Gonna

I'm in the anti-gonna camp. Gonna, to me, looks like someone forgot to capitalize the name of some third-world country.

"We're going to sponsor a mission trip to Gonna..."

 

If gonna is the "personality" of a quote, there's a 99-percent chance that it's a shit quote.

 

"Gonna" is more conversational. You almost read right through it as opposed to the more formal "going to" . It's like using "said" as opposed to all the other options out there. Said is invisible almost. It blends in. Same as "gonna."

 

I can't stand any of them. ... or is that any of 'em?
Gonna, heckuva, helluva, omigosh (had to kill that one once, but the writer survived), betcha. The list could go on and on.
I look at it the same way I do grammar in a quote. I fix it.
"He don't know how to guard me," may be what he said, but what's going to be in my paper is, "He doesn't know how to guard me."

 

Someone pointed out on here once that helluva and hell of a are pronounced exactly the same, so why on Earth would you use the first one? That is simply looking for flair, I think, and to me it reads as biased.
Gonna is a different animal, obviously, but helluva and heckuva are inexcusable to me.

 

"Gonna" cost me an award in college. An otherwise great story, but never, never use the word "gonna".

That's what I was told.

 

It merged with a neighbouring country called Reeah. The new entity is called "Gonna-Reeah."

 

Gonna isn't cute in a quote, and it's not accurate.
If you want to use it in a column in your voice, fine. But it should not be how we present the people we quote.

 

I can see "gonna" in a quote if someone said it and it fits the pace of how he/she speaks. Who am I to change it? And house rules be damned.
But I once worked with a guy who couldn't come up with an original lead to save his paycheck (a stringer we let go), but who never, ever, used a contraction in a story, quote or not. "I won't" in a story became "I will not," and so on. I asked why, and he said an English teacher told him never to use contractions, no matter what.
Thoughts on his insistence on following Prof. H. Higgins?

 

I don't (do not) have any problems with contractions.

 

I do all sorts of things in journalism that would make my English and lit professors cringe. But that's because journalism is way different from academic writing. But I still stand firmly against 'gonna' in almost every instance. One of my writers would have to make a really compelling case for me to leave it in.

 

I used to be adamantly pro "gonna" until an editor got me thinking when he said: "When you're dealing with bad grammar in a quote, it's your judgment whether you change it or not. But always change "gonna" to "going to."

I don't know if anyone is where I was once on this, but the editor's point was: Don't print "gonna," because it's not a word.

I had never really looked at it that way. I had just thought, "He said 'gonna,' so I have to write 'gonna.'"

But if someone said his coach "axed" him to switch from cornerback to safety, I don't know anyone who wouldn't change it to "asked." It took that editor's comment for me to realize why "axe" to "ask," and "gonna" to "going to," are the same thing.

I realize some people might read this and think I'm just stating the obvious. But it helped me, and if anyone else is where I was, I hope it helps you too. I think often we get so grounded in our own side of these debates that we don't really stop and think that other people aren't coming from the same place as we are. Sometimes we need to simplify our arguments, go to the root of the argument, to ensure that other people will understand what we really mean.

For example, there was the recent thread of "Never write that someone 'grabbed' 10 rebounds." And when someone would ask why, posters would say, "Because it's bad writing." But if there's really going to be a discussion with some understanding, there needs to be an explanation of why it's bad writing.

My philosophical soapbox for the day. And yes, I know "gonna" is listed on dictionary.com. But come on.