrassing,” embarrassingly enough.
GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?
JA: I’m not entirely sure about this one! In the dedication of my book, I use the word “tentacularly,” which I think would be a good one. I think of it as a way to describe something slippery, many-limbed, powerful. The dedication of my book thanks my family “tentacularly,” which seems appropriate to me.
GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?
JA: Not particularly, although purely on a taste level, I quite dislike it when fiction writers use italics for emphasis. Most of the time, I feel like the point being made should be able to speak for itself without the author having to lean on the text to make it obvious.
GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?
JA: I think the ways in which dialogue is split up can certainly impact a character’s voice because so much of the sound of people can be found in the pauses rather than the talking. You can mine so much of a character’s voice from the way they pause between words or run things together, the difference in the shape of a hyphen, an ellipsis, a comma and so on.
...Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar