Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A Using colloquialisms the reader may not be familiar with

I think this depends on your intended audience; if it is almost entirely Irish familiar with the dialect, leave it. It sounds authentic to them, and is not jarring. Even if it is just that story; w...

posted 6y ago by Amadeus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-19T22:13:20Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33839
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:10:10Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33839
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T08:10:10Z (almost 5 years ago)
I think this depends on your intended audience; if it is almost entirely Irish familiar with the dialect, leave it. It sounds authentic to them, and is not jarring. Even if it is just that story; which it may be if you are trying to get started by publishing locally, a short story in a magazine or something.

If you hope that your story is going to be published more widely, so the majority of readers are NOT familiar with the colloquialisms, then I would adopt an attitude of "spicing" your language with colloquialisms that aren't going to drive editors and grammarians to put the book down, because it is just too difficult to read.

Give readers a taste of the Irish flavor, something you do once per page or so, don't douse them with it on every third line of dialogue.

You will likely not lose any Irish readers by doing that, or at least you will lose fewer of them than you would lose non-Irish English speakers. And you won't lose any of the critics and opinion-setters in other countries that might consider your authenticity overdone to the point of cliché (even if that **_is_** the real world in Ireland).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-27T13:06:32Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 7