style questions

Not sure what that means. If you're trying to say they pronounce all their Gs, I doubt that very seriously, no matter what part of the country you're in. Gonna and gotta are not words, any more than whaddaya (as in "whaddaya know?") or 'im (as in "threw it right by 'im") or any of the million other things people mispronounce daily.

 

I have no idea what this means, either.

 

Dour, when properly pronounced, does not rhyme with hour. Err, when properly pronounced, is not a homophone of air.

It would make more sense to insist on proper pronunciation of those words than never to allow someone to speak quickly. And it still has nothing to do with writing.

 

I'm not insisting on any pronunciation. I don't care how you say what you say. But in a quote, I'm writing what you are saying, not how you pronounced it. And that has everything to do with writing.

You said "going to," even if it came out like "gonna." You said "joking," even though it came out like "jokin'." So when I quote you, I'm writing "going to" and "joking."

 

Agree completely.

 

Using "gonna" and "gotta" and similar word structures in quotes always struck me as a bit classist.

 

Still agree completely.

 

Are you kidding?

"I'm gonna train for 3 years till I make the Olympics," Jones said.

I don't care if Jones was supposed to say "going to" because Jones said "gonna" and that's the way it will appear.

"I've gotta make grades or I can't play in the big game," Smith said.

Smith said "gotta" and had no intention to say "got to".

 

Every publication I have worked for has used "gonna" and "gotta," but I do think it's a bit classist. In my fantasy style guide, that's a no go.

 

Here's one for you, then:

Spoken by player: "We got to run the ball better if we want to win Sunday."

Written in story: "We've got to run the ball better if we want to win Sunday."

Yes?

"I got to go to the store" implies past tense, grammatically, but people say it that way to mean the future (I've got to go to the store). They slide right over the "have" in "I've."

My guess, Versatile, is to be consistent with your style guide, the above edit would be required.

 

I don't think so. In the "gotta" case, the person is combining two words because of pronunciation. The writer or editor is splitting the words as though the person were speaking more clearly. There's no inference required: "Gotta" always means "got to," and "gonna" always means "going to," and they're both speech patterns not word choice.

In the "we got" case, the person left out a word. That's a word choice, not a speech pattern.

 

Do you ever clean up grammar?