The Reading Room

9:03 PM

5

A: Should there be a space between name initials?

The periods in the initials stand for truncations, so you would put a space after each one. I don't think British English uses the initials, but I have seen various ways of doing it based on different style guides that govern different domains. Check out the APA style guide, where they do use sp...

... huh, and there's two conflicting answers to that question.

BESW

Welcome to English style.

Rand al'Thor

All the same, since "J" and "K" represent separate words, I'd say separate them in the tag name. If you wouldn't use joannekathleen-rowling, don't use jk-rowling either.

@Mithrandir And yes, this.

Whatever we decide, let's make it consistent, rather than doing different things for different authors and having to check for each one what they themselves use.

Benjamin

Does "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" have a hidden message? - David B. Parker

►

Thought you might like this.

user61230

9:23 PM

Authority and American Usage is absolutely worth reading, on this topic.

3

user61230

It's not really on this topic as much as it is a deep skepticism of The Standard English Form, but it applies here.

Himarm

9:39 PM

Mithrandir

Where are you, @Librarian...?

Riker

far away

far, far, away

Mithrandir

9:54 PM

A long time ago?

BESW

No, long ago and far away.

user61230

We have a very lazy librarian.

Librarian

11:11 PM

3

Q: Spaces and initialism in tagging styles

I just saw a tag get "corrected" to imply that there's space between the initials of an author who doesn't put spaces between her initials. In fact, neither JK Rowling nor the Tolkien Estate use initial spaces, and neither do most sources referring to them, but we do: j-k-rowling, j-r-r-tolkien (...

Rand al'Thor

There we go.

BESW

[lobs an easy main-site question]

Bookworm

0

Q: Where the white folks at?

I'm three books (and three short stories) into Corey's "The Expanse" series, and I've noticed an interesting trend. When Corey describes the ethnicity and inherited culture of individual characters to depict a multicultural, multi-ethnic future, he focuses (sometimes in creepy detail) on their s...

setting the-expanse james-s-a-corey

BESW

@Bookworm Anybody want to talk about default whiteness?

user15026

@Bookworm iirc from reading all the books it's not anything they specifically expand upon

Hamlet

11:27 PM

@BESW I once tried talking about that on SFF. I had people saying things like "well, that's not a problem because if you went to Africa black skin would be assumed"

user15026

In an ideal (read: One where I am not tired and have brains that don't resemble toasted marshmallow) world I'd take a stab at answering this and weaving in stuff about default whiteness but I don't think I could do it justice

Hamlet

The thing keeping me from writing an answer is that I haven't read The Expanse and I'm not really interested/don't have the time to do so

user15026

I've read all the books, I quite enjoy them

Hamlet

@Ash if you give me some quotes I can write the parts about default whiteness

BESW

@Hamlet One of the things I hope an answer will address is my vague impression based on a couple of lines here and there that Corey's imagining crowds as white.

Rand al'Thor

11:30 PM

@BESW The way you refer to the people making tag edits as if they aren't part of the organic growth of the tagging system ... sort of reminds me of people who refer to human beings as though they aren't part of nature or the animal kingdom. If the way things turn out on this site is that people use X tags and anyone who uses Y tags gets them edited to X tags, then, well, that's part of the natural evolution of the site (unless we get a meta policy saying otherwise, of course).

I normally support your "let the tagging system grow organically" model, but I've always assumed this organic growth included tag edits as well as the initial tags people put on their questions. If it just means "leave the tags alone on every new question", then I can't support it after all.

BESW

@Randal'Thor I think there's a massive gap between "leave the tags alone on every new question" and "edit all new tags to conform to an un-discussed standard."

That people are rushing toward one end or the other and assuming everyone else is too, concerns me.

Hamlet

@BESW I feel pretty confident that I can write a good answer that touches on all of that, I just haven't read the books. So if you or Ash wants to give me some quotes I can do that

BESW

@Hamlet Like, there's a line about a crowd in a room with pink light that, to my eyes, implies everybody in the crowd has light skin--but maybe I'm just too vegetarian.

user15026

I'm bad at retaining specific things like that, so I don't think I'd be much help

BESW

> The lights were cheap LEDs tinted a false pink that was supposed to flatter the complexion but instead made everyone look like undercooked beef.

