fandom_grammar has a new home on DreamWidth. If grammar or writing is your thing, please give it a follow and tell your friends.

Fandom Grammar has always existed as a resource not only for fan writers, but for writers in general and for fans who have English as a second language. If you have a question about the English language—or colloquial differences in regional uses—please feel free to ask about it! We're always looking for new questions to answer. We're also open to fandom-specific questions such as capitalization rules for specific fandoms or how fandom-specific words are used in context. (Don't worry if we don't know your fandom, most of the grammarians are research monkeys and we're up to the challenge.)

Our typical schedule includes answering questions on Mondays, interspersed with additional content on Fridays.

I'm excited for our future on DW. We're approaching 10 years of Fandom Grammar, so we're looking to make a new home and build a foundation to last another 10 years.

fandom_grammar is doing its yearly recruitment drive. This year we are in great need of new members, so if you are interested in grammar and this sounds like fun, I urge you to apply. You do not need to know every grammar rule, and frequently we learn as we answer. The main requirements are that you are enthusiastic about grammar and writing, are willing to research, and can write a comprehensible answer to a question.

ALSO we apply "fandom" to basically anything, so if you are not "in" fandom, that doesn't rule you out. The "fandom" part is in the examples and so far we've used everything from Horatio Hornblower to Harry Potter from Jane Austen to Joss Whedon. ANYTHING in English (or translated into English) is on the table; we just frame our examples using existing characters and situations instead of completely original ones.




Applications must be received by February 29, though there is a writing portion, so I recommend applying before February 15.

If you are not interested, but have a writing-intensive flist, please spread the word. We've got two snazzy banners for promotion (both made by skroberts), which you can find at the bottom of this post. THANKS!

What would the day be if I didn't have a slightly strange question to ask?


Can anyone think of any characters that canonically stutter or stammer? I would prefer characters who are fandomy, but as long as I'm familiar with the character, that should be awesome.

Thanks!

ETA Great suggestions from everyone! Thank you! If you want to add more to the discussion, I'm always happy to have more, but I do have what I need.

Also, um, I'm a huge retard and think I need for someone to hang on to my Whedon Card for a while. I forgot TARA *headdesk* I'm a loser. In penance I'm going to watch "Hush" and "Family" tomorrow. (And then insist that someone give me a Buffy quiz so I can retake my Whedon Card. OY.)

What would the day be if I didn't have a slightly strange question to ask?


Can anyone think of any characters that canonically stutter or stammer? I would prefer characters who are fandomy, but as long as I'm familiar with the character, that should be awesome.

Thanks!

ETA Great suggestions from everyone! Thank you! If you want to add more to the discussion, I'm always happy to have more, but I do have what I need.

Also, um, I'm a huge retard and think I need for someone to hang on to my Whedon Card for a while. I forgot TARA *headdesk* I'm a loser. In penance I'm going to watch "Hush" and "Family" tomorrow. (And then insist that someone give me a Buffy quiz so I can retake my Whedon Card. OY.)

Most of my flist who would be interested probably has fandom_grammar friended, but just in case you missed it. . . .

fandom_grammar is looking for some new Fandom Grammarians. If you think you have the passion for grammar and English language necessary to answer fandom's questions about how to be more knowledgeable readers and writers, check out this post at fandom_grammar for details.

We're looking to expand our knowledge base for dialects and regional usage, so we're specifically looking to add at least one grammarian who is familiar with the non-American rules of English.

We're open to adding up to 6 new Fandom Grammarians, so your position is just an application away!

*pulls out the blinky sign-posts*

Please feel free to pimp on your flist or court specific individuals. If you have any questions about the process or what we're looking for, please ask them at the application post. (Have I linked to that post enough yet?)

Most of my flist who would be interested probably has fandom_grammar friended, but just in case you missed it. . . .

fandom_grammar is looking for some new Fandom Grammarians. If you think you have the passion for grammar and English language necessary to answer fandom's questions about how to be more knowledgeable readers and writers, check out this post at fandom_grammar for details.

We're looking to expand our knowledge base for dialects and regional usage, so we're specifically looking to add at least one grammarian who is familiar with the non-American rules of English.

We're open to adding up to 6 new Fandom Grammarians, so your position is just an application away!

*pulls out the blinky sign-posts*

Please feel free to pimp on your flist or court specific individuals. If you have any questions about the process or what we're looking for, please ask them at the application post. (Have I linked to that post enough yet?)

