The Guide to Browncoat Grammer
24 Aug 2016Towns
Towns Guide to Talkin' Browncoat!As a fan of Firefly and Serenity, you can't help but to love the dialogue of the characters. Their image and personality is a bit of a rebellion to the nice fancy tropes of sci-fi around them, which I think is one of the reasons why we take to them the way we do. Many of these characters are like cowboys, and as such, this is essentially how they speak at least from time to time. Since that's the case, it is more or less learning how to talk "western" that I'll be discussing.
Now, when talking like a Browncoat, its easy to throw in quotes from the show and movie. But that ain't all there is to it. The secret is to take notes on the little nuances of how they say things amongst the quotes. It's simple slang really and can start with replacing proper spelled words with slangish versions.
- you = ya
- is not / are not = ain't
- people = folk (or fellas)
- *ing = in' (fighting = fightin')
- good/great = shiny
- going to = gonna ( "she's gonna fix it" )
- around = 'round
- really = much ( "don't much care" )
Using "you", your", and "are"
But replacing words ain't all there's to it either of course! The overall grammer structure is a bit different. For instance, in various cases, if a sentence has the pronoun "you" followed by an auxilary verb such as "can", you can leave "you" out, and instead put an apostraphe in front of the auxilary verb. Just the same, if a sentence starts with an auxilary verb such as "are", you can leave it out and apostrphize the next word instead.
Example:
Normal: You should fix that primary buffer panel!
Slang: 'Should fix that primary buffer panel!
Normal: Are they going to fight off those reavers?
Slang: 'They goin' to fight off them reavers?
Also notice that I replaced "those" with "them".
Using "is" and "of"
Words can also be compounded onto "is" by apostraphizing it to the word it comes after.
And sometimes, "of" can be replaced with o'
Example:
Normal: Your ship is a piece of junk!
Slang: 'Ship's a real piece o' junk!
Switching structure
Another somewhat more advanced example would be this:
Normal: I don't know if the Alliance are on to us!
Slang: Ain't no knowin' if the Alliance's on to us!
In this example, it shows that we can adapt a phrase out of first person and into an objective statement if it gives us more room to slang it up.
These are just some basic starting tips. The main idea though is not always going exactly by every example, but instead, learning the general mechanics of them and naturally coloring your sentences with it. Take a look on the Browncoat Uprising wing's front page to see how I've used these mechanics in other ways to say what I wanted to say, and maybe you'll catch on!