Pointless Epithet Rant...
May. 26th, 2012 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeshyrI'm at the point of throwing Shannara at the wall over it's use of epithets ... they're in completely predictable style too:
1. For druids we only use "druid". These are all adult male humans, BTW.
2. For people with royal titles there are two forms:
(a) If human, we have "$title of $place", e.g. "Prince of Leigh"
(b) If nonhuman, we have "$race $title", e.g. "Troll King"
3. Everybody else is divided into human and nonhuman, so the first part of their title becomes:
(a) If human, their main place of residence eg "Vale", "Leigh" etc.
(b) If nonhuman, their race eg "Dwarf", "Elf", etc.
The second part of their title relates to gender and age:
(a) For male children under about puberty it's "boy"
(b) For adult men we use "man" but this becomes optional because obviously it's the default state of everybody
(c) For female children and female adults before approximately menopausal age we use "girl"
(d) For older female adults only we get "woman"
This we have "Vale girl" (for a twenty-something human woman), "Dwarf boy", "Vale woman", "Elf" (for an adult male Elf), etc.
And these are used ALL THE TIME. I don't mind occasional epithets but this is so far beyond excessive it's crazy. I suspect the writer has a severe pronoun allergy or something... We get "The Druid, the Vale Man and the Elf Girl ..... " over and over as if the reader is expected to forget who is in our story or something. And it annoys me a lot more because men and woman of approximately equal ages get "blah man and blah girl" all the time!
Ok. That's out of my system now ... *deep breath*
I know this is a stupid pointless rant but I keep thinking of it every time I'm listening to the damm things so hopefully it's out of my system now :)
I generally read more than one book at once: a book that takes concentration (most commonly nonfiction), and a "light reading" book that takes little brainpower. The Shannara ones have been my light reading for a while now but I think I may have conked out on them over these bloody epithets! On the other hand I don't really have anything else in my light reading queue at the moment so perhaps I'll just keep reading these by default ...
1. For druids we only use "druid". These are all adult male humans, BTW.
2. For people with royal titles there are two forms:
(a) If human, we have "$title of $place", e.g. "Prince of Leigh"
(b) If nonhuman, we have "$race $title", e.g. "Troll King"
3. Everybody else is divided into human and nonhuman, so the first part of their title becomes:
(a) If human, their main place of residence eg "Vale", "Leigh" etc.
(b) If nonhuman, their race eg "Dwarf", "Elf", etc.
The second part of their title relates to gender and age:
(a) For male children under about puberty it's "boy"
(b) For adult men we use "man" but this becomes optional because obviously it's the default state of everybody
(c) For female children and female adults before approximately menopausal age we use "girl"
(d) For older female adults only we get "woman"
This we have "Vale girl" (for a twenty-something human woman), "Dwarf boy", "Vale woman", "Elf" (for an adult male Elf), etc.
And these are used ALL THE TIME. I don't mind occasional epithets but this is so far beyond excessive it's crazy. I suspect the writer has a severe pronoun allergy or something... We get "The Druid, the Vale Man and the Elf Girl ..... " over and over as if the reader is expected to forget who is in our story or something. And it annoys me a lot more because men and woman of approximately equal ages get "blah man and blah girl" all the time!
Ok. That's out of my system now ... *deep breath*
I know this is a stupid pointless rant but I keep thinking of it every time I'm listening to the damm things so hopefully it's out of my system now :)
I generally read more than one book at once: a book that takes concentration (most commonly nonfiction), and a "light reading" book that takes little brainpower. The Shannara ones have been my light reading for a while now but I think I may have conked out on them over these bloody epithets! On the other hand I don't really have anything else in my light reading queue at the moment so perhaps I'll just keep reading these by default ...
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 02:16 pm (UTC);-)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-26 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-27 02:14 am (UTC)--
A mind needs books like a sword needs whetstone.
- Tyrion Lannister
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Date: 2012-05-27 10:20 am (UTC)Hmm...
Date: 2012-06-21 01:46 am (UTC)