Details matter

[spinbaby]

One of my pet peeves is when I’m deeply engrossed in a novel only to trip over some detail that is so wrong it jolts me right out of the story. The latest is marigolds appearing on a moor. Really? A tropical cultivar native to Mexico on a British moor? I’m fine with the fairies and magic, but can’t forgive the marigolds.

[SheltieLover]

1. Lol

If the story is otherwise good, just ignore it.

We all make mistakes, but I know what you mean.

Such a blunder disrupts our suspension of reality.

[Ocelot II]

2. Yup, I've run into a few of those and it's distracting.

It tells me the author was sloppy about their research. A related thing that bothers me is when the reader of an audiobook mispronounces things. I listen to those quite a bit when I go for walks, and silly mistakes pop up rather often. I listened to one that was set in the area where I lived and the reader kept mispronouncing local place names. Maybe you wouldn't know the correct pronunciation if you didn't know the area, but if you're going to read an audiobook for general circulation you'd damn well better find out. Today I was listening to one where the reader pronounced the word Wunderkind (correctly pronounced "voonderkint," with a short i), as "wonder-kynd," with a long i. It's a German word, but one that's so commonly used in English that the mistake was startling and took me out of the story.

[Irish_Dem]

3. One of my professors in grad school talked about this phenomenon.

Where we fight with novels, TV and movies.

His theory is that intelligent people do this. We argue with incorrect facts or nonsense.

He was brilliant, a real genius, and he had to stop himself from fighting with things which
were supposed to be entertainment.

He told us to stop fighting and enjoy things more.

But I still fight with my entertainment.

[Retrograde]

4. There's a European plant also sometimes called marigold

Calendula officinalis, used in medieval and later England for its edible petals and other useful parts. It's in the same family as Tagetes sp., the Mexican marigold, but they're not that closely related. I've come across Calendula species sold as marigolds in some British seed catalogs, so yes, it is possible to find a type of marigold on the moors - but they wouldn't be the same as what Americans call marigold (and I can attest that Calendula officinalis is very good at taking over, at least in my garden)

But I agree - a misplaced detail, especially when the author brags about how much they researched the book - can drag me right out of the story. A big offender for me was

[hermetic]

6. Okay, we've waited long enough...

What was the "big offender" for you?

Thanks for the info on the marigolds. I found that quite interesting. It's good to learn new things.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I know exactly what you mean.

I'm a huge stickler for truth and facts, and when a writer gets basic things wrong I'm driven bat-shit crazy. I've been known to write notes in library books, correcting things. Worst case is i stop reading.