There are times when fandom_grammar is not enough for me and my passion for punctuation explodes from my face (beware projectile commas). There are also times when I read a few fics in a row that have no conception of how to punctuate for pauses, and that vexes me.

So, today you all are suffering through a lesson on punctuation for pauses.

( Lesson 1: Periods end sentences. )

( Lesson 2: How to pause. )

In short: Don't abuse punctuation!

Also, I provided a very nice write up on punctuating pauses at fandom_grammar last November.

There are times when fandom_grammar is not enough for me and my passion for punctuation explodes from my face (beware projectile commas). There are also times when I read a few fics in a row that have no conception of how to punctuate for pauses, and that vexes me.

So, today you all are suffering through a lesson on punctuation for pauses.

( Lesson 1: Periods end sentences. )

( Lesson 2: How to pause. )

In short: Don't abuse punctuation!

Also, I provided a very nice write up on punctuating pauses at fandom_grammar last November.

I got to answer a question at fandom_grammar about trailing punctuation and pauses. Oh yes, ellipses and em dashes. It's like grammar heaven for me!

Punctuation tells you how to read a sentence. It's as scientific as writing ever gets. Each symbol for punctuation correlates to a different, specific meaning and the punctuations for pauses each determine a different length of pause. Punctuation that indicates trailing off or interruptions can be very different, as well, and if not properly punctuated could convey a meaning very different from the intended meaning.

I had fun looking for canon examples rather than just writing all of my own. Trailing dialogue? Oh yes, Daniel is a natural for that. I also went to FMA (because manga tends to have a unique usage for ellipses) and I wanted to tear my eyes out. Because aside from doing the typical manga thing of starting dialogue with an ellipsis or having only an ellipsis for the dialogue, there were tons of examples that weren't what I needed! Frustrating!

Anyway, em dashes are love. Go read.

I got to answer a question at fandom_grammar about trailing punctuation and pauses. Oh yes, ellipses and em dashes. It's like grammar heaven for me!

Punctuation tells you how to read a sentence. It's as scientific as writing ever gets. Each symbol for punctuation correlates to a different, specific meaning and the punctuations for pauses each determine a different length of pause. Punctuation that indicates trailing off or interruptions can be very different, as well, and if not properly punctuated could convey a meaning very different from the intended meaning.

I had fun looking for canon examples rather than just writing all of my own. Trailing dialogue? Oh yes, Daniel is a natural for that. I also went to FMA (because manga tends to have a unique usage for ellipses) and I wanted to tear my eyes out. Because aside from doing the typical manga thing of starting dialogue with an ellipsis or having only an ellipsis for the dialogue, there were tons of examples that weren't what I needed! Frustrating!

Anyway, em dashes are love. Go read.

green_grrl wrote such a wonderful promo for the comm that I'm just reposting what she said:

Confused about commas? Keep getting red ink from your beta on pronoun antecedents? English isn't your first language, and you want to know the difference between "have" and "got"? Never understood what the heck a dangling participle was? There's a new comm in town: fandom_grammar. Just drop a comment with your query about writing, grammar or language here, and your Fandom Grammarians will post an answer.

The comm went officially live on Friday with green_grrl's first post, a Friday Feature, Writing Tips: Epithets. Head on over, check out the comm, marvel at roniabirk's graphics, and learn something about writing.

green_grrl wrote such a wonderful promo for the comm that I'm just reposting what she said:

Confused about commas? Keep getting red ink from your beta on pronoun antecedents? English isn't your first language, and you want to know the difference between "have" and "got"? Never understood what the heck a dangling participle was? There's a new comm in town: fandom_grammar. Just drop a comment with your query about writing, grammar or language here, and your Fandom Grammarians will post an answer.

The comm went officially live on Friday with green_grrl's first post, a Friday Feature, Writing Tips: Epithets. Head on over, check out the comm, marvel at roniabirk's graphics, and learn something about writing.

Sentences like this make me hurt: Thomas buys his lunch at work, which consists of a sandwich and a bottle of water for $6.

Sentences like this make me hurt: Thomas buys his lunch at work, which consists of a sandwich and a bottle of water for $6.

Stuff That's Not Ranting But Still About Grammar
I need questions for fandom_grammar. Since we don't have any yet, I'm thinking about just collecting up a few common questions so that we can get started. So, can anyone think of a few common grammar/language questions to start us off? (If it's a genuine question you want to ask, leave it at the comm, please. Thanks.)

