Cheating Men Must Die - Vol. 9 Ch. 177 - A literary giant’s huge fall -- Nullifying the competition

Active member
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
326
@NineTails It actually is more or less that. Another example would be someone saying they're from New England, but instead of saying "soda," they say "pop" when referring to a carbonated drink. Or instead of saying "water fountain," they say "drinking fountain," and instead of saying "sneakers," they say "tennis shoes."
Many US English dialect differences usually end up being more on how words are pronounced as opposed to entirely different words being used, though, which would make it harder to tell the difference in a literary work.
Since this is a Chinese story, I'm guessing many dialect differences in writing are probably more apparent. I'm not sure, though.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Oct 9, 2018
Messages
743
That made me think of something when I was yougher.
After an exam, the professor give a zero to one student fot cheating, he litteraly copy/ paste her neighbor.
The student protest and ask why her neighbor didn't have zero if the 2 copy are the same.

It was a exam to verify we have read a book and our opinion about it.
The professor said : Because I know you shamelessly copy your neighbor since all of your copy was write in feminine.
XD
 
Joined
Oct 5, 2020
Messages
78
The more I read this particular arc, the more I realize the author of this manhua has no idea what the literary writing world is like. I mean, a writing competition with a live audience? How boring would it be to spend hours watching someone typing?

And writing in another dialect is normal. I mean, I've written stories about people from other countries/regions and as a good writer, I had those characters speak in their own dialects with the words they'd use. Like a British person saying 'mum' and an American saying 'mom', 'trainers'/'sneakers', 'apartment'/'flat', etc.

All the plagiarist could have done was say that her character was meant to be northern so that's why she used northern dialect. If the story was set in the north and she used a southern dialect, that would be the mark of a bad author. She should be praised for how 'talented' she is at writing a character using a dialect different from her own, even if in truth she is a plagiarist.

There are just many aspects of this arc that I find implausible.

I still love this manhua, don't get me wrong, but I wish the author had done a little more research on how the writing world works.
 
Dex-chan lover
Joined
Jul 23, 2018
Messages
2,540
@Seshat

That's easy to copy, but you must remember the setting is Chinese modern world. So unless we can confirm a Chinese can copy other Chinese dialect, we can't really say that. I think one of the comment below mention similar thing in detail.
All I know Chinese is tonal language, so how to put it into written form can be very confusing for me 😂


@CRIMRO
Wow, thank you for your explanation! My language doesn't have tone, so I know things can be tricky.
 
Active member
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
36
@Seshat to be fair, the excuse that the setting is written by a bad author and the characters will follow can apply. But it totally agree-an audience viewed writing competition is a bit ridiculous.

However, regarding the whole dialect thing, while it’s fine and common enough to write in dialects other than your own (like an American person writing a British character and their dialogue), the thing is that when you’re in a high pressure situation, people tend to stick to what they’re more comfortable with since it’s safer and they’re more likely to do well as the judge pointed out.

Plus, as you said, she easily could have said that was her point and it could have reflected well on her. The fact that she didn’t shows that it wasn’t her intention and makes the work more suspicious.

The holes may be there, but I’d consider that more as an aspect of the work because these are meant to be flawed worlds anyways.
 
Joined
Apr 25, 2020
Messages
76
The whole point of the judge’s statement wasn’t that writing in a different dialect was impossible but rather that it was very unlikely to be done in the given situation.
Remember, the prompt was supposed to be hidden to the contestants. So added with the fact that a live audience was watching them compose a story with a prompt that they were given on the spot, people under this kind of pressure tend to fall back on what they know.

Back in high school, my Language Arts teacher gave us 15 mins to create a short story based on the prompt we picked from a hat. I got the prompt “Hair” and immediately wrote about how a cute curly, dark haired child - in a family made up of straight, light haired people - woefully felt out of place while standing next to her brother at a mutual friend’s birthday party. The reason why I’m bringing this up is because I, myself, had a similar issue with feeling different than the people in my family.

Unlike Tang Mengji, I fell back on my own personal experience due to being crunched in time with an awkward, one-word prompt. The only reason why Tang Mengji didn’t do the same as I did was because: 1) She was given the prompt beforehand and was able to prepare in advance, 2) She had completely plagiarized a story that was similar to the prompt, or 3) Both 1 and 2.

(P.S. I take the different dialects thing like Kanji vs Hiragana in Japanese. The same language with the same tone but different written characters. Idk now to explain it better, but it makes sense in my head)
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2020
Messages
894
SO COOOOOOL!!! TODAY'S CHAPTER, IS THE SAME AS ALWAYS—THE BEST!!( ꈍᴗꈍ)❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thanks for the chapter!!!😃❤️❤️❤️❤️
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
170
i wonder if gu will wonder about the personality change once she lets the author take over again
 
Supporter
Joined
Oct 28, 2018
Messages
1,271
I love it when a genius is representing as recognizing where ideas come from and how they could have been developed. It is a really hard discipline to master, and is one of the few methods that I can think of that would allow someone to identify a transmigrator. After all, inventions do not spring from nowhere; the ideas are built from previous ideas. Most things that looks like an exception is just an idea from other field being applied.

If anyone can think of an exception to this rule, please let me know.
 
Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
35
@NiveousKro kinda right on dialect thing but it doesn't even have to be something as obvious as completely different characters being used. In both chinese and japanese there's are certain phrases, words, nuances, or sentence structures you use that can easily give away what region you're from. This is especially true when it came to northern and southern regions as in history there were many times when both these countries had been very divided in the north and south. As a result a lot of regional dialect and such has cropped up throughout history. For china some of the regional dialects are so strong one may even argue it's like a completely different language.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top