Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Is there a SOL story that has great dialogue, teen or otherwise?

In my "Country Boy" series, I tried hard to capture the essence of the "Valley Girl" way of talking in the early 1980's. The way they talked, and the things they said as well as when. Even going so far as to show that it was in many ways a "jargon" that was not always used. The characters would slip in and out of it, depending on the situation.

Not unlike say somebody from Compton or Inglewood could speak like they were "back on the block" in the ghetto. Then turn right around in a professional environment and speak completely properly and appropriately.

Or myself, when surrounded by others in the military my language and way of talking takes a serious shift. Vulgarities are much more common, as what we say based on our shared jargon. But saying the exact same thing in front of others I would say it completely differently.

"Hey there John, having problems with that?"

"Hey Jackson, get that dick out of your ass and get that done!"

I run into fun sometimes with my editors because I at least try to write like people talk, which is NOT grammatically correct. I'll throw extra words in, sometimes mix up the tenses, and otherwise try to make actual dialogue read like people of that ethnic and social background WOULD talk.

That's what I used to do back when I was active. A lot of euphemisms and sentences that were short and lacking full context. A lot of intentional grammar mistakes. Trying to be character consistent though, which is very hard to do.

Something I used to do a lot of that can be seen as a mistake in 2022 is culturally specific slang.

It runs into a mix of Uncanny Valley and giving offense when, if you're not from a given culture - the closer you get to being 100% accurate the more obvious it becomes that you're actually faking it.

(Uncanny Valley is the same notion in animation - the more human something looks the more our eyes notice and are disturbed by the tiny flaws that still remain).

We can see now from actresses like Awkwafina that for example, 'faking a Black dialect' is very offensive.

You then run into the problem of... I have a Black character who's 18 or 19, they're going to talk with a lot of youthful expressions - they shouldn't sound with the same voice as the white character I have who's 31. How do I do this without being offensive, yet also feeling genuine?

Not easy.

But dialog is so important to establishing character. And when everyone talks like a bunch of 57 year folks at their 'prep school reunion party' just outside of Cambridge... despite being a pack of 16 year old from the Bronx, that story has issues too.

Yep. I'm actually not sure if the term originates with robots or animation.

But it definitely is something I've felt in reading stories.

One thing I'm always afraid to do when writing a character who language is not one I speak is to give them any dialog in that language. If I look something up online - is it correct, outdated, or do I have the context wrong.

The very same tool can make a character feel either very real or very unreal with just a slightly different take.

I'd rather not try than mess that up, and messing it up could make them seem dumb, incompetent, or unthinking. So, I'm writing their conversations without that attempt and hoping their characters ring true in other ways.

Yeah that's probably the best way to handle it. Make the characters true through their actions more than the style/spelling of specific words.

You could argue that the author is telling a story, and their first duty is to make it comprehensible to the reader. The more heavily an author gets into dialect or foreign languages, the more chance they stand of failing.

My central rule for dialects, since I'm notoriously bad at it, is to start off heavy for a couple of paragraphs, just so the readers gets used to how the character sounds, then immediately drop down to something easier to read, using a couple key phrases to remind the readers who's talking and remind them off the accent.

But I've read way too many literary works which were famous for their 'authentic dialects' which were virtually impossible to read, and no author wants that!

Similarly, I know very few people who would actually say, "I'll meet you in a couple of hours." They'd say "I'll meet you in a couple hours." The 'of' is virtually always elided. I'll still write it, though, because it's a place where a large subset of readers will consider it an error. No one considers the 'of' an error, and by itself it's hardly distinctive enough to add a much 'realism'.

The "of" in real speech doesn't always completely disappear; it becomes a barely discernable "a." How this is best represented in fiction is pretty much up to the writer.

"I'll meet you in a couple of hours."

"I'll meet'cha in a couple hours."

"A'll meet'cha in a couple a'hours."

I'd go with the first choice and trust the reader to read it "properly." Likely this would have greater success the better the writer had established the character's voice.

A better solution might be to get it out of dialogue. How important is it as speech?

He told me he'd meet me in a couple of hours.

the first couple

Isn't that the president and wifey?

AJ

The "of" in real speech doesn't always completely disappear; it becomes a barely discernable "a."

That's my impression too. But if a writer leaves out the 'of' in dialogue, it's possible to write something that's ambiguous if the readers don't know which meaning of 'couple' is intended.

AJ

Test-saying it out loud, there's no 'a' there at all. Of course, that's a fairly unusual thing to do, so who knows? In either case, for rendering as written dialogue, I'd use the 'of.'

