With digressions into hyphenation and Spoonducks

[mrissa]

We are getting a lovely snow here, finally. As soon as everybody's home from their evening commute, it will be even better. In the meantime I'm still enjoying it from my safe, warm house. Hot chocolate helps. Having finished one of my tins of known good hot chocolate, I've moved on to a new kind, which is pretty nice also. I have discovered that for me, fiddliness in hot chocolate is not any kind of flaw, but rather a virtue: I like messing with the whisk and more than one measure and having multiple steps. It's not as important as the flavor, but part of what I'm doing at teatime is taking time out from whatever else I was doing, and fiddling with my tea or hot chocolate helps with that.

Another of my break-taking habits this time of year is to grab a large-ish object from the pile of presents and cut off a piece of wrapping paper to wrap it. Then I proceed with using the scraps to wrap other, smaller things until I run out of paper from the large piece I cut. Then I go back to whatever else I was doing. It's very much more satisfying, somehow, than sitting down and having a marathon wrapping session all at once, although I still might have to do some of that, depending on where the occasional round of wrapping gets me.

I did not intend to finish writing "Carter Hall Wears the C" this week, but time makes fools of us all, and anyway a finished story is not a bad thing by any stretch. One of the interesting meta sorts of things about this one--and by "interesting" I mean "interesting to me and probably boring to you"--is that it is not the chronologically next story in the series of stories. I have talked a lot about writing things out of sequence within a story or novel, but up until this point, the Carter Hall short stories have docilely consented to be finished in the order in which they happen. And I saw no reason to push that, until "Wears the C" made itself known: "Carter Hall Goes to the Boards" is going to be a fine thing, I think--it's the one for careswen--but I have a fear that it's a novelette, and I've just finished a damn novelette and have another half-done that should probably get some attention. And sometimes what my life needs is a straightforward short story with a 4/4 beat, you can dance to it, also it's got Tommy Heikkanen's witchy little Finnish granny showing up in her Buick (above whose steering wheel she can barely see) to wreak havoc, and Carter has to try to direct the havoc away from himself and the rest of the team. Isn't that nice? I think it's nice. I always like a little grandmotherly havoc with my tea. (I think the moral of these stories may be, "Grandmothers: seriously, do not mess with them." One of the morals. If you only have one moral, it'd better be an awfully short story.)

But anyway, here we are, not just skipping over "Goes to the Boards" but also "Completes the Pass," "Crosses the Blue Line," "Carter Hall's Hat Trick," "Covers the Goal," "Throws Down the Gloves," and "Pandora's Penalty Box." And possibly even "Plays It Ahead," I don't know that one yet, just the title. ("Pandora's Penalty Box" is one of the ones where Carter is babysitting Jess Lin-Laird. The other babysitting one I know about at the moment is "The Plural of Golem is Goalie," where Jess is really old enough to demonstrate the hazards of in utero exposure to the Queen of Air and Darkness. Jess is going to get her own book someday. We are all about the consequences, here at Spoonduckcirclebill Ranch, and Jessica Lin-Laird is consequences times ten, on two skates.)

(Oh. Spoonduckcirclebill Ranch is what porphyrin calls our house. All the streets in our neighborhood are named after waterfowl, you see. Poor dlandon: I sent a lasagna over when her mom died, and I put "SPOONDUCK" on it on a piece of tape so she'd know whose dish it was when it was empty and clean and ready to send back. Only apparently porphyrin hadn't called us that to Dena, so she thought I had made some exotic spoonbread dish with duck meat, when in fact it was plain old lasagna with Italian sausage.)

So the question I have about finishing this story is: should damnfool be one word, two words, or a hyphenated word, when used as an adjective? That is, "You didn't make a damnfool wish like that," not, "You're a damn fool, Carter Hall." I have already decided that shit-stupid is hyphenated, because shitstupid just looks wrong, and shit stupid is a less clear idiom, I think. But I am on the fence regarding damnfool/damn-fool/damn fool. Hmmmm. Help.

In other news, I have decided that since I am feeling pretty low-energy at the moment, now is perhaps not the time to push myself to read books that are informative and will add to my knowledge base but are not perhaps what we would call good. So I'm letting myself read the last of the Reginald Hills we have on hand, which is what I want, and then after that we'll see. The library has bunches more of them, and I know it, but I'd really prefer not to juggle library return dates along with everything else in December, so I may have a Dalziel-free period from now until after Christmas. Oh wailie wailie.

Comments

[toadnae.livejournal.com]

I vote for damnfool. But I've mostly heard it from those from the South who truly say it as a single word. Sometimes a single syllable.

