DIALECT & IDIOM

One of the most important things about writing Doyle is to write his dialect, but not his accent. So leave all your "ye" and replacing chunks of words with apostrophes at the wayside. Your goal should be to capture his voice through word choice and cadences—the rhythm of his speech—and not resorting to spelling nonsense.

One way to do this is to re-watch the first nine episodes of Angel and/or read transcripts and scripts, and pay attention to what Doyle is saying and how he says it. Get a feel for the character's voice. Your readers, knowing the character, will hear Doyle's accent as they read his dialogue.

Doyle is portrayed on the series as not straight off the boat. Rather, his speech patterns are predominantly American. Story-wise, this could simply be because Doyle has spent a significant amount of time in the United States. Reality-wise, this would be because the Angel writers are all American.

However, there are some particularly Irish phrases and sentence structures to bear in mind as you write fan fiction featuring Doyle. For example, rather than saying "Do you have ________?", the Irish will often say instead "Are you having ________?" This comes from a fundamental difference in Irish Gaelic and English grammar that has carried over into how the Irish speak English. Other common substitutions include:

• I'm after which is roughly equivalent to I want to or I am going to. An example would be "I'm after a bit of supper" in place of the American English "I want to have a bit of supper."
  
  
• Using the present progressive form of the verb, rather than the simple present. Example: I'm thinking rather than I think that, or I'm needing rather than "I need."
  
  
• Use of your man and Himself are unique to Irish English. Usage: "Your man so-and-so there" or "Are you looking for Himself?"

To help decipher the odd bit of slang, I highly recommend:

• Irish Slang in under 20 seconds
• Irish Slang - Colloquial Speech
• Kesey's Guide to Irish Slang
• Every Day English and Slang in Ireland
• Dublin Slang Dictionary and Phrasebook

It is an author's choice to include or preclude using any of the above. Particularly as, noted above, Doyle's dialogue on the series was predominantly American English.