When I'm writing, I also often elide the 'of,' then add it in editing. I don't 'hear' it in my head, so I don't write it.

Test-saying it out loud, there's no 'a' there at all. Of course, that's a fairly unusual thing to do, so who knows? In either case, for rendering as written dialogue, I'd use the 'of.'

It depends on the sentence.

For instance: "I'm gonna give you a couple spanks."

Without some sound after couple, spanks is naked.

I'd write it "a couple of spanks" and trust the reader to read it right.

But in the sentence: "Couple dollars is all I need" there's not necessarily the "a" sound.

When I'm writing, I also often elide the 'of,' then add it in editing.

I actually take the "of" out of the sentence in the narrative when editing. Not always, but often. In the dialogue, however, I'd have the "of" in that sentence. I think most people say the "of."

I have to wonder...

A pair Kings or a pair of Kings?

A quartet cellists or a quartet of cellists?

AJ

A pair Kings or a pair of Kings?

A quartet cellists or a quartet of cellists?

In both of those I would definitely have the "of."

In both of those I would definitely have the "of."

This is something one of my editors and I disagree on. He frequently tells me 'of' isn't needed in a sentence. BUT - he's also using text to voice software, so it's reading the story to him. Writing, I put the 'of' in, but if I was actually talking, normally I say 'uh'

Writing: I have a pair of Kings
Speaking: I have a pair uh Kings

Writing: There's a couple of things I want to talk about.
Speaking: There's a couple uh things I want to talk about.

He frequently tells me 'of' isn't needed in a sentence

A long time ago I had a thread that listed unnecessary words, words like "very" but also "of." I'm one of those who agree with your editor, however, there are times those words are necessary. So I sometimes use the word "very" and sometimes, more often than "very," use the word "of."

I never experienced anyone substituting "uh" for "of" when speaking unless they were pausing to think of what to say next.

I have. They aren't really substituting "uh" for "of", just mangling the pronunciation of "of".

Oh, we're not just mangling it. We're destroying it!

Don't go up that crick without a paddle, or try to clean your boat with good worshcloths!

They aren't really substituting "uh" for "of", just mangling the pronunciation of "of".

'Of' doesn't miss out - it gains all the mispronunciations of 'have'. ;-)

AJ

Reminds me of a scene in a movie set around 1830; the character played by Fess Parker is trying to teach the children of a French-Canadian woman "gooder" English.

He is reciting:
"I'm gonna."
"He's a gonna."
"She's a gonna."
"They's a gonna."

The mother exclaims, "What are you teaching them!"

He replies, "I'm a teach'n em, thar 'Gonnas' so's They's can be understoot." With a proud smile on his face 😁

It's the normal speaking pattern to drop the "v" sound at the end of "of" when it is followed by a word beginning with a consonant.

I think it must be regional. While it does happen to some extent where I live, it's by no means the standard.

AJ

I don't know where you're located

England.

I suspect the tendency to 'reduce speech' is greater when there's more speech to reduce ie drawlier.

AJ

Not according to linguists.

I find that very strange and not something I can reproduce. You only have to watch a range of US TV dramas to realise that actors who speak more like the English, ie generally shorter sounds in their words, enunciate 'of' much more clearly than actors who speak with a strong American accent with more drawn-out sounds.

AJ

Going off slightly on a tangent here, because it doesn't address the British vs American angle, I belatedly Googled this and found:

https://chatterfox.com/reduce-the-word-of-1-easy-way-to-speak-american-english-fast/

It's all about the reductions of 'of'. Most of them look bizarre when written, but if you sound out what they look like, it's close to spot on for many American speakers. I would still argue that, where I grew up and where I live, "See you in a couple hours!" with no discernable 'a' would be normal. However, the 'a' works, too. My suspicion is that 'couple' follows the way 'few' works. No one would say 'a few of hours'. When using 'couple' as informal counting, it takes the form of 'few'.

More references:

https://www.businessenglishresources.com/learn-english-for-business/teachers-section/mini-lessons/common-english-reductions/

https://www.speakconfidentenglish.com/reductions-american-english-pronunciation/

https://funeasyenglish.com/new-american-english-reductions-reduced-words-introduction.htm

This one I found particularly interesting:
https://rachelsenglish.com/h-reduction/

Some of this translates to written English (contractions, gonna/shoulda/etc) but a lot doesn't, unless writing dialect is what you're going for (couplea doesn't read well for most people, and couple a' isn't much better).

