The color of the spoken word....

Enigma · Oct 7, 2005

I recently got in a heated discussion with someone over the use of the word “skank.”

The outcome is of no importance but, since the color of language is our stock in trade, it made me think of regional and local colloquialisms (as opposed to slang) and I’ve belatedly started to build a collection for my electronic library of (potentially) useful information.

Maybe you can add to it:

South – rural: “Don’t that kick yer hat in the creek?” Meaning the same as, “I’ll be darned.”
South – rural: “He done bowed up and stopped.” Meaning, he quit moving unexpectedly, as mules are bane to do sometimes.
South – mountains: “I can pee off the porch.” Meaning, in response to the question, “How far out do you live?” that he doesn’t have any neighbors (we hope).
Southeast (and probably other regions): “Man, she’s so ugly she could worm a dog.” That doesn’t need explaining, I hope.
West Virginia: “He’s a white eye.” Meaning: he’s a coal miner.
….

Joe Calabrese · Oct 7, 2005

I think this brings up an important point.

We want to have our characters talk as realistic as possible in accordance to thier profession, social and culteral backgrounds, but there is a fine line that we writers must walk, which has to do with your reader's understanding.

Saying something like "“He’s a white eye.” or having characters who speak in a jargon that only a select group would understand must be clear (or clear as possible) to the reader, either in the context of the sentence or with some kind of casual explanation (but be careful to not make it sound that way).

So, “He’s a white eye.” should be followed up by another person saying something like "Yeah? So, how long he been in the mines?" This way the reader can surmise that white eye is a term used for a coal miner?

This problem with reading and understanding jargon especially comes into play when two professionals talk their "job speak."

For instance. Scientists that talk about a "quantum accelerator." They don't need to explain to each other what the device does (after all they use it and already know its function), but the reader doesn't know what it is and its use.

So, we as the writer needs to use those terms to add authenticity in speech, but need to make clearer things that have no meaning otherwise. Again, careful not to make it sound like " Ah yes Bob, as you know, the quantum accelerator is a device that..."

This was a problem that the studios had with ER. They originally thought that there was too much technical jargon for the audience to understand in the pilot episode and on top of that the characters spoke very quickly. The show was picked up on the promise of at least putting the jargon in a context that most people could understand. Slowly over the years, ER has dropped that and now they rattle off terms with no need for explanation, but then again, they have already been sold.

That's my musing for the day on the subject.

Enigma · Oct 7, 2005

Excellent

The only thing I can add to your excellent musing, Joe, is .. print it out and tack it on the wall.

Yes, colloquialisms have to be used strictly in context because the audience can't be expected to know them. God knows, I'm from the South but I can't understand half the ones they use around here. Y'uns, for example. It means all of you, or your group or family, but, brother, unless the character saying it fits the scene, big mistake to use.

I think of them as "throw-away" remarks, ones that won't effect the story other than to make the character more believable or for a touch of comic relief, or color. I'm fighting that battle now in a script. Music people have their own language off the stage.

I vaguely recall "white eye" being used once. It may have been in a TV series called "Moving On" on in Segal's "Down Under," or "The Loretta Lynn Story." Anyway, a mine boss was talking to someone about another man and said something contemptious to the effect, "Be careful of that one. He's a white eye." When that man turned around and you saw his eyes, the way they looked (rimmed in black) and the hatred in them, you didn't have to be from the coal fields of West Virginia to know full well what he was and what the speaker meant.

Interesting history about ER, BTW. Don't they have a doctor or maybe a surg nurse on the writing staff?

Break over. Back to work.

scripter1 · Oct 7, 2005

Your example

about the goal miner showing his "white eye" is perfect.
When you first wrote it, that is what I saw, a visual of black dust rimming a man's eyes.

Always try to write visually first, then go for a sound effect, and lastly use dialog.

dpaterso · Oct 7, 2005

Didn't Injuns always refer to white men as "white-eyes" in old cowboy movies? The coal miner explanation surprised me, I was already feeling the hot sun on my neck and tasting prairie dust.

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Enigma · Oct 7, 2005

How ture

scripter1 said:
about the goal miner showing his "white eye" is perfect.
When you first wrote it, that is what I saw, a visual of black dust rimming a man's eyes.

Always try to write visually first, then go for a sound effect, and lastly use dialog.

I used to have a little sign taped to the top of my screen that said, simply:

Write visually, stupid!

I think I'll print it out again because I at least need to be constantly reminded of it!

Enigma · Oct 7, 2005

Yeah

dpaterso said:
Didn't Injuns always refer to white men as "white-eyes" in old cowboy movies? The coal miner explanation surprised me, I was already feeling the hot sun on my neck and tasting prairie dust.

You're right, d, but there the heat comes from being 900 or so feet down in the deepest and darkest bowels of the Earth where the air is always foul and the taste in a man's mouth is that of sweat and coal dust mixed into the Devil's gruel by the constant fear of dying a horrible death, alone, unreachable except by the hand of an unmerciful God.

In between birth and death, a miner's face never becomes really clean. His blood-shot eyes, even after a bath and dressed in his church clothes look as if they've been tattooed by some sadistic monster as a way of marking him as one of the condemned.

Kind of makes me homesick for the mountains of West Virginia - NOT!

The color of the spoken word....

Enigma

Joe Calabrese

Enigma

scripter1

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dpaterso

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