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gerorin ([info]gerorin) wrote in [info]fandom_rant,
@ 2012-01-04 20:40:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current music:Adele - Hometown Glory

Oh beta wherefore art thou (like this?)
The woes of changing betas :( It's exceptionally hard to find betas in some fandoms than others (especially if you're a no-name fan). J-rock is one of them.

My old one is busy with RL, so I tried and found a new one.

I barely know my new beta but she volunteered and she seems nice. Well. She *is* nice. But since I told her I'm ESL (actually it's ETL) she seems to go from talking to me normally to seemingly wanting to hold my hand and talk to me with small words. It's frustrating. English being my third language is a fact, but it says nothing about how long I've used the language and how comfortable I am with it. I still make stupid mistakes with the language, but to tell you the truth, when it comes to writing I'm most comfortable with English than I am with my second or even my first one.

I really don't want to say anything to offend her about this, because frankly I should be grateful that somebody took the time to check for grammatical errors that might escaped me. And I am grateful, but when she questioned my use of 'dissipated' because she thinks "it's too much of a big word, I think I should warn you about using them, 'cause it makes you sound pretentious. Why not use 'disappeared'?", to say that I was flummoxed discombobulated confused by that was an understatement. Especially because in this alternate universe that's highly IC. (and what's wrong with 'suffusing'?)

Love and frustration,

Gero

And while I'm in the topic of J-Rock: Fandom, just because the band you like makes louder music, doesn't make other bands 'instantly shit' just because they're not as loud. Really. Variety isn't always bad. *grumbles how when she first got into the fandom, hide was still alive and those kids know nothing about climbing up mountains in the snow both ways to get to buy 'Final Act' and should really stop whining*


(Post a new comment)


[info]mirhanda
2012-01-04 04:55 pm UTC (link)
Ugh! Disappeared doesn't even mean the same thing!

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-04 05:50 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, tell me about it.

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[info]tofuknight
2012-01-04 07:26 pm UTC (link)
I might go with something like "I really appreciate your help, but I'm not an idiot, just need help with grammatical errors."

Or something along the lines of grammar=/=vocab choice

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[info]xturtle
2012-01-04 08:18 pm UTC (link)
I agree, a simple "I'm cool on the vocab, it's the grammar that needs checking" may do wonders. Possibly with an added "I'm extremely comfortable with choosing between synonyms."

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-05 01:34 am UTC (link)
That... might actually work. I'll try carefully telling that to her, thank you!

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[info]xturtle
2012-01-05 08:02 pm UTC (link)
Best of luck, hope it goes well!

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[info]tofuknight
2012-01-05 08:45 pm UTC (link)
Your way of putting it is excellent!

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[info]ellensmithee
2012-01-04 07:33 pm UTC (link)
I don't think you need to say more than, "Please only look at the grammar," without further apologies or clarifications. I usually tell my betas only to look at certain things, grammar, style, characterization, or only typos, depending on what their strong points are, familiarity with canon, how much time I have left if there's a deadline, etc., and the people I beta for do the same.

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[info]full_metal_ox
2012-01-04 09:45 pm UTC (link)
Last I checked, what part of (at least) "trilingual" equaled "stupid?"

As for your observation regarding J-Rock fandom, a dismaying number of people evidently feel that love for one thing must necessarily be expressed in hatred of something in a similar (and not even necessarily "competing") category. (A related observation: creative differences happen, and I see no reason to vilify either Gackt or Mana for the former's departure from Malice Mizer.)

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-05 01:51 am UTC (link)
*sigh* yeah, my family made me write in hanacaraka for my second one and I memorize thousands of kanji characters for my fourth, but you should still talk to me with small words in English. (she just... took issues for my using the word 'compute' I. Um. I have no words.)

I think for J-Rock fandom, one of the reason is the average age of the fans? I've been a fan for a lot of the bands for a long time (Luna Sea, Malice Mizer, Dir en Grey, etc) but I've also come back to the fnadom now and again because I love some of the younger bands (Alice Nine, SuG, a little of The Gazette) but I seem to be a rare breed. When I was 15 a lot of the other fans were in their teens to. Now that I'm 25, a lot of the other fans are (still) in their teens. I think the older crowd mostly lost interest and left.

And we're stuck with the younger crowd. Some of them, like you said, has the mentality that 'if you like this you should hate that' and cried 'Sell out! Sell out!' every time a band grows in popularity. *headdesk*

/thoughts on J-Rock

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[info]full_metal_ox
2012-01-06 12:48 am UTC (link)
If it's any consolation, I discovered J-Rock in my thirties and will turn fifty-one next month--can't you just imagine the fanbrats' consternation that someone old enough to be a grandparent shares their musical tastes?

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-06 01:53 am UTC (link)
I think their poor heads might explode.