I pity English Language teachers who have to teach students that 'couple' doesn't obey the standard rules that apply to its peers.

AJ

As noted, 'couple' follows (if one wishes to treat it as an adjective) the same rules as 'few' and 'many', both of which are arguably 'peers'.

I pity English Language teachers in general, because most of the 'standard rules' aren't (aka have many exceptions).

I never experienced anyone substituting "uh" for "of" when speaking unless they were pausing to think of what to say next.

That's a tricky one, as 'uh' is traditionally used in spoken speech as a temporary pause to gather one's thoughts, rather than an abbreviation of 'of'. So using it in the wrong context might very well throw readers from a wide variety of backgrounds. (Typically, when doing this, I throw in ellipses to ensure the usage is interpreted correctly (ex: "So I said, uh … 'Hold my pint, bitch!'".))

That said, I can't recall a single usage of "uh" is ANY literary work, in any given context. And while many decry the nature of literary works, they're still the 'gold standard' concerning writing of any form (other than college text, which have their own 'PC' nomenclature.

Of course, the other side of the dialect discussion is the focus on specific words and phrases, rather than specific dialogue uses which are likely unrecognizable by most readers. I've always loved James Harriot's All Creatures Great and Small, because the language almost never sounds either forced nor foreign. Instead, if you actually take the time to look up the individual words commonly used in his stories, it gives you a tremendous insight into the everyday workings of a vet, as the words often skipped over by readers are actually either descriptions of specific events, or medical terminology during that particular period.

That said, I can't recall a single usage of "uh" is ANY literary work, in any given context. And while many decry the nature of literary works, they're still the 'gold standard' concerning writing of any form (other than college text, which have their own 'PC' nomenclature.

Louis L'Amour used "Uh" in replacement of "Of" or other words, as well as a verbal pause in more than a few of his novels and short stories. I believe Zane Grey did too.

Louis L'Amour wrote dialogue in a variety of dialects and "education levels" as well as foreign languages/words/accents (often in a "mish-mash").

I lack his panash, and perhaps it is a mistake, but I sometimes try to write using a bit of his style as inspiration. I do not "copy" him, not only would that be foolish, I am writing stories set in a different time and circumstances than his stories.

Louis L'Amour used "Uh" in replacement of "Of" or other words, as well as a verbal pause in more than a few of his novels and short stories. I believe Zane Grey did too.

Mark Twain was also exceptional at it, as was Joel Chandler as well as Damon Runyon. For Damon, his vernacular always stands out as it sounds strange when heard and most can not understand why. But it is because in addition to the slang his stories were full of, none of his characters ever used contractions and spoke almost entirely in the present tense. "Guys and Dolls" and "Little Miss Marker" are probably his most well known works that have become movies.

https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Damon_Runyon_Singles/Damon_Runyon__4x-xx-xx_ep02_Little_Miss_Marker.mp3

Or a cellists quartet.

A few Kings or a few of Kings?

Many cellists or many of cellists?

The argument here is that 'couple', in terms of small-number word use, is often used more like 'few' or many' than 'pair' or 'quartet'. Is that true? Eye of the beholder, pretty much.

A few Kings or a few of Kings?

Many cellists or many of cellists?

'few' and 'many' are listed by my dictionary as determiners, pronouns and adjectives.

'couple' is listed by my dictionary as a noun (as are 'pair' and 'quartet').

AJ

Dictionaries differ on the point. Merriam-Webster lists 'couple' as a noun, verb, or adjective.

In their usage notes (quoted above by @mauidreamer5), they specifically state that the adjective form is 'not nonstandard', though also restrict some uses to being an 'Americanism' which is 'common in speech and in writing that is not meant to be formal or elevated.'

In the 'recent usage examples' there are quite a list of 2022/2021 usages that come from publications. Admittedly, the standard of grammar in journalism has slipped considerably.

I suspect that, in this as in many things, much of the debate comes down whether one is a prescriptive or descriptive grammarian. A prescriptive grammarian would likely declare it to be nonstandard; a descriptive grammarian would look at usage and declare it to be standard, at least as a regionalism.

That said, while I still feel that it's 'how people talk,' at least in the areas I'm writing about, my writing will include the 'of.' No one sees the 'of' as a mistake, while enough people see the lack of an 'of' as a mistake that it's better to include it.

Dictionaries differ on the point. Merriam-Webster lists 'couple' as a noun, verb, or adjective.

I omitted 'verb' because it didn't seem pertinent.