Stuff On My Head
katilara posted another Brotherhood 2.0 video blog last night and in it Hank discussed keeping life silly by putting stuff on your head. Last night I wore Neville bunny on my head until I went to sleep. Today, um, well, I'm not really going to wear stuff on my head at work, but maybe I'll use pencils to hold up my hair later which will be kind of like stuff in my head and will still be silly.

ANYWAY.

I encourage you all to put stuff on your head. Or put stuff on your cat, if you're inclined, but the general theme is stuff on living beings. I think putting a shoe on a bug even counts.

I hope you all will keep me informed of what stuff you put on living beings.

Though you may consider putting stuff only on you or your pets without permission. Like, I don't think my boss would appreciate me suddenly putting a bag on her head unless I asked first*.
*I do not advocate asking your boss if you can put a bag on his or her head . . . unless you are looking for a way to be fired, which, if you are, more stuff on your boss's head to you.

Stuff That's Not Ranting But Still About Grammar
I need questions for fandom_grammar. Since we don't have any yet, I'm thinking about just collecting up a few common questions so that we can get started. So, can anyone think of a few common grammar/language questions to start us off? (If it's a genuine question you want to ask, leave it at the comm, please. Thanks.)

Stuff On My Head
katilara posted another Brotherhood 2.0 video blog last night and in it Hank discussed keeping life silly by putting stuff on your head. Last night I wore Neville bunny on my head until I went to sleep. Today, um, well, I'm not really going to wear stuff on my head at work, but maybe I'll use pencils to hold up my hair later which will be kind of like stuff in my head and will still be silly.

ANYWAY.

I encourage you all to put stuff on your head. Or put stuff on your cat, if you're inclined, but the general theme is stuff on living beings. I think putting a shoe on a bug even counts.

I hope you all will keep me informed of what stuff you put on living beings.

Though you may consider putting stuff only on you or your pets without permission. Like, I don't think my boss would appreciate me suddenly putting a bag on her head unless I asked first*.
*I do not advocate asking your boss if you can put a bag on his or her head . . . unless you are looking for a way to be fired, which, if you are, more stuff on your boss's head to you.

Now that my houseguests have abandoned me and I'm not lying flat from back pain, I get to finally round up and reply to all the comments about the fandom grammar comm!

1. The Name
I'm going with fandom_grammar because it's simple, to the point, and while the people answering the questions are the grammarians, the community is open to all, so yeah.

Also, apparently fandom_grammarians is too long. :P

2. Screening
I've been continuing to think about the screened comments for the questions and I think we should have them screened. Not so that people can post anonymously but so that the comm can operate in the way I envisioned with the experts answering the questions in these "articles" rather than as quick replies back to people.

3. Answers in "Articles" and Fandom Context
This is just for clarification:

The questions people submit will be answered by experts (the contributors, or grammarians) in posts to the community. Each post should answer the question in full and be more than just a quick reply back. This isn't necessarily a long reply, but it's not just a zip back kind of thing.

For questions that might have a short answer, I'm thinking we might have a Quick Answers post every so often and round up 5–10 of those questions for one post. (Hopefully we can organize them thematically.)

As for the Fandom Context, all I really mean is to use fandom examples. You know that adage about people learning best when they're interested in the subject? This is the same idea. Instead of using boring sentences about Sally and John, your examples would be about Hermione, or Buffy, or Teal'c, or whoever from whatever fandom you're most familiar with. I'd encourage people to use several fandoms in one post, but you don't need to go outside your comfort zone.

4. Grammarians (Formerly Known as Contributors)
I've got 13 grammarians so far which is plenty to start this comm. In the next day I'll set up the grammarian sister community and you'll receive a membership invitation to that community. Please join that community if you want to be a fandom grammarian. We'll use it for planning and you'll need to read posts there periodically.

5. Experience Statement
The Experience Statement for the grammarians will be a simple questionnaire, so no one panic. We'll post this up at the grammarian sister community.

6. Layout/Banner
Would anyone graphically inclined be willing to make us a layout for our basic account? I don't really care what it looks like other than simple and classy. Though for the banner it absolutely has to say "Fandom Grammer" with the "e" corrected to an "a" using editor's marks.


More to come later!

Time to start planning out this fandom grammar community with my trusted fellows. This is the time for you all to weigh in with any thoughts/questions you might have. I'm hoping that hashing this out with the ol' flist will help to iron out all the kinks and start this comm running smoothly.