Hamlet

11:34 PM

@BESW @Ash Are all, or most, or a few of the characters described as people of color?

user15026

@BESW Undercooked beef is pretty red/pink so yeah, I'd assume a lightness in tone

BESW

Given my limited exposure to undercooked beef and pink lighting, most of the Asians and Africans I know wouldn't look like undercooked beef in pink lights.

user15026

@BESW It's a pretty strong red, so yeah, any other tone wouldn't affect the pink that way

user15026

because if you add any other colour tones, you'd lose the redpink garishness of the meat comparison

Rand al'Thor

@BESW But if someone has a standard in mind and edits new questions to conform to it, then that's still part of the natural growth of the site. If it turns into edit wars, that's obviously a problem; and if someone else just doesn't like it, they can take it to meta and get a consensus on such a standard. But just the fact of someone making consistent tag edits without a meta consensus, provided there isn't a meta consensus against them, doesn't necessarily strike me as a problem.

Hamlet

11:35 PM

OK, this is a little bit silly. There's no need to debate what color pink/meat is to answer this question.

BESW

@Hamlet I haven't kept an inventory, but my impression is that maybe half the individuals we meet long enough to describe are given physical markers of ethnicity and maybe three of those are white.

Hamlet

@BESW are there characters who aren't racially demarcated at all?

BESW

Yes.

Maybe half the other individuals we meet long enough to describe.

(Also he's got that creepy "food words to describe skin color" thing going on, but that's tangential.)

Hamlet

Could you give me some quotes of how the author describes racially demarcated characters?

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Ahhh, I see you were one of the people answering the famous Hermione question. (One of the answers I upvoted, too.)

Hamlet

11:37 PM

@BESW ick

user15026

I don't know if this wiki stuff will be helpful or not?

BESW

> Holden stared at Naomi. She swirled the tequila in her cup and stared back. He found himself wondering what sort of genetic mashup had produced her features. Definitely some African and South American in there. Her last name hinted at Japanese ancestry, which was only barely visible, as a slight epicanthic fold. She’d never be conventionally pretty, but from the right angle she was actually fairly striking.

Hamlet

@BESW definitely don't want to read this book now.

Is the narrator white?

I'm not sure if assumed whiteness is the best concept to answer this question

BESW

To be... fair...? Holden is a slightly skeevy non-explicitly-racially-marked man with a thing for Polynesian women who is falling for Naomi.

> Sadavir Errinwright was darker skinned than she [an Indian woman] was, his face round and soft. It would have been in place anywhere in the Punjab, but his voice affected the cool, analytic amusement of Britain.

Hamlet

To be honest, the answer to this question is "the author is an idiot"

user15026

11:43 PM

@Hamlet I don't think that's an entirely fair assumption based on this small amount of discussion, but okay.

user15026

(Also, I should point out it's actually two different people writing together, iirc they split up the viewpoint characters)

user15026

(So each of them writes for different characters, which...might change things, I dunno)

BESW

> The Mariner Valley had originally been settled by Chinese, East Indians, and Texans. Alex had the dark complexion and jet-black hair of an East Indian. Coming as he did from Earth, Holden always found it strangely disconcerting when an exaggerated Texas drawl came from someone his brain said should be speaking with Punjabi accents.

> At a bit over two meters tall, she was only slightly above average height for a Martian male, but thanks in part to her Polynesian ancestry, she weighed in at over a hundred kilos at one g. None of it was fat, but her muscles seemed to get bigger every time she even walked through a weight room.

Same woman, from a different character's perspective:

> Polynesian blood, Avasarala guessed. Maybe Samoan. Someplace that evolution had made humans like mountain ranges.

kristan

@Randal'Thor Odd... why didn't I get any @-mention notifications? Very strange.