The Merriam Webster definition, if I'm reading it correctly, can lead to confusion.

PokerFred: "What have you got?"

PokerBob: "A couple Kings."
(Without the 'of', it's the adjectival form meaning 'few')

PokerFred: "I've got three Queens."

PokerBob lays down three Kings.

AJ

A quartet cellists or a quartet of cellists?

Or "a cellist quartet".

I think we also somewhat correct our grammar when recalling what we said. I suspect that if you record your speech and then play it back later AFTER trying to write out what you had said then, there would be differences.

A lot of what will differ is pauses, dropped out filler words, and elements that add context. When we speak we often carry forward context through the conversation, or infer it from the situation (usually both of these things). When we write it down we often fill that context in. At least with English. In some languages it is never filled in and always derived from the surrounded elements - even in writing.

*****

For younger people, one easy way to make their speech more genuine is top drop in reflection pauses. Lots of 'ums' and 'like' and 'you knows'. Do a little research and see if these pauses are different in the decade your story is set, and swap in that decades versions of them.

The moments when you're trying to think of what to say, or keep your thoughts together. Younger people are more likely to actually verbalize those moments.

I think we also somewhat correct our grammar when recalling what we said. I suspect that if you record your speech and then play it back later AFTER trying to write out what you had said then, there would be differences.

A lot of what will differ is pauses, dropped out filler words, and elements that add context. When we speak we often carry forward context through the conversation, or infer it from the situation (usually both of these things). When we write it down we often fill that context in. At least with English. In some languages it is never filled in and always derived from the surrounded elements - even in writing.

A different aspect of dropped words or phrases: In a part of southern Pennsylvania and bordering West Virginia, people routinely leave "to be" out of phrases such as:

That boy needs to be spanked.

They say:

That boy needs spanked.

I'd hesitate to write it that way in a story because people not familiar with the local dialect would likely be thrown off.

I'd hesitate to write it that way in a story because people not familiar with the local dialect would likely be thrown off.

Another thing to note is that readers in places like California, where I am, would believe you were trying to 'fake Black speech' because it sounds "similar" to their stereotypes of how they think the Black community talks...

In other words, they would accuse you of being racist as a product of their own racial stereotyping... :)

(Cause you just can't win)

I probably resemble that remark, but I run most of my conversations past my 'inner ear' and they mostly fit into the pattern of actual conversations I've been in.

Often, it's useful to have passages of dialogue read aloud. First, it's a great way to catch similar but incorrect words, secondly it helps tighten the pacing of the dialogue, which is often more important than the words themselves, and then third, you can then focus on precisely how each character speaks.

There are now a wide variety of have text read aloud. Significant others is always useful, but they tire of that quickly. Both Apple products and Word Processors like M$ WORD do it automatically with a simple key press. Otherwise there are a variety of 'read-aloud' applications, unfortunately, they virtually all use whatever 'build-in' voices the native OS features, so it's difficult to find any truly authentic voices!

I think both of your examples (alien and teen) are very good ways of conveying a different way of speaking (then "our ear" just normalizes it as the dialog continues).

Personally, I might occasionally "pepper" the dialog (every couple of paragraphs, or couple of chapters) with the alien/teen dialog. In particular if the aliens encounter something new to them; or if such characters get "excited" temporarily shifting to their native tongue.

This is one of my favorite topics! I absolutely get your sense of disgust and distrust of changes in the language! Which is why it's so interesting that you are as fundamentally wrong about language as anyone can be!

I'm not insulting you, the clash between tradition and evolution is what makes this topic intriguing, and if you weren't there to clash with, then things would be boring, and possibly catastrophic.

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast about a radio show from a Lovecraftian hellscape. Each episode ends with a pithy mixed up proverb that says something strange about the world. For example: "Dance like the government is watching." as a play on the joy seeking: "Dance like no one is watching."

However one of these proverbs just hits my thesis's nail on the head:

Language is going to change, irregardless of your attempts to literally lock it away in the tallest tower. Obvs.

When I first heard/read it: I found the 'irregardless' and 'literally' cute. 'Obvs' was a kick in the teeth.

English is a world conquering language because it is built from the bottom to the top. There are rules. There are dictionaries. They reflect the negotiated use of the language in the culture.

Grab a novel from the 80s, compare it to a novel from the 40s. The backbone is there, but the language has changed. You can pick out which decade a novel was written in by the way it describes women. Because the culture negotiates the definitions of words. To pretend the best language 200 years ago and the best language 200 years from now will be easily understood or close to matching is murdered by the existence of Shakespeare.

