(no subject)

[agilebrit]

Okay. Is it too much to ask, that if you're going to be a big enough "fan" of a show to write stories about it, that you learn to spell the characters' freaking names? I've been perusing the "Angel" section over at the Pit of Voles today (why? Guess I'm just a glutton for punishment), and I've found a bunch of misspellings just in summaries. I shudder to think what's in the stories themselves.

For example, I found this beauty today: "Worfam and heart." The sign for the law firm was in every single episode during the last season. Would it be too hard to actually read it? It's "Wolfram and Hart." "Hart" is capitalized. It's a name. References were made more than once during the course of the series to "the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart." So why is it so hard to spell?

Tara Maclay. Doesn't seem that hard to spell, does it? She has more mini-trolls than any other character. Terra, Tarra, Tarah...and I don't even want to get into how they butcher her last name. Cordelia is a toughie, granted, as is Illyria, but they're not that hard, and I've set my spell check so that it catches if I misspell Illyria's name. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I always have to check to make sure I've spelled it right; and, no, it doesn't help that the transcript for "Lineage" at Buffyworld spells it "Price"...but it's not that difficult to look up. How many times have I seen Angel's name spelled "Angle"? Ugh. Too many. They're relying more on their spell check than they are on proofreading, and that's bad.

Poor Xander. Zander, Xandre, Zandre...the list goes on and on. Giles has his share. I've even seen Buffy's name misspelled. And Spike's. How hard is that? "Gunn" has two N's, people. And "Winifred" has one. "Connor" has two N's as well, and also two O's. It's not spelled "Conner," "Conor," or "Coner."

And other fandoms have the same problem. How many permutations of "McGonagall," "Voldemort," "Hermione," and "Dumbledore" are there? It took me all of two minutes to find the correct spellings, and I've never read any of the books or seen the movies. And I'll bet that anime fandoms have an even worse problem, if there are discrepancies between the animated series and the manga.

Argh.

Comments

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

Zandre? He's the one who left Ania at the alter, right?

B)

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

LOL Yup. That's the one.

[whirligigged.livejournal.com]

*groan* No! Not the misspellings! Spare me. As a fan of both fandoms, I've seen those as well. >.< It sucks. And makes me feel like hurling. I can't help but laugh at the Worfam and Hart misspelling of Wolfram & Hart, though. XD

I read a fanfic where they misspelled Wesley's name as "Weasley." Wrong fandom, folks. I thought they were talking about Ron.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I had Harmony's surname incorrectly spelt as "Kendal" for the first 14 chapters of "Pandora's Boxer"; that's because of the Cumbrian town, origin of the famous Kendal Mint Cake, which had firmly fixed that version of the name in my brain. Even after I spotted the error I kept the incorrect spelling for another 3 chapters because I couldn't face the hassle of doing all the corrections. Eventually I forced myself to go through and change all 47 instances to "Kendall".

I'd got "Wyndam-Pryce" wrong too; I had "Wyndham-Pryce", having been thinking of the Science Fiction author John Wyndham. You don't always think to check the spelling of what should be simple names when in the middle of the narrative flow; and my beta is perfectly competent at catching grammatical errors and typos but takes it for granted that my knowledge of the Buffyverse is superior to hers. I only found out when I saw this post and thought I'd better check on my spelling.

Luckily I'd only used Wesley's surname once, so the correction took only seconds.

The only spelling error that really cracks me up is "Angle" for "Angel". When I see that one I can't help replacing Angel in my mind with the obnoxious WWE wrestler Kurt Angle, and my vision of whatever story the error occurs in is irrevocably ruined from that moment.

Or possibly made much funnier.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Well, but your misspellings aren't a result of lazy writing. In the fic that inspired this rant, let's count the mini-trolls, shall we?

Lorin
Gun (or gun)
sunydale
Worfam and heart
Cordillia

She frequently forgets that a character's name should be capitalized. One of her OC's has "burnet" hair. Funny, I'd think that salad greens on one's head would be annoying, and you'd want to take care of that little problem sooner rather than later. And then there's a continuity error where "Lorin" apparently forgets that he met the girls just two (short) chapters before. At least it's not my Lorne being such an idiot.

