Forum: Author Hangout

some minor historical significance, such as used by NYC police once upon a time.

Not just NYPD. The S&W Model 36.38 was for many years (post 1950s through 1970s) the standard issue weapon for detectives and other "plain clothes" LEOs across the US. The short barrel making it easier to conceal.

It was introduced at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) convention in 1950 and became known as the Chiefs Special.

At the time, uniformed patrol officers would likely have been carrying the longer barreled S&W Model 10.

Length Overall - LOA affects boat handling.

S&W Model 36.38 - some minor historical significance, such as used by NYC police once upon a time.

I can see each being a minor detail in setting up a scene. Boat enthusiasts would want one detail, and firearm enthusiasts the other.

Computers, horses, airplanes, all have stories with details like that in them. I have a dim recollection of a story with the history of pet rocks in it. It's just minor pandering to a specific audience. As long as I understand the overall context, I don't worry about it. It's not really something to get your dander up about.

If I understand your response, you believe one shouldn't get their dander up when the author provided details for enthusiasts. If that was your intent, then I agree with you. My point was a different one. I don't object to the details - I object to the lack of enough information for a non-enthusiast to understand.

I object to the lack of enough information for a non-enthusiast to understand.

That is the essence of the thread you started: there should be enough information for a non-enthousiast to understand. Authors that write for a wider audience should add those little bits of extra information for those among us that are not omniscient :)

I disagree with him to an extent.

As long as I understand the overall context, I don't worry about it.

As per my earlier comment, context is more important. If the terms are sufficiently vague as to lose context, then I agree. If the terms are vague, but contextual continuity is maintained, then I disagree.

If the terms are vague, but contextual continuity is maintained, then I disagree.

Why? These are stories, not scientific papers so if the reader understands what is going on it should be ok. "A gun" is vague but if there's an explanation what the gun can do that is needed for the story that should be sufficient. For the story's purpose it's not necessary to know exactly what brand, caliber etc. (Unless of course that's essential to the story and accurate for those who do know more about it.)

ETA re-reading this I think we do agree, if contextual continuity is maintained no extra explanations are required.

ETA re-reading this I think we do agree, if contextual continuity is maintained no extra explanations are required.

Exactly

context

Pro and con are opposites. Pro being in favor of and con being against. Text that is in favor of something would be Protext. If against, Context.

"In linguistics, the term text refers to:

The original words of something written, printed, or spoken, in contrast to a summary or paraphrase.
A coherent stretch of language that may be regarded as an object of critical analysis.

Text linguistics refers to a form of discourse analysis—a method of studying written or spoken language—that is concerned with the description and analysis of extended texts (those beyond the level of the single sentence). A text can be any example of written or spoken language, from something as complex as a book or legal document to something as simple as the body of an email or the words on the back of a cereal box.

In the humanities, different fields of study concern themselves with different forms of texts. Literary theorists, for example, focus primarily on literary texts—novels, essays, stories, and poems. Legal scholars focus on legal texts such as laws, contracts, decrees, and regulations. Cultural theorists work with a wide variety of texts, including those that may not typically be the subject of studies, such as advertisements, signage, instruction manuals, and other ephemera.

Text Definition
Traditionally, a text is understood to be a piece of written or spoken material in its primary form (as opposed to a paraphrase or summary). A text is any stretch of language that can be understood in context. It may be as simple as 1-2 words (such as a stop sign) or as complex as a novel. Any sequence of sentences that belong together can be considered a text.

Text refers to content rather than form; for example, if you were talking about the text of "Don Quixote," you would be referring to the words in the book, not the physical book itself. Information related to a text, and often printed alongside it—such as an author's name, the publisher, the date of publication, etc.—is known as paratext.

The idea of what constitutes a text has evolved over time. In recent years, the dynamics of technology—especially social media—have expanded the notion of the text to include symbols such as emoticons and emojis. A sociologist studying teenage communication, for example, might refer to texts that combine traditional language and graphic symbols.

