two questions of word choice

[swan_tower]

I have two questions to put to you, my faithful readers, regarding Midnight Never Come. Both are issues of word choice, but on a broad scale.

[Poll #1010219]

Comments

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

I much prefer to see some 'proper' French words dropped into the conversation rather than "ze", "iz" and "leetle" being used to symbolise the French accent - probably because my officemate was French and she used to drop French words into conversation. But saying that, please don't do what Kate Mosse did in Labyrinth when she used a French word and then had the next person translate it for the reader, e.g.

"I would like a chou-fleur."

"A cauliflower? Bien sur!"

"Of course, merci beaucoup."

"No - thank you."

I'm exaggerating only slightly.

And I have no problem with elves, but beware pointy ear prejudice!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I don't even think these characters have pointy ears. "Elf" just means "faerie," in Elizabethan times, but I'd be co-opting it as a way of distinguishing a particular type of faerie that I don't otherwise have a name for.

I think the phonetic approach to the accent works semi-okay when (as in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) the overall tone is humorous. But in a serious context, it's just distracting.