So I write stories. I am not a professional writer, although it depends on how you look at it. I am paid for writing training manuals, curricula, various legal analysis papers and such. My working language is English, but it is not the language that I used in school, or in my first university. I always was good with words. Well written words have certain musical quality: they roll, ring, roar, or ruffle, depending on your purpose. My challenge is to take my ability to write and transplant it into another language without loosing any flavors and texture. It’s as if going to a French restaurant in West Virginia, you may not get sick after it, but you certainly feel cheated. Same is with writing. You want it to be as authentic as possible.
Now, typos are the worst carmic karmic (see what I mean!) enemy to someone who wants to write. Typos, and, perhaps, grammar. In my language, for example, there is no a/an/the. I sincerely think these three words were added to the English language for one purpose only – to annoy THE heck out of me.
To anyone who finds ‘Psycho The Rapist’ in my writing: I am working on it!
E.M.
English sets traps. My native and the only (semi?) fluent language I speak but I still fall into them often…
Isn’t it grand. I just fixed carmic for karmic enemy :). I have to laugh at that.
Articles are the bane of English and create many traps even for native English speakers – in my country there’s a district known as ‘Hawke’s Bay’. It’s often mis-called ‘the Hawke’s Bay’, which I find deeply irritating because it’s a misuse of the article. The place was named in 1769 after Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty – hence the possessive apostrophe – and that’s also why no article is needed. He wasn’t ‘Edward The Hawke’ after all (even if his ancestors might have been :-)).
Indeed. Same is when people add ‘the’ to Ukraine. It’s never ‘the’ France or ‘the’ Canada or ‘the’ Russia. Right? The United States is different, because it’s a bunch of States. Actually I don’t remember the exact rule why the U.S. is different… I just know that the UN and the U.S., but not ‘the’ Ukraine. I’m some writer!