Wanna Get Ficced?

Okay, this is the fourth time I'm trying to write this entry, so let's go brief:

One of the reasons (among many) that I'm appreciating "Generation Kill" is because the language is gloriously, wonderfully, Un-PC. I think the political correctness movement has, over time, done a lot of damage to language as a whole. Nearly everything now is seen as some form of derogatory language, and it makes me fucking angry. I call one woman a "festering cunt boil" because she cheated on a friend and lied about it, I'm against all women, as opposed to being against the single woman I was talking about in the first place. I hear someone refer to something as "gay" in an abstract sense that doesn't lead to an "ew, fags" discussion and don't tell them their word usage is offensive to some people, I'm anti-gay and allowing the problem to fester. I swear in front of a child, and I'm obviously trying to lead the kid down some dark path involving fuck knows what.

And then I watch "Generation Kill" where a lot of guys sit around and say a lot of things that a lot of people would find horribly, wickedly offensive, and I love them. Because so very little of what they say is actually meant to be offensive: It's blowing off steam, riling one another up, shooting the shit, and generally fucking around. Ray calling something "retarded" isn't him having a beef with people with mental disabilities (and I think even "mental disabilities" is falling out of favor), it's the vernacular for something being really fucking stupid, not someone. And when Ray uses it to describe people, he's not making fun of every single person with an abnormal mental state. He's making fun of one guy for being a fucking idiot.

And it soothes me; it really does. Because I watch "Generation Kill," and I see a lot of hard-working, decent guys doing a really fucking hard job, and I appreciate their use of "offensive" language as a coping mechanism. I appreciate the way they can insult each other at a polysyllabic, multi-sentence level. These are people who understand language and who, in the way they laugh at each other's attempts to use it as insults, understand the power is only as strong as the recipient wants to take it.

I'm not saying every use of "offensive" language should be taken lightly. There are plenty of instances where what's being said is exactly what you think is being said, where someone calling someone else a "bad word" is actually someone trying to start real shit. Scary shit. Mean, evil shit. But there's so many times when people just say shit to say shit. When it's fun to string a bunch of words together because they sound good; when it's simply talking in the same way that the people around you talk, and it makes me happy to hear it, because the power of language is as strong as you make it, and I can appreciate a whiskey tango fuck who knows how to wield that power.

Saw a post in a comm for someone asking for a beta. Said person than said that she/he doesn't want to have to do dozens of rewrites because editing isn't really her/his strong suit.

So, you want a beta, but you want someone who will simply poke you with a stick and check your "grammer" (her/his spelling, not mine) and the chances of you actually checking the grammar and making the edits seems slim to none.

Yeah.

No.

Fuck you. Seriously.

Either sack up and put in the time to write (and edit) something you think is going to be 75,000 words or fuck right off. Seriously. Because you? You are wasting a beta's time.

Juliet questioned with a question.

This is a redundancy. Please see Strunk and White [rules 5 and 6] for corrections.

Thank you and Sincerely,
The Department of Redundancy Department.

Someone posted today about how Checkov's accent in Trek has always been a sticking point. Because Chekov can always pronounce his first name but has trouble saying "victor" and other words beginning with 'v'.

For most of my childhood, I could pronounce the letter 'r' correctly as long as it was at the beginning of a word. However, I couldn't pronounce the 'r' if there was a vowel in front of it. It came out as a flat 'a' sound similar to the stereotypical Boston or Brooklyn accent. People who talk to me now probably have no idea that I had a speech impediment [and a pretty bad one] back in the day. Couple of years of speech therapy helped clear it up, and the rest of its faded over time.

My point is this: There's a difference between hitting the 'v' in "Pavel" and hitting the 'v' in "victor". Placement is everything, and while I can't speak to how a Russian accent with English words actually sounds, it makes sense that someone could pronounce their own name due to the placement of the trouble letter [I could always hit my middle name no problem] and screw up the letter when it's in a different place in another word.

Disagree with me if you've got more knowledge of linguistics or Russian accents.

[Kate, did not, in fact, make me do it. I just haven't whipped out this icon in awhile.]

I just saw someone with an icon labeled "shagable", and if you can't tell me why that's making me twitch, please back away slowly.

Secondly, I saw that lasergirl69 is requesting porn in general. Name your fandom/pairing, dear!

Thirdly, if anyone else wants porn, fandom/pairing in the comments. You know I'm good for it.

"Their" is a possessive pronoun:

Their house was situated back from the road, behind a low stone wall and warded with enough spells to knock any unwelcome visitor ten feet. Harry had thought it was a bit much, but the high-pitched, quickly covered giggle it had produced from Severus was well worth hearing Ron complain about the occasional bruise.

"They're" is a contraction of the words "They" and "Are":

"Where'd they go?" Bill asked as he looked left and right. Percy and Oliver had been nearby just a few moments before.

"They're by Gryffindor Tower," Charlie pointed. "Or what's left, anyway."

"There" is a location:

"Where'd they go?" Bill asked as he looked left and right. Percy and Oliver had been nearby just a few moments before.

"They're over there," Charlie pointed, "by Gryffindor Tower, or what's left, anyway."

"Your" is a possessive pronoun:

"Hey! Those are mine!" Harry yelled when he found Draco eating the cakes Molly had sent him.

"I don't see your name on them, Potter," Draco said with a sneer.

You're is a contraction of "You" and "Are"

"You've lost it," Hermione said as she watched Harry start to climb the rubble.

"I'll be fine, Hermione. Mr. Weasley and the others charmed the whole pile so it won't crumble while I'm on it."

"You're out of your mind," Hermione stated, but she stayed near the rubble, wand at the ready, just in case Harry's foot slipped.

This grammar time brought to you by the letter "J", as in, "Jesus H., it's not that hard."