What to say for blanks?

bobgon55 · Post by **bobgon55** » July 14th, 2011, 11:55 am

Just a thought:

You might say, "Momento, followed by five stars."

Bob

Post by **TriciaG** » July 14th, 2011, 12:10 pm

Or "Momento, [in a lower voice] dot dot dot" (you don't have to be specific that it's stars or how many, IMO)

There's no standard for such things. It's like in some works where it says "Countess M---" or "January 3, 17--" or "Number 13 --- Street". You just kinda go with the flow!

(For the record, I'd say "Countess M," "January 3, 17-something," and "Number 13, 'Blank' street".

Post by **Leni** » July 14th, 2011, 9:04 pm

Just a minor thing, but... you're sure it's not mEmento (and not mOmento)?

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » December 14th, 2011, 1:36 am

This seems to be the latest of the threads dedicated to the same problem so I guess I'll just post here. I'm about to record a short story in Polish where the author decided to shorten the name of a town to "*". I'm racking my brains how to do read this. I'm feeling tempted to read this simply the way it stands, as "gwiazdka" ("little star"). No other option comes to my mind...

Yeah, I realize that not being familiar with Polish you're unable to give me a good word. What are some most often chosen options in English? Maybe I'll simply adopt and translate one of these...

BTW: The funny thing is that in Polish "Gwiazdka" is also a colloquial name for Christmas

Post by **annise** » December 14th, 2011, 1:59 am

"blank" is used often in that type of sentence - but the Polish equivalent escapes me (well perhaps I should say I don't have any ideas - a literal translation is probably not correct) but I would say the Duchess of Blank or the Blankshire regiment or 1870 blank for 187* . But probably for something like Sir Humprhrey M.... I would just say Em - you have to go by what will fit in the reading I think

Anne

edit - or I say "dash" sometimes

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » December 14th, 2011, 2:09 am

The problem is that I don't even have the first letter. I've already done cases where just the first letter was present and I didn't find that problematic. I simply read this letter and left it at that.

On second thoughts, I could just read "*" as "x". I don't know about English but in Polish expressions such as "item x" are often used when talking about random examples.

EglantinaOwl · Post by **EglantinaOwl** » December 14th, 2011, 2:15 am

'x' sounds a good solution. I think that is what I would use. Some people use a rather clever little cough to indicate a missing or censored word.

tony123 · Post by **tony123** » January 17th, 2015, 8:54 am

I don't think anything is going to sound ideal, but I have a recurring phrase to record in The Splendid Outcast: "B Company, —th Engineers."

The best I can think of so far is to say: "Blankth

Engineers. It seems too involved to say "dash, th," and trying to say "th" engineers seems even more comical.

Any thoughts?

Tony

Post by **TriciaG** » January 17th, 2015, 8:59 am

Blankth, or somethingth, or *clear-throat*th

So much easier when there's not a th on the end!

Post by **chocoholic** » January 17th, 2015, 12:40 pm

I would say "nth." (As in "to the nth degree.")

edit: Or if you think somebody might think you're mispronouncing "ninth," you could just say "blank Engineers" and leave off the "th." I don't see any problem with that.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » January 17th, 2015, 10:09 pm

chocoholic wrote:...you could just say "blank Engineers" and leave off the "th." I don't see any problem with that.

That's what I would do.

tony123 · Post by **tony123** » January 18th, 2015, 8:24 am

Thank you all! I really do like the idea of "nth" or "blank." Much better than blankth, I think.

That "th" maketh me tho mad!

Best!

Tony

Carolin · Post by **Carolin** » April 10th, 2015, 4:46 am

the question on the blanks just came up in a project, so im merging some threads to put information in one place..

edit: done.

MARTIN GEESON · Post by **MARTIN GEESON** » April 12th, 2015, 6:53 am

I must confess that it really irritates me to hear the 'Blank' word. I think we agonise too much about 'adding to the text'. There surely have to be occasions when the impossibility of reconciling the marks on the page with the practicalities of utterance-aloud challenge us to be slightly more inventive. Why should we assume that this word 'BLANK' expresses the author's intentions, when in fact it is as much an 'addition to the text' as any other substitute for a straight line or row of asterisks?

I have made a speciality of reading 18th century fiction, notably Smollett. Authors of this period use this self-imposed pseudo-censorship in very sophisticated ways. They pretend to tease the reader by referring to celebrated or notorious actual persons; they use it as a tactic to add 'real-life' journalistic authenticity, half-feigning at the same time a fear of legal consequences. In this period when the English novel was being born, they appease some readers' religious qualms about 'telling stories' which masquerade as truth, or which confuse by postulating an 'all-knowing' narrator...

When it comes to curse-words, again the writer to some extent plays with the reader's sensibilities. If he/she writes G-d, or D-n, it is evidently not meant to conceal - and this applies to many examples. There is a cosy pretence on the part of the author; a textual exchange, whereby he pretends both to deplore a vulgar expression and to flatter the reader's delicacy. Intruding the flat-sounding blank-word here destroys that interchange. I always opt for a vocalic cough as a replacement for the 'dash'.

I believe that as readers-aloud, we need to have the sort of sophisticated responses that the authors invite by their textual marks and tricks.

Post by **annise** » April 12th, 2015, 2:28 pm

You need to use what works for the text and you - it's another part of LV that one size does not fit all.
Whatever you do needs to go with the flow of words , not stick out. Cough too much or too loudly and the PLer might ask how your cold is going

Anne