George Orwell also lamented Kipling's overly literal representation of English
dialects. The late science fiction writer Poul Anderson -- a great Kipling fan,
whose novel "The Game of Empire" was something of a far-future retelling of "Kim"
-- found a less intrusive method of representing dialect: he would lay it on in
the first paragraph of dialogue, then reduce its presence to almost nothing. But
by that point the reader would have incorporated the character's dialect into
his own understanding of his dialogue, thus achieving the author's intention without
slowing down the act of reading. But this is surely an example of "standing upon
the shoulders of giants" -- as I am sure that Poul Anderson would have been the
first to admit.
Fred Lerner
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