There's no excuse for this. I can't even give it concrit, because there's absolutely nothing good to say about it. Not that she'd listen. Her little friends have given her ten fawning reviews.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I've seen some strange things on ff.net but this has to set some sort of record. The Author's Note that preceded the story was incomprehensible and it went downhill from there. The capitalisation of proper nouns seemed so random that it appeared to have been determined by dice throws, the apostrophes were so aberrant that they could have inspired a sequel to "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", the Mary Sues made Sam Riley look like a logical and carefully-considered addition to the Buffy pantheon - and the reviews! Or "reveiws", as they have it more than once.

I had a look at the story by the other one of the two Mary Sues, read the reviews there, and saw this comment by someone not one of the little incestuous clique: "I will pay you one hundred million dollars to never write anything again. Ever." They were deeply offended. It's the only genuine review among 46 pieces of self-congratulatory drivel.

Why couldn't they just have e-mailed these "stories" to each other and spared the world much suffering?

In 20 minutes "The Black Shield of Falworth" is on ITV1, offering me the chance to hear Tony Curtis uttering such immortal lines as "Yonder lies da castle of my foider". I shall watch it with renewed appreciation now that I've seen how much worse writing can be.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, Tony Curtis was good even when he was bad. Enjoy!
!

Mini Trolls

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Well, if it wasn't for the spelling challenged out there, honorh would run out of mini troll minions for BAFU! I agree with your rant completely; it is just basic laziness and/or stupidity if someone makes more than the occasional mistake with character names. [I have on occasion made an error due to tired typing.]

Re: Mini Trolls

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

The occasional error may be forgiven. However, the fic that brought this rant on continually misspells Gunn, Lorne, and Hart. And there are people out there who do it constantly, and don't care because spellcheck is OMG such a DRAG, dontchaknow, and I have to get my deathless prose up as soon as it leaves my keyboard or it might ROT or something.

What irks me is that crap like this can garner ten fawning reviews from other, like-minded fangirls, and yet something that's had months of research, blood, sweat, tears, and swearing (*cough* "A Mess of Pottage" *cough*) gets ONE review.

*stomping feet* It's not fair!

Re: Mini Trolls

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I have read fanfic that made me cringe, and then looked at the reviews. Yup, they are all written by witless idiots, so I assume that there is not much point in me saying anything. On the other hand, I am guilty of reading wonderful stories and not giving feed back, due either to laziness or feelings that my opinion doesn't matter to the author. I will make a point of commenting now, when I read something that impresses me, since you have clearly shown me that my opinion does matter. Incidentally, I love all the drabbles you write!

Re: Mini Trolls

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! Yes, feedback matters. It's the only payment fanfic writers get, after all. And please, don't be afraid to give me concrit. If you think a character is OOC, or you see a typo, or, like my Mom, see something unlikely (such as Magnus saying "Follow me" to Spike when turning his back on him would be a bad idea)--let me know. I can't improve if I don't know what's wrong.

[highlander_ii]

Ah - the mini-trolls... *shakes head* You should check the Highlander fandom too -- poor Adam Pierson -- we get Pearson, Pierceson (or something like that) --

and Connor MacLeod -- Conner, McLoud, MacCloud, McLeod (which is ALMOST right) but COME ON! If you only ever watched the series in the first season - the name scrolled across the screen a dozen times! They spell Duncan wrong too. And Methos - there aren't that many letters - how do you get it wrong?

Even worse - they'll spell the ACTORS names wrong - and those are in the credits EVERY WEEK! What is with that? *sigh*

Lazy lazy - a proofread and a beta will do wonders.

[vampirepuppet.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it COULD be "Conner." At least, if you believe the author who said that because her brother's name is spelled that way, it's a valid version.

I think "Wyndham-Pryce" was used on the show once or twice before it changed to "Wyndam-Pryce." Plus it's spelled the former way on some major websites, so I can see where writers would be confused. That's one version I can tolerate. Use "Windham" or "Price," though, and I have a problem with it.

Lindsey's first name was spelled "Lindsay" on the official WB site, causing several ff.net authors to stubbornly insist that they were correct in spelling it that way. Imzadi, a huge Lindsey fan, attempted to reason with them, but I don't think she succeeded.

My (least) favorite misspellings are probably "Angelice" and "Ox." Pathetic. But also hilarious.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

*boggles* Ox? Oh dear Lord.

I might even be able to forgive "Price," since Buffyworld spells Roger's name that way in the transcript for Lineage. Argh. When websites can't get it right, it's hard on fic authors to do so. But when it's stuff we see in print over and over and over again on the frelling show (like "Wolfram and Hart," "Angel," and "Buffy"), there's no excuse.