michelel72

So, tell me true, flist: Has alright (for all right or okay) actually crossed the critical-mass boundary from misspelling to acceptable neologism? I've suddenly been seeing it everywhere. I always correct it when I beta, but should I just give up and (grudgingly) let it pass? (Or, more likely, take my usual route of inserting a long-winded and pedantic usage note in brackets and leaving the choice up to the writer?)

I try to be accepting of falsely derived terms and variant forms if they serve a distinct purpose. I just don't see any use to introducing alright for all right, though; are there really that many contexts in which readers might confuse the okay interpretation with the each member correct interpretation? Or am I just being too prescriptivist on this one?

I'd usually see what the interwebs think, but the clearest write-ups I can find, although they agree alright is not (yet) standard, are over two years old. That's practically a generation in internet years.

Dear writers of modern, western-world police procedurals:

No, it doesn't sound like the victim is pleading for mercy. It doesn't sound like the victim is talking about their assailant's lack of (or possession of) mercy. It sincerely doesn't.

It sounds like the victim is talking about or to someone named Mercy, or talking about or to someone named Marcy, or talking about Mercy General, or spotting a Mercedes Benz, or hell, deliriously singing "Mercy Street" ... but when you have your detective musing that "It sounds like he's begging for mercy," for example, we in the audience simply roll our eyes, because we all know that's completely wrong and we know we'll be wasting entirely too much time on that foolishness.

Quit it.

And "Castle" and "Criminal Minds", since you've both tried to pull that nonsense recently, you are both On Notice. Try to pull it again ... and I will have no mercy.

Okay, okay, that just means I'll make a snarky post about it. Still.

Hey, guys! I wrote almost five thousand words overnight! … And it's all a book review. And lucky you, here it is.

"Homecoming" is the first book in the "Legacy" series, and I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect of more. There were a few bits I actively liked, quite a lot that really annoyed me, and a plenty of average connecting them.

Anyone who has ever had me beta for them can testify to this: I am far better at calling out what doesn't work for me than I am at praising what does (though I've been working on that). So let me make it clear: Despite the volume of negative commentary and the level of vitriol in what follows, I didn't hate this book. (Make no mistake: Neither did I love it. It was, on balance, okay.)

(If anyone new is thinking of asking me to beta … I'm nicer in my actual beta feedback! Mostly! Honest!)

And so we launch. (  Batten down the hatches, folks, and full spleen ahead! )

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Anyway: Other than that? The book's … meh, okay. Not overly annoyed I read it at all; wouldn't bother to read it again.

I know there's a fan comm to discuss these books, but since there's only one comment on the entry for this book, I can't judge whether it's actually another one of those communities that really only welcome squee. If it is, that's fine; I don't want to harsh anyone's squee, and I have a bad habit of not reading the room until too late, so here in my journal this tepid review will remain.

I'm posting this now so that I can go ahead and read "Homecoming" without forgetting anything here; I'd like to start that with a clean (mental) palate. Anyone who feels moved to comment, please do not spoil me for "Homecoming" or "The Lost".( tl;dr: Some nice bits, but too many errors. )

I'll admit, I was a little wary of the SGA Secret Santa fic exchange. Folk who know me personally know that I have an aversion to Christmas in general, for a variety of reasons; I don't ask anyone else not to celebrate it, but I do require that they not force me to do so.

(ETA: That doesn't mean I'm at all ungrateful or resentful of folk who've given me small tokens! If part of your celebration includes little tokens of friendship, such as LJ gifts or holiday cards, that's totally cool and I do appreciate it, and I hope I don't come across as a bad friend for not doing the same or not always responding in a timely manner ....)

What's that got to do with fic? Well, one of the more common narrative tropes I've seen is the redeeming of the Grinch/Scrooge figure. That's problematic anyway, because the terms have been appropriated and mutated by the enforced-celebration crowd. In the original text, the Grinch aggressively tried to destroy the celebration of others, not politely decline to participate or ask that the celebrants keep their celebration to themselves; Scrooge lacked charity and empathy in total and took it out on those around him, though granted the tool for that was Christmas.

In too many shows, books, films, and fics, I've seen the one character who doesn't actively participate shunned as a Scrooge or Grinch and then harrassed ceaselessly until he or she caves, dons the Party Rictus, and marches along. One of us. That isn't fun or rewarding; that's fucking annoying, and it makes me resent Christmas (as well as "Oh, no, you don't have to celebrate Christmas precisely, don't be silly, but you still have to embrace and epitomize the spirit of a winter party with specific attributes that might as well be Christmas!") all the more. In SGA fics, I've seen this take form with Rodney McKay, the character who for whatever reason I most prefer, being nagged and harrassed and ceaselessly badgered to confess his Secret Childhood Trauma so that he'll stop being such a meanie to everyone for disrupting or even halting work for a good month or so.

(This post, found via metaquotes, expresses at least a part of this quite well, though the direction is different.)

All this is to say that I've been pleasantly surprised by the exchange this year. I haven't read all the stories, mind, but I don't think I've yet seen a single one that fits this trope. The one exception I can remember had John and Rodney competing to show the most "Christmas spirit" and showed just how horrifying that was for the bystanders.

It's actually quite refreshing. I am relieved and pleasantly surprised.

(One story — not in the exchange, but run across by me at about the same time — even had Rodney sympathetically allowing reasonable displays and standing up to those who mocked him as a Grinch for placing any limits. Most folks in the labs wore bells and snickered to find Rodney's mood and concentration decaying as they jingled, jingled, jingled all day long; rather than shipping them all to the mainland as I would have done after only a day of ceaseless tintinnabulation, he crafted silencers for the bells, telling everyone they could keep their bells but simply had to muffle them in the lab. If I hadn't loved him before that point, I would have loved him for that.)

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As violetcheetah will attest, there's a series of Dr Pepper commercials that would always drive me to seething rage.

"Diet Dr Pepper: tastes more like regular Dr Pepper!" they would exclaim.

"Than what?" I gritted. "Than WHAT?? Than it used to? Than another brand? Than road tar? Which is it?!"

I was reminded of this today when I was searching the FAQ at Comcast.com and browsed through this entry:

Why do Comcast channel lineups differ from market to market?
Comcast channel lineups differ by market for many reasons -- all of which are better for you. [...]

Leaving aside the entire question of whether they bother to support that assertion (hint: no) ... better for me than what? Or better for me than for whom? It's so vague I don't even know what type of comparison they've omitted!

[Snarl ... seethe ...]