[brooksmoses]

Wiktionary gives "damnfool" as one word, which is not something I would cite as anywhere near authoritative, but they do include a couple of respectable authors in their citations. (Is "it was good enough for Salman Rushdie" good enough for you?) Wordnik also has a cite from something in F&SF, but not much else.

On the other hand, Wordnik has lots more examples for "damn-fool", many of which are from Gutenberg and thus equivalent to in-print usage. And The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English uses a hyphen, but has no usage citations and thus I suspect is reflecting mere editorial opinion.

Given the Wordnik evidence, I'd probably go with the hyphen, but the single word also seems acceptable depending on the nuance of intonation you want to reflect. As for two words -- it's a compound adjective, and on that point the rules of grammar are clear.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

In my idiolect, damnfool is one word. I am not sure how helpful that is to you, but there it is.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. That.

[bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com]

...Huh. Merriam-Webster 11 has "damn well" but not "damn fool."

The Plural of Golem is Goalie

*glee*

Jessica Lin-Laird is consequences times ten, on two skates

*more glee*

(Speaking of catching up with Carter, On Spec somehow managed to send me a random issue (from 1993!) instead of the one I ordered, so I am still waiting on that story I missed. But very much looking forward to it. (And there's probably some joke I should be making about your fictional characters managing to scramble real space-time continuums, but I'm a little afraid of what might happen next if that is even remotely true.)

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

Damn-fool looks the most correct to me. I did think maybe damn'fool (because I think you're using it as in "a damned foolish wish like that") but frankly, that just looked stupid. :)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

To my US Southern ear, 'damnfool wish' and 'you're a damn fool' both sound probably right in context. 'Damn fool wish' could be spoken for emphasis (cf Damn.Fool.Wish.) but looks odd written.

'Damn-fool' looks old-fashioned, like from around 1900. Or maybe Gutenberg or someone accidentally printed a conditional end of line hypen.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

That's how my Mississippi-bred dad says it.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

But Gutenberg's corpus is much older than Carter and his buddies--he shouldn't talk like somebody who's currently out of copyright in the US. OTOH, if my havoc-wreaking grandmother ever said anything so unladylike, she would use the hyphen. (She prefers to make her displeasure known by means of cool smiles and exquisite politeness.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, the person saying "damnfool" is Tommy Heikkanen's gran.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Uff da, good luck getting the one actually meant to get! That's very weird.

[elsue.livejournal.com]

I sometimes see it as "damfool"--no n. Although that doesn't look right somehow.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

"Pandora's Penalty Box"

Oh, I like that.

I vote for "damnfool" as a joinyword, in that context.

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

a vote for damn-fool from here

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Then I vote for the hyphen, unless she says it so often she's worn the corners off.

C is for... Canadien?

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Carter Hall plays for Montreal? Wow.

[aedifica]

I vote for "which one is correct depends on who's speaking" because I've seen both and the choice does give me a different idea of the speaker. For Tommy Heikkanen's gran, I would guess "damnfool" but I haven't met her (even in print) so I'm not utterly set on that.

Re: C is for... Canadien?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sorry to disappoint, but C is for Captain: Carter remains resolutely in Bemidji at the moment.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I think 'damnfool' is one word when used as an adjective, too.

I should like to mention that if you need beta readers for any Carter Hall story I am happy to oblige.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Your question about damnfool brings out the writer geek in me, because that's one of those situations where, absent any clear rule, I go with what sounds right, and what looks right on the page, and it might be different in different circumstances. "You didn't make a damnfool wish like that," sounds like dialog, and it is easy for me to imagine one character would say, "damnfool" and another who would say "damn-fool" and another who would space it out. Or some might say it differently depending on circumstances. Narration, of course, is just a special case of dialog, so the same thing applies. It's like the difference between "You'd not have done it," and, "You wouldn't have done it." Look at it, say it to yourself, and pick.

Love this stuff.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'd use all three, damnfool, damn-fool, and damn fool, in different circumstances. And I've encountered "damnfool" (both the word and its object. . .) in Michigan, in Georgia, and in Maine, so it doesn't seem as regional as some people think.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What it looks to me is British, and a particular kind of British, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And this is in dialog, and my gut says that Granny Heikkanen, when called down from Thief River Falls because her grandson did something stupid related to a djinn, would say damnfool.

And since I know her better than anybody, I think my gut wins.

"You are ze audience! I am ze auzzor! I outrrrrank you!"

