All Comments on 'The Stranger on Cliff Lane'

but it's rather spoiled by silly typos an editor could sort for you readily. And the use of the US 'realized' instead of the correct (for a British story) 'realised'.

Scotsman - Yes I did find a couple of typos (and a couple of misused commas, oh, and one wrong choice of word), so thank you for that. But while I can find five occasions where realise(d) is spelled with an 's', I can't find any examples of the use of 'z'. and neither can Microsoft Word's find and replace function. So where?

Being English, why would I want to use a foreign spelling when I naturally write in UK English?

where did the complaint find a z, l went back and checked. He needs to replace His computer.

my old pussy and i really enjoyed this story, thank you for the thrill

This made a wonderful change from the plethora of US stories on the site! I know and love Cornwall and I have been single for a number of years now, so this story really hit the spot! Thank you.

UK equivalent should be 'recognise'!

However, "realised" is correctly spelt!

I'm not the same "Anonymous"!!

Perhaps there should be facility for Anonymous 2, Anonymous 3, etc.?

To Anon mk2.

When you pointed out the spelling of recognize/recognise it got me thinking. I've always spelled realise with an s and recognize with a z, so I went to the fountain of all wisdom - The Oxford English Dictionary - and looked it up, and found to my surprise that UK English recognizes the use of either z or s in words like recognize, apologize and realise, etc but that US English only uses a z. Strange isn't it?

But one thing I will say in all seriousness, I don't mind criticism because when I read back my earlier stories I can see that such criticism had improved my writing no end, and for that I'm always grateful.

But, to the pedantic nit pickers amongst you - Nah na-na nah nah!!!

... is another man's cogent criticism. If you ludicrously misspell or grossly misuse a word or commit an ugly grammatical error early in a story, you will lose me as a reader before I can see whether you might or might not have something to say. And maybe other potential readers also would move on to another writer. You choose to write and to put your writings out for reading by the public, so you should undertake to tell your stories at a level of competence that does not offend ordinary readers. This is not to say that using an "s" instead of a "z" in words where both options are permissible is evidence of incompetence. In my not-so-humble opinion.

is defined among other things as the "undue display of learning" as well as the "slavish attention to rules, details, etc." Perhaps when you choose to submit your own writing to a free site you can demonstrate your pedantic preferences and make everything incredibly annoyingly perfect but until then...pipe down and stop trying to show off. It was a charming story, nothing more, nothing less. Leave it be.

Very nice, indeed. I found this very touching. And, personally, I don't give a hoot about a few spelling mistakes. Thank you, Otazel, and keep it up.

Otazel is one of the finest writers on here and you are quibbling about one of the very few mis-spelt words?

Get over yourselves and go have a good wank.