Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Ursa major]

If an author wants, in their imagined world, to make rules along the lines of X is the only Y that those of a particular gender could wear, that's up to them. And their characters are even more free to state their opinion on what the mores of the day are (even if they're wrong).

[HareBrain]

The book was a biography; the person reported to have said it was the artist Austin Osman Spare. I just wondered on what custom or belief he based what I took at first to have been an eccentic personal taste, but which now seems (from the little the internet has revealed) to have had at least some basis in cultural mores.

[springs]

A quick q; is the posessive of empress empress's or empress' or are both valid? Ty

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by springs1971

A quick q; is the posessive of empress empress's or empress' or are both valid? Ty

I think you can use either -- as long as you're consistent with other s-ending words -- but empress's is more correct traditionally, at least in the UK, and also makes more sense to me, because it's pronounced "empresses". I much prefer it.

[pyan]

M'learned colleague HB is right - both forms are correct, with "empress's" being the most widely used.

"The Empress's tiara was on display."

But if there were more than one empress, it seems to revert to the single added apostrophe:

"Both Empresses' tiaras were on display."

[springs]

Ty both I have 's and it was queried on critters

[HareBrain]

Annoyingly, I've heard several people on TV failing to pronounce the final "s", presumably because they're reading an autocue which leaves it off too. So they would just say "the empress tiara".

But every time I go behind the TV to put them right, they've gone ...

[Mouse]

Anybody get the thing where just as you're drifting off to sleep, or waking up, you hear voices/noises?

It's called 'hypnagogia.' The reason I ask is, I just want to know how common it is/how many people are aware of it? I've got a character who's describing it (not using the actual term, because he doesn't know it) and I don't want readers to think it's anything specific... it's more of a comparison.

Ack.

Quick version of the question: Are you aware of hypnagogia?

[Leisha]

Yes. And everyone I've ever asked has it, too. My sisters, my bro-in-laws, my folks, my partner...

[HareBrain]

I get it with images rather than voices. It's just dreaming where you're not quite asleep.

I suspect most people experience it, but I also guess most people won't know the word (though reading your post again, you're not going to use it, so, er, as you were).

[Mouse]

Oh yeah, I know it's just dreaming - I just wanted to know if other people knew that. Looks like they do, so I'll carry on with it.

Thanks, both!

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Oh yeah, I know it's just dreaming - I just wanted to know if other people knew that.

Actually, a lot of people regard it (or used to regard it) as a kind of magical state, where you can trip off into the astral realms and so on. The first time it happened to me as a kid, my face was buried in the pillow and I suddenly saw this incredibly vivid London street scene, red buses and all, and I was all OMG THIS MUST BE IMPORTANT WHAT IS IT TRYING TO TELL ME???!!!!11

(It was probably trying to tell me that having my face in the pillow was starving my brain of oxygen.)

[Mouse]

Ha!

When I Googled it, a lot of clairvoyance pages did come up. What it is, is my character has just been woken up by a shadow standing over him (the shadow was real). He's just pondering it and thinking it's like 'that time he woke up and heard a voice say hello.' I don't want readers thinking he's had spooky experiences before, I want them to go 'oh yeah, I get that.'

I'm guessing some people will know what I'm on about some people won't, I suppose.

[Leisha]

Oh, I had that exact same scene in my novel! Except it was a ghost-like apparition in mine. It will still be in the new version I'm writing, but I dunno whether the MC will consider it a sleep hallucination or whether she'll get scared of it and whatnot (I'm still deciding what personality my replacement MC will have). Possibly she'll be terrified, cos the poor lass has will have had some bad things happen to her by then...

[Mouse]

My guy was briefly terrified, then dismissed it. He's not had anything really weird happen to him (yet) to get freaked out by it!