A Song of Ice and Fire

bluemax · 2011-08-22T19:53:03.000Z

belgerog:

I’m sorry if this has been posted before, I’m still at the beginning of ADwD, so I’m trying to avoid spoilers by not reading the previous posts.

I just wanted to know, has anyone else been noticing some grammatical mistakes?

For instance:

Spoilers for ADWD up to and including Jon’s second POV chapter

Instead of say. If that’s not an error it sounds very weird. I’ve seen around 3 occurrences of that kind.

Martin’s usage of English gets noticeably more awkward with each book and he starts adding a lot of dumb shit like “Much and more”, “Whilst”, “Serjeant”, “Nuncle” etc.

maxle · 2011-08-22T21:41:02.000Z

Whilst is perfectly fine English. If you’re, y’know, English.

XPav · 2011-08-22T22:15:13.000Z

‘leal’ retainer?

CSL · 2011-08-22T22:20:20.000Z

XPav:

‘leal’ retainer?

Whats wrong with that? It’s a period specific word meaning loyal.

Jag · 2011-08-23T08:42:36.000Z

delete

Khoram · 2011-08-23T09:08:49.000Z

Surely this is a jape, ser!

Seriously, I’m cool with Martin’s phraseology and vocabulary, but I think he used “jape” about 100 times too many in DwD. It’s been a while since I read the others; did he use it that often in them as well?

Words are merely wind, as they say… apparently they all like to say that particular one, too.

belgerog · 2011-08-23T09:25:08.000Z

It’s like “ploughing” in the Witcher 2.

Jason_Townsend · 2011-08-23T09:37:47.000Z

The real issue with the prose in aDwD was editing time as far as I can see, which also led to the actual “typo”/tense sort of errors noted earlier.

Martin may have gradually increased his use of certain phrases - much and more and half a hundred seem to have proliferated, whereas “words are wind” seems more like an intentional cliche of the culture. The archaisms are a bit more constant over the series and I think fit in with the author’s love of the actual medieval, the medieval as it was seen from, say, the 15th century, the medieval as it was seen by gothic romanticists, etc.

“They heard the Green Fork before they saw it, an endless susurrus, like the growl of some great beast.” You know, from the latin susurrare?

Aquarian · 2011-08-23T09:41:30.000Z

The problem with ‘words are wind’ is that no one says it in the first two books, it’s said once toward the end of the third book and then in AFFC and ADWD it’s said just about once every third sentence.

‘Jape’, on the other hand, has been a favorite of Martin’s since the first book.

Vesper · 2011-08-23T10:07:28.000Z

He seemed to have discovered the word “leal” in this book, as well.

bluemax · 2011-08-23T20:32:31.000Z

Jason Townsend:

The real issue with the prose in aDwD was editing time as far as I can see, which also led to the actual “typo”/tense sort of errors noted earlier.

Martin may have gradually increased his use of certain phrases - much and more and half a hundred seem to have proliferated, whereas “words are wind” seems more like an intentional cliche of the culture. The archaisms are a bit more constant over the series and I think fit in with the author’s love of the actual medieval, the medieval as it was seen from, say, the 15th century, the medieval as it was seen by gothic romanticists, etc.

“They heard the Green Fork before they saw it, an endless susurrus, like the growl of some great beast.” You know, from the latin susurrare?

In GoT “Whilst” appears two times.

In Dance With Dragons it appears ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE TIMES.

That’s a massive disparity.

Someone actually put together a spread sheet with some of this stuff:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgcdxbLv5FRUdEVQVkdQYnUxTzdRVDV5eTVwQjlKekE&hl=en_US#gid=0

GoT:

While: 194
Whilst: 2

Among: 78
Amongst: 5

CoK:

While: 262
Whilst: 4

Among: 57
Amongst:13

SoS:

While: 245
Whilst: 33

Among: 52
Amongst:49

FFC

While: 56
Whilst: 122

Among: 9
Amongst: 81

DwD

While: 60
Whilst: 131

Among: 8
Amongst:148

So yeah, its some kind of weird transition that happens over the course of the books.

ckessel · 2011-08-23T20:36:21.000Z

Interesting to have it laid out like that. Subjectively, it’s felt like the prose has gotten more stilted and just generally poorer as the series has gone on.

Calistas · 2011-08-23T22:36:40.000Z

I have subtitled the books thusly:

GoT: almost a man grown
CoK: a horse wickered
SoS: half a hundred much and more

Guido_Jones · 2011-08-24T07:54:07.000Z

bluemax:

In GoT “Whilst” appears two times.

In Dance With Dragons it appears ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE TIMES.

That’s a massive disparity.

When you start counting how many times particular words or phrases are used in a book it’s time to step away.

Aquarian · 2011-08-24T07:58:34.000Z

Cardinal Hugh de St Cher was such a nerd!

bluemax · 2011-08-24T12:18:50.000Z

Guido Jones:

When you start counting how many times particular words or phrases are used in a book it’s time to step away.

I didn’t do this research, there are people far angrier at GRRM than me who do such things.

forgeforsaken · 2011-08-24T13:33:11.000Z

Guido Jones:

When you start counting how many times particular words or phrases are used in a book it’s time to step away.

To be fair, with the advent of ebooks it doesn’t take much effort. All you do is input the word in search and it tells you how many results found.

Guido_Jones · 2011-08-24T13:58:42.000Z

forgeforsaken:

To be fair, with the advent of ebooks it doesn’t take much effort. All you do is input the word in search and it tells you how many results found.

No of course not :) It still seems silly and hyper critical.

And I knew that bluemax :P

erikg88 · 2011-08-24T14:11:22.000Z

I’m kind of sad that guys I argued with over GRRM’s prose are now complaining about the prose style. Makes me nostalgic, a little.

inactive_user · 2011-08-24T16:26:21.000Z

Being annoyed at overuse of archaic forms like “whilst” is a few orders of magnitude below the level of wankery in that other discussion.