True but don’t let that discourage you from reading Hotwire. It was a labor of love to get the title out after Tundra closed and as mentioned, the artwork is gorgeous and is a step up.

I don’t know about that, Stephen. It’s certainly possible!

Didn’t he work as a standup before getting into comics? I remember reading that somewhere when he first started on Uncanny back in the day.

And I know Greg knows this, but I wasn’t saying professional writers and editors should write like “most people” write; simply that their characters’ voices should not be held to the standard of the writer and or editor himself, but rather to that of normal, every day people who wouldn’t necessarily distinguish between “bring” and “take.”

Greg – Perhaps the key with Uncanny X-Men is it not expecting it to be another Casanova or Five Fists of Science, and letting it just be whatever it is? I’m really enjoying it as an X-Men comic, and that’s all that I really expect of it, and perhaps because of that, I do see the brilliance that is Fraction shining out through it.

These aren’t ‘most people.’ These are professional writers with professional editors. The standard isn’t what ‘most people’ would write.

Dialogue doesn’t have to be perfect. Sentence fragments, bad grammar and the like, when intentional, is absolutely proper. Bad spelling and punctuation, however, is sloppy and does reflect on the writer.

I write as part of my profession and it irks me when others who deal with language as part of their profession are sloppy. I truly hate it when newscasters and newspapers use improper grammar (a recent local headline in Indianapolis described how donation boxes were ‘busted’ open, for instance).

I can’t help hearing or seeing the errors. It’s not showing off–I just have and ear and eye for them. You want picky? My number one pet peeve is when newscasters don’t know the difference between ‘less’ and ‘fewer.’ Most people don’t even know there’s a difference…

Using a comma for a pause isn’t a faux rule, anymore than saying the Oxford comma is US usage and AP Style is UK usage. The only sensible way that I can think of declaring rules in English is based on native speaker intuition, not native writer intuition because that doesn’t exist. As for your example, you seem to be ignoring the difference between pauses for grammar and pauses for emphasis, which I don’t believe any native speaker would ever actually make. Regardless of that fact, yes such a sentence would look strange but it would also SOUND strange, thus it would commit the terrible crime of conveying meaning to the reader.

@ Stefan

“Most people don’t use correct grammar.” That I would completely disagree with. Yes people don’t always use the grammar of textbooks. But there are mistakes that native speakers make and there are mistakes that they never make. Yes, native speakers confuse bring and take, but they would never say “don’t worry gents there is a place” without at least one pause. It is one thing to put deliberate mistakes in, like ‘yer’, but it is quite another to make accidental mistakes. I like to read dialogue in my head as the writer wanted it read, but if the writer doesn’t indicate how it should be read then that is impossible. I don’t think it is too much to ask for writers to be experts at writing.

I keed, I keed.

“There is a place.” That’s a complete sentence.

Splice them together with a comma if you want, but it would be a run on sentence and I don’t see how that’s grammatical.

I would regard either of those as acceptable. It depends on how the writer &/or reader “hears” the character speaking.

Actually, I’d probably punctuate it as “Don’t worry, gents — there is a place.” But I’m admittedly dash-happy.

I’m also elllipsis-happy, which means I could happily live with “Don’t worry, gents … there is a place.”

Your example of UK comma usage is also identical to AP usage in the U.S. for newspapers. Having spent most of my adult life as a newspaper writer & editor (I’m no longer in that field, but at my online editing job my credi remains, “AP style says it, I believe it & that settles it”) that’s my default approach, as it were.

Greg –

You are right & Stefan is … misguided. That is all.

(I mean, Mr. Style & Grammar Nazi — me, that is, not you — has no problem with ungrammatical DIALOGUE, either. Hell, having grown up in the smalltown South I find myself reverting to double negatives, “ain’t” & the like all the damned time when I’m talking.)

The fact that the writer, editor & I guess even PUBLISHER have no pride at all in the WORDS they put out is a bit odd, to say the least.

And you know I ignore it more often than not. It was just so overwhelming in The Great Unknown that it almost ruined what is quite a good comic. That’s frustrating. But I’ll try to rein it in for a while!

Finally, I really, really, really want to like Uncanny X-Men. I’m actually sad that it’s not doing more for me!

Shouldn’t it read, “Don’t worry, gents; there is a place”?