Story Event Dating

[Rob Klein]

I go along with Lars.  When writing a story that requires reference to the 
origin of something at an earlier time, I would avoid specific dates, 
altogether.  In the case of someone with the advanced age of Uncle Scrooge, I 
would refer back to his age in years (i.e. "I got it when I was 22 years old, 
and was mining copper in Montana!") In a pinch, I would use X number of years 
ago. But, even THAT is a potential problem, when kids are led to believe any 
given story is taking place in the "current year".

For Sigvald: Once again, your choice of wording has seemingly caused 
objections, from people who don't want to be spoken for, and people who revere 
alphabets as one of mankind's greater achievements.

I am convinced, based on your private messages to me, and your 
public "apologies" that you mean NO HARM OR MALICE towards others in giving us 
your ideas. They were worded such that you "spoke for others" without 
possessing the data to do so; and in addition giving the (FALSE) impression 
that you intended to besmerch the value of alphabets that are unintelligible to 
most Scandinavians (or, at least, Norwegians).  NOW, don't get me wrong, I KNOW 
you did not intend to imply that the Arabic and Chinese scripts have less 
intrinsic value than the Northern European adaptations of the Roman script.  
But, your use of the word "RUBBLE" could well imply that to many people. 
Ordinarily, I would say this might be a language-related problem.  However you 
do very well in English (for a non-native writer-who is not a linguist). I 
really think the answer to your not offending people further (and requiring 
continued apologies and explanations of intent) is to think more carefully, 
before you choose your wording.  Remember, this is not your first language, nor 
is it that of most of the list members.

If I were a Norwegian, or a Scandinavian, I would resent your speaking for me, 
when your conclusions come from your opinions, and not from facts or definitive 
data from a large sample. You have ideas about what is true (as we all have). 
But they are likely to be inaccurate, if you do not have the information to 
make such judgements.

Someone implied that the "average" Scandinavian Disney weekly comic reader of 5-
10 years of age reads the comic once and throws it away. Where does the data 
proving that exist? I know about 40 children within that age group in Norway. 
Roughly 30 of them have their parents purchase the comics for them.  Most of 
the others read their friends' or sibling's comics only once.  They are casual 
readers.  The 30 that "own" them all have kept all their weeklies (and have a 
few monthlies, and a few special books, and some even have a few albums and 
pockets. They keep them all.  No throwing away.  A few of them don't treat 
their comics "with kid gloves", but most do.  Some of the older kids are ardent 
collectors, buying old comics, to fill in what they missed, and get some of 
the "classic" older stories.  They all have decent sized "stacks" of comics. 
Several have their "collections" in neat bookshelves.  I found a similar 
situation among the children I know in Danmark.  The Entire group of families I 
know in Norway has nothing to do with my connections to Egmont, nor my comic 
collecting hobby. They were ALL met through other walks of life.  NONE of those 
children have a comic collector for a parent.  The same is true for those I 
know in Danmark. Most of them are members of my brother-in-law's family.  None 
of them are comic book collectors. My comic book artist friends and writer 
friends there don't have kids in that age group, except Freddy Milton's kids, 
who DON'T read comic books (they went straight to novels and nonfiction)! So 
what does this prove??? It proves that opinions and anecdotal data PROVE 
NOTHING! One should always couch his statements in the context of their 
pertainence. If you have an opinion, state it as such ("I think..." -or, IF X 
is so, THEN.... - Does anyone on the list have the exact data or information on 
this?", etc.

Now, regarding the RUBBLE ALPHABETS ("It's all Greek to me!").  Perhaps it 
would have been less offensive to say: "I think more people in Scandinavia 
would have preferred to see the characters' names written in an alphabet whose 
phonemes they can understand!  Perhaps the book should have shown the native 
foreign alphabets, AND ALSO provided phonetic translations of the names into a 
Romanized alphabet (with a code key to indicate sounds not used in the 
Scandinavian languages).

That so-called "RUBBLE" alphabet is a closer derivitive of the ORIGINAL West 
Semitic alphabet, which was the precurser to the "classic" Greek and Roman 
Alphabets.  Without THAT original, we would NOT be using the modified Roman 
script today, that you are so comfortable with! So,.... shouldn't we use more 
careful wording, that doesn't make people think that we are disrespecting other 
people's languages or alphabets.

I, for one, as a child, AND as an adult, am MORE GLAD to see the names of the 
Disney characters in their most exotic forms. Had I seen that as a child, it 
WOULD have likely spurred me on to learn the Arabic and Chinese alphabets, and 
possibly those languages, as well. The Arabic would have stood me in good 
stead, as I worked in the Middle East and "Arab Africa" for over 10 years.  I 
did learn their alphabet and language (to some extent), but the early head 
start would have been a bonus. It might have changed my whole life.  Don't 
underestimate our children. They are capable of, and interested in quite a lot.
They already have access to information regarding the names of the characters 
in neighbouring countries.  Many Norwegians have cousins in Sweden and/or 
danmark.  They could also find the names of the characters by looking at second 
hand comic books in antiquariats and book stores.  I used to frequent most of 
the shops in Copenhagen, Malmo, Oslo and Jylland. I have seen almost every 
Saturday, a few "foreign" comics in the shops with the bigger stocks.

Terms such as "most people", "most of the time", "always", "everyone", "most 
children", "most (fill in ethnic or age group)", should be used with care, if 
at all (or prefaced with "so and so data or study said".

This way, we will have less hashing over who meant what, and a lower percentage 
of tangential and off-topic paragraphs.  

That's just my krone's worth.

Rob Klein



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