From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   William Vetter wrote:   
   > Because I'm bored, I am going to let you all kick me around.   
   >   
   > Below is a fragment from a 1900 word story I completed today.  50 years in   
   > the future, soldiers in a jungle firebase are hanging around, talking to a   
   > captured teenaged male Vietnamese insurgent.  The 1st person POV is their   
   > lieutenant.  There is only one foreign phrase in the manuscript, which you   
   > will notice below.   
   >   
   > You can tell me how you react to the way I inserted it.  There is no other   
   > reference to it, or translation of it present anywhere else in the   
   > manuscript.   
   >   
   >   
   >       "What's your name?"   
   >       The journalist was talking to my prisoner now.  Crap.   
   > "Don't speak to him," I said.   
   >       "That's what I came to Vietnam for -- the inside scoop."   
   > He turned to back to the kid.  "Ko thane la zee?"   
   >       "You come here and speak our language," the kid accused,   
   > "and your Vietnamese _sucks_."   
   >       I had to turn my face away not to laugh.   
   >       "He's right," Miller said.  "That's what you say to a   
   > girl."   
      
   Do you think it's more accessible to the reader if the last line is   
   changed to:   
      
        "He's right," Miller said, "that's what you say to a girl,"   
   because he had sort of called the kid Miss.   
      
   or with other punctuation:   
      
   "He's right," Miller said.  "That's what you say to a girl."  Because   
   he had sort of called the kid Miss.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)