BESW

Holden and Naomi again:

> Her long and curly black hair was pulled into an unruly tail behind her head. Her features were a striking mix of Asian, South American, and African that was unusual even in the melting pot of the Belt. He glanced at his brown-haired Montana farm boy reflection in a darkened panel and felt very generic by comparison.

Rand al'Thor

11:47 PM

Hey @Hamlet, since you're here: could you mod-rename the theory tag to literary-theory? If we just call it theory, people are going to be using the tag for questions about the theory of everything or anything, like this.

(I could do the edits by hand, but you can do it with one click, and I think it's clear-cut enough - and also trivially reversible - that we don't need to take it to meta first.)

user15026

@BESW I'm entertaining myself by guessing who is being spoken about/who is speaking for these

BESW

(That's the closest we get to a physical ethnic marker for Holden.)

Rand al'Thor

@kristan Because you hadn't been in the room for so long that you weren't pingable.

Hamlet

OK, here are some concepts to work with

Race is a scientific concept that isn't scientific. Race is a biological concept.

BESW

> Miller looked at her—dark eyes, pale hair, smooth skin. She was already too tall to be mistaken for an Earth child, her limbs longer and thinner. Her skin had the pink flush of Belter babies, which came with the pharmaceutical cocktail that assured that their muscles and bones would grow strong.

> The outer edge of the mob raised the alarm well before Miller reached it. The surge of bodies and threats shifted. Miller tipped back his hat. Men, women. Dark skin, pale, golden brown, and all with the long, thin build of Belters, all with the square-mouthed angry gape of chimpanzees at war.

Hamlet

11:51 PM

The reason why inter-racial marriage is so terrifying to racists is because inter-racial marriage undermines the concept of race

You could write about how the authors are (I think, I'm just guessing because I haven't read the books) imagining a post-racial future, but a future where the racial categories still exist and are unchanged from the present. Those two ideas aren't very compatible.

You could (maybe; I haven't read the book) argue that the book is narrated from the point of view of a white gaze.

BESW

Definitely, there's little sense of conscious depictions of diegetic racial boundaries in any society. Instead it's been conspicuously replaced with low-grav/high-grav physical markers as the lines of division amongst societies.

Hamlet

It doesn't sound like assumed whiteness is applicable, except when it comes to the narration of this book.

user15026

@Hamlet I'm not sure they're imagining a post-racial future, because you can argue that the belter/non-belter stuff is still a line of division (which coems up a LOT especially as the series goes on)

Hamlet

@Ash I haven't read the books, I'm really just suggesting ideas that might be applicable

user15026

I realize that, I'm just responding as someone who has read them.

Hamlet

11:56 PM

You could write about what sort of political message is being conveyed by this specific portrayal of the future.

BESW

If I had to guess, I'd say they're trying to do a Fantastic Future Racism Allegory.

user15026

@BESW with belters vs non-belters? I can see that, especially as things progress (trying not to spoil the series)

BESW

Yeah.

Hamlet

I have to go, but good luck. And make sure that the question doesn't get turned into a train wreck for me :)

@Randal'Thor what's the consensus on that? Last time I checked meta, people were in favor of keeping it as theory (or maybe I am just forgetting

BESW

There's also a strong theme of linguistic/cultural divides.

Hamlet

11:59 PM

@Randal'Thor re-read the discussion, I am in favor of keeping the tag as theory, for the reasons below

(Part 1 of 2) Disagree strongly that theory should be renamed. In literary study, theory is not the same as literary theory. Briefly: literary theory, or theory of literature, takes for granted the existence of certain categories (literature vs. non-literature) and concepts (authorship, readership). For instance, you could have a psychoanalytic theory of literature. Theory, OTOH, is meta; it asks how those categories and concepts are constructed, what gives them meaning, and whether they are defensible. — verbose Feb 18 at 8:54

(Part 2 of 2) Theory as practiced in academia ranges over literary theory, cultural theory, critical theory, and the theory of criticism. (And yes, the last two of those terms are different.) If this is supposed to be a site for experts, then we should be cognizant of the terminology they use; theory is much more in keeping with current jargon than literary theory. — verbose Feb 18 at 9:03

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