Officially Technological
Friday, July 27, 2007
The New Name Dropping
OK, so I’m reading a book named “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” by Elizabeth Berg, and it’s good and everything, but I’ve noticed a few annoying trends. If you read novels, maybe you’ve noticed it too. “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” is about an Irish family who lives in Chicago during the Second World War, and they have three daughters who have various boys in various parts of the world all of whom are fighting the bad guys. Anyway, I’m sure it’s very touching and all, but it’s kind of annoying me because the author drops little lines using 1940’s language. It’s kind of like name-dropping. I think it’s like she’s trying to prove that she did enough research to know all the slang that was used in the 40’s.
I call this the new name-dropping because when you read novels from that time period, they used slang, but sparingly, just like how authors now use slang sparingly. I mean, sometimes, more slang is needed to get the point across, but in general, people write much better than they speak (which says scary things about the way some people speak). Anyway, you can tell that someone isn’t from that culture when they use tons of slang. Like how you can tell when someone’s not famous because they name-drop. You know I’m not famous because I always say things like I know one of the writers for the show “Desperate Housewives”. If I were famous I wouldn’t talk about knowing him because it wouldn’t matter. I mean, if I were an actress in Hollywood, of course I would know the writers of major shows.
So, here I am reading this book. And I’m trying not to notice when things are said like, “Kitty smiled; this one was what Julian would call ‘khaki wacky’. But he would also say she was Able-Grable. A blackout girl. A dilly. Good-looking, in other words (pg. 37, Dream When You’re Feeling Blue).” OK, so that’s four phrases right in a row, and the whole book is like that. *gasp for breath after tirade*
But other than that, it’s enjoyable.
Oh, and the other thing that’s annoying is this lady is on the New York Times Best-Seller list (for other novels) and I want to say, “Don’t try so hard, chick! You’ve made it! Just write nice stories!”
I’m done now.
I call this the new name-dropping because when you read novels from that time period, they used slang, but sparingly, just like how authors now use slang sparingly. I mean, sometimes, more slang is needed to get the point across, but in general, people write much better than they speak (which says scary things about the way some people speak). Anyway, you can tell that someone isn’t from that culture when they use tons of slang. Like how you can tell when someone’s not famous because they name-drop. You know I’m not famous because I always say things like I know one of the writers for the show “Desperate Housewives”. If I were famous I wouldn’t talk about knowing him because it wouldn’t matter. I mean, if I were an actress in Hollywood, of course I would know the writers of major shows.
So, here I am reading this book. And I’m trying not to notice when things are said like, “Kitty smiled; this one was what Julian would call ‘khaki wacky’. But he would also say she was Able-Grable. A blackout girl. A dilly. Good-looking, in other words (pg. 37, Dream When You’re Feeling Blue).” OK, so that’s four phrases right in a row, and the whole book is like that. *gasp for breath after tirade*
But other than that, it’s enjoyable.
Oh, and the other thing that’s annoying is this lady is on the New York Times Best-Seller list (for other novels) and I want to say, “Don’t try so hard, chick! You’ve made it! Just write nice stories!”
I’m done now.
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