So okay then.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Will keep that in mind.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Damnfool is a bingo. Granny Heikkanen's mom probably used damn-fool, but she thought the hyphen was self-aggrandizing.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Jessica Lin-Laird

<hearts the name>

When an adjective, I see damnfool as a single word, or else hyphenated. Two separate words is for the noun only.

...and that's good enough for me

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Bemidji is nice too. It would have been cool to have Carter go up to the Big Leagues though...

Re: ...and that's good enough for me

[txanne.livejournal.com]

But then he wouldn't have Tommy's gran in his corner.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I got so excited about the words that I forgot to inquire about the hot chocolate! What kind do you like best, &c?

Re: ...and that's good enough for me

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Tam is the one who's off to the bigs in this story, specifically the Blue Jackets. It's the first story where Carter is trying to do without Tam and Janet and Jess. (I doubt that there will be many such. But we'll see.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They stopped making the kind that sounded like rain, so now my hot chocolate of choice is the dark kind of L.A. Burdick. Marie Belle's Aztec Dark is also very nice. I've just started a container of Schokinag Extreme Dark, which is good, but I don't think it's going to supplant the Burdick in my affections.

[pmrabble.livejournal.com]

Must try. I did the unforgivable and ran out, so I'm reduced to the best the mini-Kowalski's in WBL had yesterday (Godiva double dark, meh...)

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Thought of you and Carter today! My doctor used the term "ice hockey" (she's English) and I mentioned how many women I know who love it, and she said, "Really! But it's so violent!! Why do they love it?" and I said: "Um..."

[txanne.livejournal.com]

And of those, none are familiar. ...dashes to Google...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is the Godiva double dark a powder or little chunks?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Icy death potential!

Also women's hockey is less violent. But I wish it wasn't quite so much less, because there are other things that go along with the violence.

Also people who don't know hockey often overestimate how much modern hockey is "we went to a fight and a hockey game broke out."

[pmrabble.livejournal.com]

Looks like brain fade from the new meds - it was really Ghirardelli double dark powder. Was passable after shoveling last night. Second mug spiked with Ewa's cherry vodka was even better.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Hmm, can you say more about the other things? For someone who knows very little about hockey? But I've been thinking about it a lot lately, I think because of my boxing class and how different everything is when we spar instead of doing the exact same move alone or with a bag. And that's without involving real strategy, even!

(That said--"hockey greatest hits" sure does turn up something different than other sports. Sometimes very pretty! But different.)

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I am very excited at there being a Carter Hall story for me! No worries if it takes a time to write, even just the thought of one forthcoming is a pleasure. I forget what (if anything) I did to deserve such a nifty thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We were talking about possible mythological involvements for Carter, some time ago, and you suggested Deirdre of the Sorrows.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, here's the thing: hockey has a bunch of full-grown adults playing a fast-paced, full-contact sport. Fine; this describes several other games as well. But at the risk of sounding patronizing, the ice makes a lot of difference. You have a different amount of control and a different kind of control when you're maneuvering down a very slippery surface on blades.

So if you're going to put a priority on never having any physical contact that might be considered violent, ever, that shifts how people can play. You can't go as all-out, because you have to make absolutely sure you can stop before you run into someone, or run them into the boards. It gives a fairly large advantage to the person with the puck, because if they're skating all out and you catch up with them, you have to be incredibly precise about where everything goes in a matter of split seconds--which is sometimes possible, but more often it means they get further. What you can do in pursuit of interception of a pass changes.

So I am generally for more checking in women's hockey, and by extension I'm in favor of more fighting. (Fighting is the players' way of drawing the line on what's too much for the rest of the physicality of the game. In my view, it's not instead of all of the rest of the skills, it's supplemental to them.)

The thing that would change my mind is if lots of women players said, no, actually, we like it this way. Then, okay. Jenny Potter says she wants the rules to be where they are, thus far and no farther, I listen, because she knows hockey. But the thing is, I don't have the impression that the women sat down and said, "Let's have the rules and limitations here because we think it'll make for a better game." My impression is that other people than the players made the rules different for men and women because of assumptions they already had about what each sex wanted and was able to do, rather than because the players actually wanted different things. They came up with ringette on the same principle, and women said, no, hell with ringette, we want to play hockey, we're able to play hockey, we're going to play hockey.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Eeeeee!

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That made perfect sense. I am of course 100% with you on the obnoxiousness of making things safer or nicer or more civilized for women (ringette? that's a real name? seriously?). I've heard people say the changes to women's basketball make it a more interesting game--if you care about basketball, I expect!--but I never grasped exactly what the effect would be. This, I understood perfectly. As I think the Dowager Duchess said to Harriet Vane.