Subject: Re: I don't know
Author:
Posted on: 2011-06-08 15:30:00 UTC
The abbreviation, sure, that's common. But I've never heard anyone speak the abbreviation. When I was in JROTC, print references to our instructor were "Col. Fellows" but speech references were "Colonel Fellows".
Maybe I'm just being picky; "Mr" is normally typed when the speaker is really saying "Mister".
I'm working on my first mission. It's a Hogan's Heroes fic, and all the characters are consistently referring to Hogan in speech as "Col. Hogan". Yep, the abbreviation, not the full word.
It's not a misspelling, but is it close enough to create a mini? I've got to do something with this.
While this is technically a correct abbreviation, I am not sure it's used in real life outside of print... and like, addressing envelopes at that.
I have never heard anybody speak 'col.' in my life in the way I have heard 'Mr.' If it shows up in dialogue it may be a charge, or if not a charge just a nonsensical error.
Also, unlike 'Mr.' it's kind of annoying and not in wide use. If you can't charge it as an error, I'd charge for annoying the agents.
Is that not common practice for military titles? If I were writing a story with military characters, I would definitely use them, with the possible exceptions of "Capt." and "Cmdr.". I'd say it's equivalent to using "Mr." instead of "Mister/Master" or "Mssrs." for "Messieurs" à la the Marauders.
But maybe I'm wrong and standard practice is to write out the full title, in which case I don't really know.
My instinct is to say that if it's that consistent it represents a conscious choice rather than an error. In my opinion, even if it deviates from standard practice, it's not "wrong", per se. I guess I would ask if they do it for other military titles, if any appear. If so, then I think it's fine as long as the fic is internally consistent. If not, then maybe you've got something for inconsistency, but...
Regards,
Lleu
The abbreviation, sure, that's common. But I've never heard anyone speak the abbreviation. When I was in JROTC, print references to our instructor were "Col. Fellows" but speech references were "Colonel Fellows".
Maybe I'm just being picky; "Mr" is normally typed when the speaker is really saying "Mister".
As in, speech references that were printed were "Colonel Fellows"? I'm sure I've never heard "Col." spoken as "call/coll", but I would say writing
"'Col. Smith left just a few hours ago,' said the guard."
is equivalent to writing
"'Mr. Smith left just a few hours ago,' said his wife."
— clearly the person isn't saying "call/coll" or "murr", but you use the abbreviation anyway because it's shorter than writing out "colonel" or "mister/master".
Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that unless it's used inconsistently, I don't think I'd charge for it.
Lleu