"10 Types of Hypercorrection" Article

[SinSisters]

I found an interesting article on 10 Types of Hypercorrection by Mark Nichol. It really reflects a lot on topics similar to those I've seen debated on this forum. Technically correct writing vs naturally sounding writing. Of course, as writers, we shouldn't perpetuate incorrect writing (even if it sounds natural) or sayings, such as "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes". Writing for a visual novel, novel, comic, and formal letter all require different styles of writing.

Personally, I feel like in a formal letter, one should conform to the technically correct writing, whereas in literature written for entertainment, I would consider it better to have a natural flow and feel to my writing (especially in dialogue). Thoughts?

-Nat

[breadslam]

Thanks for posting this article, Nat. I read through it and found a lot of good points for my NaNoWriMo kids when they get around to revising.

I subscribe to the same philosophy as you when it comes to entertainment prose versus formal writing. My work tends toward going too informal over too formal.

[pinkmouse]

Personally, I feel like in a formal letter, one should conform to the technically correct writing, whereas in literature written for entertainment, I would consider it better to have a natural flow and feel to my writing (especially in dialogue). Thoughts?

-Nat

Focus on the purpose of the writing, and you won't go wrong.

The purpose of a business letter is to convey information clearly and concisely. So you deviate as little as possible from standard forms to avoid introducing ambiguity.

The purpose of a recipe is to enable someone to follow along: so the formal layout reflects this purpose. The ingredients list makes it easy to check that everything is available, and the instructions text is in chronological order, using simple, short sentences. No flashbacks!

But the purpose of dialogue is to imitate spoken language. Spoken language differs from written language in that it's interactive, and real-time. Because it's interactive, spoken language can trade clarity for speed, and so is often a lot less precise than written language.

For example, it's okay for me to begin a conversation by saying to you - "hey, that thing last night-" without initially specifying the "thing" because I can instantly get feedback on whether you comprehend or not, and vary my next statement accordingly (either "You know: the noise downstairs" or "I'm not so sure it was Bingo. He's not usually clumsy.") We recognize this to-and-fro of statement and clarification as characteristic of speech, and consequently dialogue composed to "written communications grade" where subjects are first presented, then developed and finally concluded sounds odd, and stilted.

Also, when I'm writing something, if I pause a moment to consider the next word or sentence, it's not visible to the reader. But in real-time conversations such pauses for thought are obvious. So we're used to hearing people "umm" and "err" and speak in sentence fragments as they organize their thoughts. It's another noticeable characteristic of casual spoken language.

Now of course dialogue is written communication, so we don't have the luxury of feedback and have to make sure that the reader is able to follow along. Where we deviate from the "utmost clarity" of formal written language we do so for a definite purpose, such as character development. "It ain't necessarily so," or "Don't! My leg!" are both examples of perfectly good dialogue despite being grammatically wrong.

It's this tension between between a written form imitating a spoken form of language that adds so much to the challenge of writing good dialogue, and, I think, why it also sometimes generates such conflicting advice.

[SinSisters]

I completely agree with you! You've just written a very nice way of formulating the thoughts I wasn't quite able to express.

-Nat