(Happy early birthday, btw)

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[info]full_metal_ox
2012-01-07 09:23 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for the birthday wishes; I figure that I've reached a point at which I'm entitled to grumble, without irony, about the Dadgum Kids on the Lawn.

And the caliber of your English has me confident that every twenty-dollar word you used was precisely the one you meant. (Contrary to another frequent misconception about language learning, my own observation/experience is that the high-falutin' superamalgamated words tend to be far from the biggest stumbling block to a non-native learner--they're within the purview of academic study and [at least within the context of Western European language] can generally be disassembled into Greek and Latin particles, giving some gist of their meaning. The real headache tends to be the casual diction and colloquialisms used by native speakers in real life and popular media--Urban Dictionary, by virtue of its casualness and openness to all contributors [and even/especially the resultant internal contradictions] can be a godsend to ESL students--not to mention EFL speakers baffled by unfamiliar slang terms.)

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-08 12:06 am UTC (link)
Oh but slang can be so fun though.One of my favorite QI episodes is still the one with The Cockney Rhyming Slang. Sure, they can be headache-inducing, but oh so much fun :33

Another favorite thing of mine concerning language is regional accents. What makes a New Yorker sounds like a New Yorker, a Bostonian sounds like a Bostonian, that kind of thing. In the case of the Brits, it's even more fascinating how neighboring areas can actually have different dialects even when they're basically next to each other. My old colleague is a Yorkie, and she taught me a how to do a convincing imitation of her accent :3

And don't get me started on Japanese regional accents ;3

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[info]ekaterinv
2012-01-08 12:41 am UTC (link)
Every borough in New York City has its own accent. Manhattan has multiple accents. They also have their own languages, comprehensible to most other New Yorkers but not necessarily to people outside it. ("The city" to a New Yorker = "Manhattan", for instance.)

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-08 02:30 am UTC (link)
...the server is so robust it ate my comment twice.

Ah see, I didn't know that! :3 *has no New Yorker friend IRL*

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[info]phosfate
2012-01-04 10:27 pm UTC (link)
I think I should warn you about using them, 'cause it makes you sound pretentious.

In what universe does this make anyone sound pretentious?

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[info]ingrid
2012-01-04 11:52 pm UTC (link)
pretentious

Psst, "snottypoo" is the word you want here. Less is more ...

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-05 01:55 am UTC (link)
In the universe where 'compute' is a big word. She just messaged me about that one.

Yeah, I got nothin'

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[info]tofuknight
2012-01-05 08:46 pm UTC (link)
Compute is not a big word.

Ignoramus may be.

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[info]full_metal_ox
2012-01-06 12:49 am UTC (link)
As is more often than not the case, there's a trope for that: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnowNothingKnowItAll

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[info]ashenmote
2012-01-08 03:20 pm UTC (link)
You shouldn't use 'universe' when you can simply say 'place'.

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[info]ekaterinv
2012-01-04 10:29 pm UTC (link)
People sometimes do have "thesaurus syndrome", in which they use big fancy words every time a simple one would do better, but I doubt you're one of those people. "Dissipate" isn't even a big fancy word, unless you're writing for 6-year olds.

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[info]lied_ohne_worte
2012-01-05 01:17 pm UTC (link)
Oh, I read an English-language story like that once. Every single sentence had a word that I'd never seen before in my life. And while I am not a native English speaker, I do consider my vocabulary to be pretty extensive (I do know what, say, "dissipate" or "compute" mean, and they wouldn't scare me off a story). I'm almost sure that that story was born from some sort of writing exercise where they author was given a list of words that they'd never usually write, and a teacher tasked them with looking them up and writing a story from them. It was utterly bizarre.

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[info]ekaterinv
2012-01-05 10:57 pm UTC (link)
Christopher Paolini, the Eragon writer, is infamous for it. Sometimes it seems that he wrote stuff just to show off his thesaurus-using skills -- or lack thereof, because sometimes the word he chose isn't quite right.

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[info]kosaginolegion
2012-01-06 01:50 pm UTC (link)
Thesaurus abuse often comes of an author thinking the big words alone prove intelligence. I'm more impressed with the ones who realize that you do that by using the precisely correct word, with all its associated nuances. It's the difference between paying for your lunch with a twenty-dollar bill vs. giving precisely correct change. (Along with an exactly correct tip for the time and place, given you're from a country that does gratuities at all.)

From the sound of it, given I haven't read the story myself, I suspect dissipated is very much the correct word.

Also, as my Partner In Crime up the way says, "...what part of (at least) 'trilingual' equaled 'stupid?'"

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]staroverthebay
2012-01-04 11:16 pm UTC (link)
Wow, no offense, but your beta has some seriously dickish tendencies or something. For some reason, it reminds me of people who, upon learning that someone is deaf or very hard of hearing (and thus relying on lip movements), begin to speak loudly when what they should be doing is speaking clearly, enunciating clearly.