Texts and New Technologies
The concept of the text is not a stable one. It is always changing as the technologies for publishing and disseminating texts evolve. In the past, texts were usually presented as printed matter in bound volumes such as pamphlets or books. Today, however, people are more likely to encounter texts in digital space, where the materials are becoming "more fluid," according to linguists David Barton and Carmen Lee:

" Texts can no longer be thought of as relatively fixed and stable. They are more fluid with the changing affordances of new media. In addition, they are becoming increasingly multimodal and interactive. Links between texts are complex online, and intertextuality is common in online texts as people draw upon and play with other texts available on the web."
An example of such intertextuality can be found in any popular news story. An article in The New York Times, for example, may contain embedded tweets from Twitter, links to outside articles, or links to primary sources such as press releases or other documents. With a text such as this, it is sometimes difficult to describe what exactly is part of the text and what is not. An embedded tweet, for instance, may be essential to understanding the text around it—and therefore part of the text itself—but it is also its own independent text. On social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogs and Wikipedia, it is common to find such relationships between texts.

Text Linguistics
Text linguistics is a field of study where texts are treated as communication systems. The analysis deals with stretches of language beyond the single sentence and focuses particularly on context, i.e. information that goes along with what is said and written. Context includes such things as the social relationship between two speakers or correspondents, the place where communication occurs, and non-verbal information such as body language. Linguists use this contextual information to describe the "socio-cultural environment" in which a text exists.

Sources
Barton, David, and Carmen Lee. "Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices." Routledge, 2013.
Carter, Ronald, and Michael McCarthy. "Cambridge Grammar of English." Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Ching, Marvin K. L., et al. "Linguistic Perspectives on Literature." Routledge, 2015."

Okay, I lied. You can, but you have to use the correct definitions.

The prefix con-, which means "with" or "thoroughly,"

(source: google)

So context literally means "with the text"

This was little more than a pretext for gratuitous use of etymology.

This was little more than a pretext for gratuitous use of etymology.

This is a post text to ask: Why are you arguing with the smiling penis?

context Pro and con are opposites. ... blah, blah, blah ... a text is .. blah, blah, blah.

Old joke. "If con is the opposite of pro, what is the opposite of Progress?"

the opposite of Progress

Congress.

It isn't as funny as it used to be.

It isn't as funny as it used to be.

It was never funny. It's too true to be funny.

Old joke. "If con is the opposite of pro, what is the opposite of Progress?"

If a crime fighter fights crime
And a firefighter fights fires
Then what does a freedom fighter fight..??

ISIS consider themselves freedom fighters, as does China's People's Liberation Army.

Yup, freedom fighters fight freedom.

freedom

The dom (Dominant person) is free to do what ever they want.
A free Dom.

Updated: 6/26/2020, 1:41:11 PM
"When Holmes in one of his queer humors would sit in an arm-chair with his hair trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges,

Well, Doyle (or Watson) provides details. The pistol had a hair trigger and he used Boxer cartridges. The point is that the details add a sense of the narration being realistic without the particulars of the details being crucial (Does anyone know what a Boxer cartridge is?)

This goes with another frequent failing in online erotica. The girl is 5' 6 1/2" with robins-egg blue eyes, honey-blonde hair, a peaches&cream complexion and a 32 DD bra size. That's too much description. But you should put a little description in.

Does anyone know what a Boxer cartridge is?

I always read "a hundred Boxer cartridges" as and odd London slang way of saying a box of 100 cartridges.

ETA: Google & Wikipedia inform me that I was wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartridge_(firearms)

The identifying feature of centerfire ammunition is the primer which is a metal cup containing a primary explosive inserted into a recess in the center of the base of the cartridge. The firearm firing pin crushes this explosive between the cup and an anvil to produce hot gas and a shower of incandescent particles to ignite the powder charge.[8] Berdan and Boxer cartridge primers are both considered "centerfire" and are not interchangeable at the primer level; however, the same weapon can fire either Berdan- or Boxer-primed cartridges if the overall dimensions are the same.[9]

Back in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's day, center-fire cartridges would have been relatively new so the primer type would have been and important detail.

