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CAVEAT: Yep, there's a little redundancy and a little mutual contradiction between one rant and another. But if I stopped to explain why, these wouldn't be short rants any more. Also to keep these rants short, I deleted any weasel words (such as "in most cases"), even though I've discovered that without the weasel words I sound like a bigot.
Certain neologisms irritate.
"Proactive" -- someone figured out that the Latinate adjective "active" was a weak word. Instead of learning to express themselves forcefully, they tacked another Latin syllable on the front... Latin inflation. In the next generation, it will be "superproactive", and it will *still* be weak.
"Cyber" anything.
"Upgrade" (in reference to anything other than a computer). I especially hate it when a school encourages me to "upgrade" my skills.
Flames:
Someone sent me an email asking how I could write such terrible stories.
Are you flaming my storytelling skills, or my interest in explicit homoerotic fiction based on TV shows? Please clarify. Thank you.
Warnings and Other Story Header Info: Whose judgement do you use, anyway? Should I put a rape warning on a story that doesn't have any explicit action?
Honestly, I hate to put anything in the header that isn't about persuading people to give my fic a chance.
Pedantic Pet Peeve of the Day: Why do people say "differential" when they mean "difference"?
"Difference" is a mathematical term meaning "the absolute value of the result of a subtraction", whereas "differential" is a mathematical term meaning I don't know what. The *important* thing is that "difference" has fewer syllables and is therefore better except when you are actually talking about a differential.
Teaching Pigs to Sing: "Slash fic is too a valid form of response to this show!" Don't defend your interests, ever, unless you enjoy the argument for its own sake. We do what we do because it's fun. Watching TV, reading about it, writing our own stories, it's all good. Slash needs no more justification, and poo on anyone who wants to put a fence around your mind simply because they think writers should be good girls.
Blair the Hippie: Please get an education into the true range of potential radicalism before you go on and on about how unusual Blair is.
(2/2/02 postscript: My current boyfriend is a crossdressing polyamorous bisexual, and I don't think he's particularly out-there. Just because Blair looks soft in Jim's hypermasculilne work environment, doesn't mean he's all that unique.)
Non-sexist Usage: It's damned difficult and awkward to avoid the superfluous gender-specific endings on words such as "waiter/waitress", but you cannot claim there is no good gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. "They" has been used for that purpose for as long as there has been literature in the English vernacular. If you choose not to use it, fine, but it's there if you want it.
(2/2/02 postscript: I also think "y'all" is the proper plural form of "you".)
Short People *Can* Fight Big People so don't put the words, "It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have beaten him, Chief, he was a foot taller and thirty pounds heavier than you," into Jim Ellison's mouth. He was a Ranger, he knows from tactics, he knows that fighting prowess comes from training and psychological preparedness, *not* from outmassing your opponent.
This applies to any of the Big Guys who are called upon to comfort the Little Guys in h/c fic.
Real Fans: Exactly how do you determine what is the "proper" heirarchy of fanhood?
The self-styled Real Fans seem to think the Beecher/Keller slashers are in it only for the homoerotic titillation. It's a gross distortion and reads like a projection of the Real Fan's sexual fantasy onto others-- but if I *did* love Oz almost solely for B/K, so what? If there were a rule that no one's allowed to enjoy a TV show's erotic content, how many closeted, defensive Baywatch fans do you think there'd be? No, apparently there *is* such a rule, but it only applies to homoerotic sub/text.
Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling: Anything anyone else tells you about grammar, punctuation, and spelling should be judged on this basis-- that developing more formal grammar (if you've never gotten a handle on it) or more informal grammer (if you had excellent English teachers) should be about bringing your voice out, making it clear and strong and unapologetically proud.
Usage: "Taut" means "tense, tight, or strained" -- "taunt" means "tease or insult". Get it right. Why should you learn your homonyms, homophones, and other easily confused words? Because if you don't do your part to preserve the differences between them, all of us writers (or our linguistic heirs) will lose the ability to express ourselves with the exceptional distinctness of nuance that English's multiplicity of synonyms can grant us.
Rape Stories: The prevalence of rape in slash has nothing to do with the (hypothesized) subconscious hatred of slashers for gay men. Women will not cease to be fascinated by male rape unless and until rape ceases to be a cause for women to resent men, and to fear walking down the street or going on a date.