It seems to me like your beta is treating you like you're an idiot because you're not a native speaker of English, when you could very well know more about the language than she does. Being a native speaker of a language doesn't make one an expert, after all.

And, excuse me, but "warning" your reader about big words? Seriously? Doing THAT makes you sound pretentious more so than just using the big words. Doesn't it seem kind of patronizing to "warn" your reader that you're going to use words they're maybe too stupid to understand?

On another topic, if you don't mind sharing, what are the other two languages you're fluent in?

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[info]feenix
2012-01-07 01:34 pm UTC (link)
Yes it does!

AMURRIKA! AMURRIKA! #1! #1!!!

(And yeah, I know that it's not an American thing per se, but it seems to be more common from US people than from others in the English sphere.)

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[info]nevadafighter
2012-01-05 03:16 am UTC (link)
Warning a writer that s/he is using too many fifty-dollar words (worse if it's incorrectly) is one thing, but I really hate the folks who take it too far and try to dumb prose down in the name of "avoiding sounding pretentious" (worse when, like your beta, their substitution is wrong). When you have a beta who can't tell the difference, that indicates a worrying lack of knowledge.

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[info]life_on_mars
2012-01-07 05:05 pm UTC (link)
I always feel that as a writer you should pay your reader the compliment of assuming that they're at least as smart as you are, if not smarter. If you start with the premise that your reader is your intellectual inferior, pretentious is exactly the way you'll sound.

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[info]puipui
2012-01-05 08:10 am UTC (link)
But they don't even mean the same thing! :(

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[info]kaen
2012-01-07 01:05 am UTC (link)
I'm wondering if they're a Harry Potter fan and their thought process went dissipated=disapparated=disappeared.

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[info]sepiamagpie
2012-01-05 12:11 pm UTC (link)
I once got told not to go 'too crazy' with Canadian spelling.

What I'm saying is I feel your pain.

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[info]varkias
2012-01-05 01:09 pm UTC (link)
Ugh, that is awful. Tell her you found someone else and let me do it, please for the love of god, because no one should have to put up with that. I'm not really active in J-rock fandom, more JE, but I'm familiar with it (oh, hide ;.;) and I beta for a number of my friends who are in the same situation as you - comfortable with the language and just needing a double check on the grammar, and that's my favourite kind of beta job anyway.

I'm really sorry someone is treating you like that, it's incredibly rude and condescending to assume that just because someone isn't a native speaker they don't know how to say what they mean. :/ I really would love to help and I have plenty of time just now - I understand if you'd rather not take a chance on someone else, but please don't hesitate on my account. I would be delighted. ♥

Also? Dissipated is an awesome word. So pretty and perfectly descriptive.

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-05 02:05 pm UTC (link)
...Are you a god send? You have got to be. There's no other explanation. I've been wanting to look for a different beta too, but I wasn't looking forward to starting the whole process again, so thank you so much for the offer! I might just take you up on that, especially if you like checking grammar like you said!

Hee... I'm mostly in JE fandom too (primarily KAT-TUN, although I do write for Kimura/Nakai now and then). When I write for J-Rock it's usually because I was prompted.

Would you mind sharing me a way to PM you? Email address or LJ username, maybe?

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[info]varkias
2012-01-05 07:48 pm UTC (link)
Is KT fandom really that big? I don't remember seeing you before! Assuming your LJ is the same. My LJ info is in my profile here, just go ahead and add me there - clearly we should be friends anyway!

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[info]gerorin
2012-01-06 02:00 am UTC (link)
...Hey you know what? Apparently we're already in each other's flist in LJ.

Wait, I'll PM you there.

/fails at being social

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[info]varkias
2012-01-06 05:37 am UTC (link)
*dies* well, that makes things simple! dw though, hardly anyone knows my JF account, so it's not your fault. ♥

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[info]kosaginolegion
2012-01-06 01:52 pm UTC (link)
I am not part of the fandom and likely not on either of your flists, but I'd just like to say that I love it when stuff like this happens.

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[info]lied_ohne_worte
2012-01-05 01:25 pm UTC (link)
I think your beta might be suffering from a limited vocabulary, and I'm entirely serious.

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Oh beta wherefore art thou (like this?)
[info]harvriddle
2012-01-10 12:51 pm UTC (link)
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[info]coffee_mug
2012-01-13 06:44 pm UTC (link)
I feel you.

I usually get condescended to in RL by friends of English-speaking friends. Just because I stumble over my English words when drunk (as do native speakers, as does anybody who is drunk enough!), doesn't mean you have to speak sloooowly to me, I do fine with English, I can bloody talk politics if I want to.

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