Help with wording

[donutsweeper]

UK peeps, a question on wording (that I'm too embarrassed about to post over at  dw_britglish .)

For a US character I would say that, after receiving a a life-altering injury, a character is barely capable of going to the bathroom by himself.  Bathroom, in this case, would mean the ability to use the toilet and wash up and whatnot.

Would the UK wording be "use the w.c. (or is it WC) by himself" or simply toilet or lavatory or....?  Help!

Comments

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

well, if you're thinking about it logically.... I guess you're right.

But it can also mean "I could could care more, but I don't"

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I've always been other the impression that 'I could care less' is just a mutation of the phrase, either through mishearing it or simply slurring or dropping the 'n't'. It happens sometimes, just in speaking situations. Like you might say 'a whole nother' which isn't something you'd write, but when you're speaking it sounds better. Like in French you say 'il y a' instead of 'il a', simply because it sounds better. The 'y' doesn't mean anything.

We have a bad habit around here to say 'I seen' instead of 'I saw' or 'I have seen', which seems to be a local dialect issue. It drives me nuts. Along with 'libary'. You cannot get a book from the libary, because there is no libary.

My mother is always going to 'pass the vacuum', because she's French-Canadian and that's how it translates.

As a Canadian, the spell-checker hates me. 'Theatre', 'favourite', 'towards'.

I love language and etymology. Hence the little rant there.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I love local phrases. Or they drive me nuts. When I moved to MN I couldn't get over the fact natives say "Can you borrow me a book?" instead of lend. Or the fact they say "I'm going to the store, do you want to come with?" dropping the 'me' that I would have put at the end.

Can you use a UK spellchecker instead?

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I don't know if Firefox has a UK spellcheck option. I should look that up. In Word, I can't get the UK dictionary to stick. As soon as I close the programme, it switches back to the US dictionary.

I love looking up local slang for when I write characters. It really helps bring them to life. I remember struggling with Kirmani's voice until I changed some of his wording to a more Chicagga accent and it worked a whole lot better.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

there's a Canadian English dictionary addon! Here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3653

Sometimes people can go a little nuts with local slang though. I hate when NY characters say 'youse guys' or things like that.

[songstressicons.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Totally agreed on that. I always wonder how far to press translating accents, too. I try not to go overboard with Rose, but I do tend to use 'fings' and such when she's upset. I once played two French characters simultaneously for an RPG and I always chose to translate one of their accents and the other one I only did it occasionally. I have no idea why. Characters choose for themselves sometimes I guess.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

subtle things like that are good. And make sure you're using the right terms. Ianto would use the stairs or wait for a lift while Rayk or Harry Dresden wait for an elevator- that sort of thing.

Nothing throws me out of a fic faster then using the wrong term like that.

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Apropos of nothing, but is Word taking it's settings from Windows here? If you are in the UK and need to keep your Windows settings you might do better telling Word to use UK English as an additional dictionary.