Grammar Quirks: Cassandra Khaw on Writing for Video Games

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Cassandra Khaw: "Nacre." My god, how I love that word. I love the way I hear the shine in it.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

CK: "Triggered." I have a vicious dislike of how certain demographics have co-opted the word and now use it as an insult, or as a way of taunting people who have survived impossible horrors.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

CK: "Masscheteuts."  "Massesteusuts"? "Massachusetts" … That and "Mississippi" trip me up constantly.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

CK: "TK." It’s a publishing term meaning "to come," and I picked up its usage while I was working as a reporter. Unfortunately, I’ve since learned that not very many people understand its meaning. I’ve had people repeatedly ask why I’m making a cockroach-like noise when I finish a sentence with ‘tktktktk.’

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

CK: I die a little whenever I see "peak" and "pique" confused, or when I see someone swap "complement" with "compliment."

Grammar Girl tackles this mistake in "Compliment" Versus "Complement"

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?

CK: Gods, I think this answer differs depending on the author, the book, and the circumstances. Like, on a very basic level, grammar can help differentiate a character’s voice by showing a person’s education level, their understanding of the common tongue, their upbringing, even their state of coherence. But grammar can also be messed around with to create momentum, to disquiet a reader, to make them feel ill at ease, to create a sense of foreignness in the text. It can even be utilized to almost—*gestures vaguely at air*—create a sense of cinematography. Stephen Graham Jones’ "The Only Good Indians" and Tasmyn Muir’s "Harrow the Ninth" play loose and fast with their storytelling perspectives, engineering moments I didn’t realize were...

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