One other point, the Berdan primer setup was invented in the US and the Boxer primer setup was invented in the UK.

AMA - The most important private source for education for freedmen was the American Missionary Association. In the characters' thoughts and dialogue, however, it was the AMA. Today, if your not a historian or a mathematician, those initials can only mean the American Medical Association

I have a story where depending on the context, the initials OSU can mean a 'State University' in either Oregon, Oklahoma, or Ohio. Most of the time when they are used the context provides a way to tell which the one being refeered to.

I chose to buy the Glock pistol because I wanted a gun I could use without having to remember to disengage the safety when I went to use while the built in safety of the Glock meant it didn't discharge by accident.

An excellent way to tell a non-gun specialist what is so specific about the gun that it is chosen for the purpose! In a short, nicely readable way it explains a. that a Glock is a gun, b. that it has no safety, and c. that not having a safety is still safe to wear and use. And yes, there are readers that don't know that a Glock is a gun although SOL made sure most will know it by now :D

The only issue I have with a Glock is that it's bit of an pain to keep the third round on target, due to the recoil effects. I prefer my Sig-Sauer, because it acts more like a Model 1911 for recoil.

The rake angle of a Glock is more aggressive than a Sig-Sauer or 1911. The human hand has a rake angle as well. Which pistol rake angle works best for an individual is ties to that persons palm rake angle.

If you rest your hand and forearm it will curl your fingers naturally. Holding your arm vertically in front of you while resting your forearm in this manner will reveal your personal rake angle.

With your minds eye, draw a vertical line centered on your forearm up through your wrist and past your middle finger. The offset from that line to the angle your middle finger takes at rest is your personal rake angle.

The pistol grip with the closest match to your personal rake angle will be the better fit and more accurate for point and shoot rapid defense. It will also allow faster more natural follow up shots.

What you described tells me the shallower rake angle of a 1911 and alike grips are more your natural angle than of a Glock for you. The energy of recoil is secondary to that.

Ohio

I believe The Ohio State University almost always uses "The". It isn't "Ohio State University" it is The Ohio State University.

what a terrific attraction for today's woke snowflake students.

I wonder what adjectives those students would use to lump all of us together.

Coronavirus fodder.

Is that why it was Fodders Day June 21st?

It's fairly easy in a story to write "the American Missionary Association (AMA)" on first reference, and just AMA after that.
"In many rural areas, even today, the largest meal of the day is dinner and is eaten mid-day. The evening meal was called supper, often either soup or leftovers from dinner."

It's fairly easy in a story to write "the American Missionary Association (AMA)" on first reference, and just AMA after that.
"In many rural areas, even today, the largest meal of the day is dinner and is eaten mid-day. The evening meal was called supper, often either soup or leftovers from dinner."

Well, I do context "AMA" thus, the first time. (Which means that I have to use it in narrative rather than in dialogue the first time. I am, however, not 100% sure that all my readers will remember that first use 200 K later in the story.

"Dinner" is one o those words that are slowly evolving. That aa minority of readers won't have problems with the old meaning is cold comfort.

I am, however, not 100% sure that all my readers will remember that first use 200 K later in the story.

So do it the first time it's used in each chapter.

But there is a different approach that the late Dick Francis used, mostly with success. His novels often used a specialized field of knowledge as the main ingredient.

To narrow it down a bit, could you please name ONE Dick Francis novel in which he did that? I'm a reader, not an author, and I'd like to not have to read all of them just so I can find one that uses that technique. Thanks.

I know you said ONE, but I will list a few:
Dead Cert, and many others for horse racing (and horse betting);
Rat Race, flying (GA);
Shattered, glass-making.

Thank you very much for the list. I'll read all three.

How about, almost any of them. From inside racing, boating, photography, ad nauseam.

Photography, eh?

I have a degree in photography, and one of my professors made the "photo finish" photos at a racetrack as his first job as a teenager.

So I've ordered the book "Reflex". We'll see....