Originally, language was shared locally. And so changes in one vernacular might reach a neighbor slower, or never. That's why the geographical radii of English accents is so much smaller in Britain than in North America. In fact why East Coast American accents are more localized than West Coast accents.

These exchanges extended and accelerated with all kinds of technological improvements. Radio, movies, TV, and now, the internet. There are also fewer bureaucrats between language traders on the internet, and a network TV show. The language is bound to evolve faster.

French defines its language from the top down. English negotiates its language from the bottom up. That makes English more dynamic and adaptive. Consider English a generalist omnivore black bear to French's self-poisoning bamboo-only panda.

This means there most fundamentally is an Urban Dictionary.

George Carlin's words you can't say on television aren't even todays worst swear words. Fuck, Cunt, Motherfucker, Cocksucker are all somewhat defanged. While slurs grow more and more taboo. -- John McWhorter's Nine Nasty Words is a beautiful read on our cuss words. It's basically the Fuck book but it also explains how the vernacular changes through the evolution and distribution of our swear words.

So what place does structured grammar and well defined terms have? A big one. You still want to be understood. But if you're telling a story, and you stick a stick up the ass of natural believable speech in order to elevate The Queen's English, you'll create a disconnection between the audience and the scene. However, if you write something impenetrable because you are in fact butchering the language, that's probably worse.

As I said, the language is negotiated. It's not chiseled into stone. It's a forever evolving project that ends never.

That said, there is a place for very very clear and well defined definitions. You mentioned math. Professional language, especially in fields like STEM, medicine, and law are incredibly important. However, there is a danger to well defined jargon. A bit of jargon from unscrupulous actors can talk around someone by using the same words, but not the same dictionary.

My favorite example of this is "Black people cannot be racist." Racist in this connotation is an academic buzzword that means "A system or structure of society in which the ruling power of whiteness (also divorced from its distributed understood meaning) is used to marginalize and exclude people of color." If you believe racist means: "Bigoted based on ethnicity and/or skin color." you would suffer the run around by their meanings and cause a fight where they can just call you racist. (At this point their meaning hardly matters.)

Mastering the language is a terrific skill. It allows you to communicate ideas and emotions more clearly and/or more evocatively, however mastering also means not calcifying yourself to the way things have always been.

John McWhorter's books on language are great to understand this topic better. I also recommend Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind - it isn't about language. It's about the subdivisions or foundations of morals people use to understand the world. The sanctity/degradation foundation explains a lot of our immediate disgust reactions to new or improper language.

In the end, like all things, there must be balance. Go all in on the right way and you become more Panda than Black Bear. But if you have 0 respect for the sacred, you'll lose all grip on the machine and speak gibberish that only you and your closest morons can ever pretend to understand.

In conclusion:

Language is going to change, irregardless of your attempts to literally lock it away in the tallest tower. Obvs.

irregardless

Noooooooooooooooo!

AJ

Redsilver said a lot of what I'd have said otherwise, but still...

One of the primary strengths of English is that it's fluid and everyone knows it. English washes over other languages, picks up useful words, and keeps on moving. Words change meanings fluidly with usage, pronunciations change, and connotations change faster.

For instance: at the start of 'Knute Rockne: All American', they make a point of thanking Notre Dame for their 'gratuitous' assistance. At the time the movie was made, 'gratuitous' was a word with positive connotations. When's the last time you've heard someone fondly refer to something as 'gratuitous'?

Many common words and phrases from 200 years ago aren't in the least common now. Perhaps more significantly, many of the ones that are common now weren't common 100 years ago.

Not that it's a perfect example, but the singular gender-neutral 'they' has been proper English for most of the history of the English language. However, a large number of English teachers rather arbitrarily decided that it wasn't proper English during the 20th century, so a bunch of people who went to school during that time get up in arms when someone uses it, notwithstanding that it would have been equally controversial in the 19th century to claim that its use was improper.

Words change. I dislike the way 'literally' is used (more or less ironically) to mean 'figuratively', but we're stuck with it.

Note that 'awful' and 'terrific' are both words that have completely reversed meanings over the centuries. Neither means now what they meant when they were coined.

Quite a bit of Shakespearean English is accessible to modern ears, but quite a bit is not, and a great deal of the subtlety of what remains accessible has been lost.

The point is that English is a living, breathing language.T That doesn't mean that every modern abomination will stand the test of time. I personally hope that 'literally' will go back to what it's 'supposed' to mean. But, if it doesn't, then the people (who collectively possess the only true authority over what English is) will have spoken.

