Notices by David Lee Holcomb (davidleeholcomb@mastodon.social)

@cstross -- I've been wondering about that. English is such a salad of other languages. It's hard to know where to draw the line. Is "deja vu" English enough now to forego the italics? What about "fajita"? "Per capita"? "Aficionado"? It seems arbitrary to just pick a random date and say "everything adopted after this point is still foreign." I struggle to find clear guidelines.

@cstross Some sci-fi authors sidestep the short shelf-life problem by creating their street slang from scratch. That way, they're not seduced into assuming that the readers of 2020 are going to be impressed by the street talk of 2010.

@cstross I find that I'm bewildered by all the sub-genres. They seem to come and go with the tides, and the definitions depend on who you're talking to -- but many agents demand that you identify your work according to those hyper-specific classifications.

@cstross I struggle with this. I'm told that my older, white, gay male protagonists are not what the readers want to see, but as I'm not a "feisty young woman coming from a challenging racial, economic, and social history" (plus dragons), I'm not sure how to take that advice.

@ironchamber -- I've been haunted for most of my adult life by "solder." Why the hell isn't that pronounced "soul-dur"? And why didn't anybody tell me it wasn't?

@DXMacGuffin @Saltssaltgirl
Arkansas, here. I feel your pain! I voted in the Fayetteville Public Library, amid a cluster of non-Trump voters, which eased the pain somewhat. The electoral college has to go.