Apologies, I'm new here. Not used to policing my language, I wasn't brought up to. I'll keep that in mind in the future.
Well, I’m certainly not “policing”. I just find that word hurtful. It’s entirely your choice whether you use it or not of course. I’m just being non-passive aggressive by telling you how I feel about it
No issue, friend. I can just be a little insensitive and blunt when it comes to language. I've always been one to lend power to the intent behind the words rather than the words themselves, and my usage here lacks any ill-intent. So in my mind, without negative purpose, the word carries no negative power. I sometimes forget that other people have different standards for such things.
As much as it may look that way, it's pretty straightforward. It's just another way of saying I'm not one to watch what I say.
Canada recently got rid of one cent coins. So every cash transaction gets rounded up or down to the closest $.05. It took a bit of getting used to, but not much, and it really makes a lot of sense! (cents)
I cents a slight shift in the transaction. I can relate to that. :] I can be pretty blunt and passive-aggressive if I’m not careful. >___> Oy, we both gotta watch our language... Got me into trouble on a number of times in my early years...
I retired from the Pun Police Force some time ago. Got a pension. PPF pensions are the worst. The job is very unrewarding in general >_>
"Thirteen in the mag, plus one in the clip." Writers, please do your basic research for a novel. It's little things that build up into a dealbreaker for me with a novel. It probably annoys me more than it should.
Stephen King researches the hell out of everything except gun stuff, which he knows nothing about, and then wings it. In Cell, he has one character swing the "barrel" out of the revolver to check that it had six rounds in it, and then later uses the "illegal hollow-points" to blow huge, fist-sized holes in an LP gas container. In Under the Dome, the MC could tell by the patches on the military guys' shoulders that they were Marines. I know there are more examples, but those are the two that I've read relatively recently that spring to mind.
On the other hand, Dean Koontz buys and/or uses the firearms he puts in his books. Jim Butcher had a few mistakes in The Dresden Files, where he described a semiautomatic as an automatic. On an exceedingly frail technicality, he's not exactly wrong, but it's still not something regular gun users would say. And the only way to tell the branch of service from a shoulder patch would be with the service uniform, I would think. Last I saw, Marines had red and gold patches, the Navy had blue and white, the Air Force had two shades of blue, and the Army had gold and dark blue or black, I think. But the whole frigging uniform is kind of a dead giveaway for that. With BDUs/ACUs...yeah, they don't look that different across the branches for a reason...
I keep seeing TV shows and movies subtitled as having a ".9 millimeter handgun." So it shoots needles, then?
I generally know next nothing about guns, and I don't often have need for them in a story, but it isn't hard to do basic research to learn the workings of whatever gun is in question. If you are able to read and look at blueprints, getting such details so far off is kind of lazy.
Agreed. Hell, Google "parts of a gun" and you'll get all manner of nifty diagrams for the basics, like the difference between mag, clip, and chamber.
Yeah, the key point that King got wrong in that scene is that the people were wearing camouflage uniforms, and the thing that distinguishes (even back in the woodland era) Marine uniforms is the lack of patches anywhere. In my day, we didn't even wear nametapes, but an Army BDU uniform would tell the soldier's name, unit, past combat unit, and special qualifications such as air assualt or parachute qualifications. Saves the Soviet interrogators a lot of work. Army Humvees used to have the driver and "special" passengers name (Spec. Johnson, CPT Smith) painted on the windows, as well as the unit designators (C Co. 2/9 or whatever) painted on them too. I don't hate soldiers, but I do hold the US Army in contempt, sorry.
Not sure if this goes under the title of "...but shouldn't", but honestly - why does my neighbors fight every day, all day? And even more importantly - why, after being silent for hours - do they always start screaming again when I go to bed? It can be at eleven or at three - they ALWAYS start up their screaming matches as soon as I lay down. End of rant. I really, REALLY should drift off to sleep now
Not to mention people with silenced revolvers (there are a couple of weird ass special types but normally, just no .... oh and Connor Creggan - the navy seal mk22 hush puppy is a semi automatic, not a revolver ) Also the whole magazine vs clip thing not to mention using them interchangeably ETA books that think you can use rifle ammo in a pistol or vice versa . a .380 handgun will not take a .380 Winchester Magnum round. Also a lot of soviet block ammo is different to Nato standard so even if its the same calibre you can't use it ( vis the book I just read where the hero strips bullets from a fallen terr with an AK47 and loads them into his 7.62 FN FaL ... the Nato round is 7.62 x51mm the AK round is 7.62 x39mm .... just bin the Fal and take the AK, numbnuts )
Don't worry, in my experience the average US soldier has a few things to say about the Marine Corpse too .In the UK there is less us and them with the RM and the army , except between them and the paras.... which stems from a who's the premier commando outfit rivalry.. (let's face it 22 SAS has them both beat hands down anyway). The rest of the infantry considers them all a bunch of primadonnas anyway ....