The Focus
I want to keep this comm primarily focused on fandom, making it a resource for fanfic writers and fandom readers. My inspiration for starting this comm is about 30% just because I'm a grammar nerd and 70% because I'm tired of reading badfic. There's so much fic out there that would be better if people just understood grammar/language.

Does that mean the comm will only be geared to fanfic?
No. It will be geared towards fandom, answering questions about grammar in a fandom context. I do also want this comm to be a resource to help writers gain the knowledge of the tools of the trade.

( The Game Plan )

( The Contributors )

( The Moderators )

( The Name )

The Feedback
Help me out by leaving some feedback and your thoughts on my lingering questions.

1. Should the grammar questions coming in be screened in case anyone wants to be anonymous?
I'd like to credit people for their questions, but maybe we'd get some people who would prefer to be anon. *shrug* Regardless, I want to encourage them to ask the questions with their lj so we can reply back to them, directing them to the post with the answer.

2. What the heck should this comm be named? And what about the articles/features?

3. Are you still interested in being a contributor? Do you now have interest now that so much has been spelled out?

4. Does anyone know if moderated posting will automatically back date or will the post appear as a new post?
I couldn't find any info on this in the faq and I'm preforming an experiment with a closed comm I own now, but if someone already knows the answer to this question it would make my experiment go a lot faster. ;)

5. Please let me know if you have any recommendations or see potential problems.

6. Let me know if you have any questions because some of this will go up in the userinfo/intro post and I want to have everything spelled out as plainly as possible.

A while ago I gauged interest about reading a series of grammar/language posts that would use fandom examples to teach. People seemed interested in the idea, but I fell flat in making it a reality (a good thing at the time because I didn't have the energy/time to devote to such an undertaking). But I enjoyed answering Roadie's question this morning and I loved getting responses from others including insight from grass_stained, redatdawn, and green_grrl, so once again I'm here to gauge interest and find out if anyone would like to assist with this new inception.

What I'm thinking of this time is a community that answers questions about grammar/language. I'm considering writing a weekly column (to give correspondents time to research issues if need be) that covers whatever questions about grammar/language anyone might have. I'm still interested in keeping it fandom focused and would love to get questions related to writing like, "How do you write good dialogue?"

So, with all that explained, poll time:

[Poll #1066453]

If you have any other thoughts about this community, I would be most appreciative if you would share them.

roadrunner1896 asked me a really difficult question that I felt needed the attention of other native English speakers and writers/word geeks. This is basically the comment I left her (with some edits I've been doing more research/thinking):

Can you tell me the difference between "fast" and "quick"?

I don't think there is much of a difference between "fast" and "quick" except for usage. Like you would say: "He completed the course in a fast time," but not a "quick time" (at least I wouldn't say that). Or you'd say, "He completed the course quickly," but not "fastly" (because "fastly" isn't a word, though "fast" is an adverb).

Let's go to definitions:

fast moving or able to move, operate, function, or take effect quickly; quick; swift; rapid

quick done, proceeding, or occurring with promptness or rapidity, as an action, process

Pretty much the same thing. But when you get into idioms (and these are just a few examples):

fast characterized by unrestrained conduct or lack of moral conventions, esp. in sexual relations; wanton; loose
ex. Vala was fast with how she immediately progressed to undressing Daniel.
fast firm in adherence; loyal; devoted
ex. Harry and Ron were fast friends which is why Ron always wanted to come back.

quick easily provoked or excited
ex. Touch Daniel's artifacts and you'll find out that he can be quick tempered.
quick prompt to understand, learn, etc.; of ready intelligence:
ex. Hermione is a quick student, the cleverest witch of her age.

"Fast" and "quick" aren't interchangeable in those examples or for those meanings. (Though I think some people will mistakenly use "quick" in that first example of "Vala was fast".) And before anyone points it out, "a quick student" is different from "a fast learner." "A quick student" is implying something about the student herself, whereas "a fast learner" describes the speed at which one learns.

I don't think the difference can be articulated in any these-are-the-solid-and-steadfast-rules way because the English language is so deliciously mercurial, so it's probably something you'll have to pick up more through usage (sadly). Just know that while the words are synonyms, they can't arbitrarily replace each other.


Any one else have any other thoughts on fast v. quick or how the difference can be conveyed to someone who speaks English as a second language?

All definitions from dictionary.com