Many common words and phrases from 200 years ago aren't in the least common now. Perhaps more significantly, many of the ones that are common now weren't common 100 years ago.

You can say that again. Most of my current novel takes place in the 1950s. A lot of the phrases and words from the 1960s that I am familiar with as a teenager, that I wanted to use in dialogue, weren't around in the 1950s.

I'm going with #2.

Sadly, I have to agree. :-(

Sadly, I have to agree

Why bother to learn to read when there's Alexa and Siri etc.

Reading will become as obsolete as engraving on stone tablets ;-)

AJ

Why bother to learn to read when there's Alexa and Siri etc.

If so, then every single sign will speak to you. Ugh! talk about a dystopian future!

If so, then every single sign will speak to you.

Even worse, the sign will talk to your car, your phone, your tablet. It won't need to speak to you directly ;-)

AJ

And people in another 100 years are going to either be horrified by this era's stupidity, or so dumbed down themselves that they won't read at all.

And yet we still read Greek plays, and Shakespeare's plays, and Enlightenment treatises on government. Not to mention Sun Tzu, Confucuius, Paul of Tarsus, the Bhagavad Gita, &c.

I remember being taught at school that, in England, the church actively tried to suppress learning outside of its monasteries so that commoners were totally dependent upon the church for interpretation of the scriptures etc.

AJ

The church wasn't against science - in monasteries.

AJ

School study guides are derived from academic studies. So if they're that far out of sync, there must have been a lot of new information discovered in the last half century, say. To me, that seems unlikely, to say the least.

Plenty of Roman literature has survived to this day, and there's plenty of Renaissance literature. If the mediaevalists were so literate, what happened to all their writings?

AJ

adjunct to the entire idea of the Church being against science - the Galileo myth.

So Galileo wasn't tried for heresy, wasn't forced to recant his scientific findings, and didn't spend any time in prison?

AJ

Sure he was - but not for his scientific theories.

The top ten Google links all claim that it was because Galileo published heliocentrism as scientific fact.

AJ

Glad you throughly researched the topic.

I didn't - I don't know whether Galileo's measurements, together with those of others in the same field, constitute proof of heliocentrism.

AJ

If Galileo tried to publish today he wouldn't have been picked up by any peer-reviewed journal.

So-called peer-reviewed journals publish tons of crap. The peer-review system hasn't worked properly for decades.

That's what got him into trouble, not his scientific theories.

But you just said it was his scientific theories. just because they had questionable basis doesn't mean they weren't scientific theories.

AJ

I've read an account (no idea if I can find it again) that said the Pope at the time initially supported Galileo, but that in correspondence with the Pope, he insulted the Church, and the Pope personally.

I came across that too. But the 'official' reason for the trial was publishing heliocentrism as fact.

I've also seen articles questioning whether Galileo actually said 'but it moves' after he recanted.

I guess there are broad similarities with people being forced to recant by the church of woke, but muttering under their breath 'but there are only two sexes' afterwards.

AJ

My understanding is that the verdict of the trial was that Galileo's theories were heretical, which is why he was forced to recant, not that his 'proof' was faulty.

That isn't changed by the possibility that the actual verdict may have been a political convenience.

AJ

Your understanding is wrong.

And Galileo was forced to recant because his theories were non-heretical?

AJ

No heresy, no inquisition. But if you choose to believe otherwise, that's on you.

AJ

In particular, I have never heard a sibling refer to each other as "brother" or "sister."

My oldest great-grandson (4 yo) refers tp his brother (2 1/2 yo) as "Brother." I guess it's because we always say, "Your brother so and so" so he says, "Brother so and so."

My brother did it with me, but he was autistic and latched on to odd things. In this case I think what he latched onto was from one of the landlord's daughters when we were growing up. She called her brother 'brother' because she had trouble pronouncing his name when she was younger. She had gotten past it by the time we moved away but my brother never did.

The adult writing the story knows all about the vagaries of life, but forgets that they didn't know those vagaries when they were a teenager

That's why the stories about going back in time into a younger body with your adult memories are so good.

But, to be honest, you would stick out as a sore thumb.

Yet the story has a rating of like 8.7

If it's the story I'm thinking of, it's a very long story by a well-liked author who's a very good storyteller, and the genre is a sweet spot for voters.

If the story had been vetted by a decent editor, it would almost certainly have a rating into the 9s.

AJ