(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)

[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.

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.]

[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.