Word Wenches

To Be PC or Not PC

From Susan/Miranda:

I’ve enjoyed the comments that have followed Loretta’s last blog, debating whether historical accuracy in vocabulary was a luxury or an obligation, an annoyance or a requirement –– i.e., the battle of “tapes vs. fastenings.” I’d like to continue these thoughts on a slightly different tangent.

As historical writers, we’re all conscientious to make sure the dates for famous events are correct, that our characters are properly clothed and riding in accurate conveyances to the appropriate social event. But what about what’s inside their heads? As readers, how do you feel about characters that think and act like 21st century folk, rather than their own time?

I know there have always been free-thinkers throughout history, women and men who pushed the social and intellectual boundaries of propriety and expectation. I also realize that however hard we try to “get it right” as writers, we’re bound to be tripped up by our contemporary filters. But as a reader, I’m still taken aback by how often (but NEVER among the books of my fellow Wenches! *G*) it seems as if there’s no attempt at all to get inside a character’s, well, character, as well as their time.

Both heroines and heroes in historical romances are often amazingly free of prejudice of any kind. They have a saintly tolerance for those from other countries. They don’t ridicule other races or religions, or use slanderous epithets. They don’t whip their children or their horses, kick their dogs, wager on cockfights or bearbaitings, or drown unwanted kittens. They don’t regard hangings or beheadings as good edifying family fun, like everyone else did. They are always so kind, generous, and understanding towards their servants that the servants are often their best friends and confidants. In fact, these heros and heroines are often such perfect paragons that it’s amazing to realize how seldom they go to church or mention religion (except when the hero, under great peril or duress, will swear), especially when they pretend to live in times when the Church was of enormous importance, as was worrying about Heaven and Hell and which place you’d wind up. But being heroes and heroines, maybe they don’t have to.

In the best historical romances, this doesn’t happen. Characters have real flaws, real challenges born of their times, real problems. But for an increasing number of the books set in the Fantasyland Past, it seems that contemporary morals and beliefs are pasted onto historical bodies.

The most obvious example has to be the haste with which a great many heroines in historical romance tumble into bed. Up until the 20th century or so, most English and American women would have had constant warnings drummed into them against sex outside of marriage, from religious (it’s a sin), moral (you’ll be no better than a whore), economic (no man will marry and support a fallen woman), and biological (without birth control, odds are you’ll get pregnant with an illegitimate child you can’t support, with further unfortunate odds that you’ll have a good chance of dying in childbirth. If your partner’s one of those bad-boy-rakes, odds are also in favor of you contracting a venereal disease that will ultimately be fatal.) For most women, to have sex in such circumstances would be a monumental decision, yet over and over again you’ll find heroines who act like 21st century “Girls Gone Wild”, whooping it up on spring break in Daytona.

So what do you think as readers? Do you want historical characters to act like their time, or ours? Or do you prefer that your “escape reading” escape from that much reality as well?

Catching up! From zero to published: Edith's story.

Happy Sunday - Here's Edith!

First, a huge thanks to all the wenches for filling in for me last week, and posting about when I greeted my first grandchild: Susie and Ed's amazingly gorgeous and totally wonderful HUGO NORBERT! Susie wanted to pass on how touched she was by your posts.

Here's the little snapper:

And thanks to all of you, for your patience with me. I promised to tell you about how I got published, didn't I? But that puts me way behind all the sparkling new topics that have come up here. Ah, how easy to fall out of step in a mere week's time on the internet!

So, here's a brief precis: I started out writing for a local newspaper - gratis. Then I worked my way up to writing opinion pieces and features for local magazines. Then for NEWSDAY and THE NEW YORK TIMES. And then, I decided to write novels. When the children (all 3) were abed, I'd sit at the kitchen table and write.

Now, here's a strange but true fact. I wrote three novels: a mystery, a science fiction, and a regency omance, and decided to go with whichever drew the most interest.

My first reader was my late husband, Norbert.

My critique group was an interested friend.

Neither were writers.

I sent out the three books. The one that showed the most promise was the Regency Romance. In fact, there were two offers to buy it - if I changed the ending. Seemed no one wanted a romance where the villian got the girl.

But I stuck by my guns, and didn't sell it.

(Now, imagine calendar pages blowing in the wind...)

Finally, an editor said she'd be interested in buying it, if I just added a chapter more, showing why I thought the villain deserved the heroine.

I did.
I sent it to her.
She sent it back to me with a note saying it was perfect. But she'd run ove budget for the year, and couldn't buy it.

I put the book in a drawer. And then, a year later, an old friend in the writing biz asked about my career. I told her the story. She asked if I had resubmitted the novel.

"Nah," said I. "She was just being kind."

"Edith," said the old friend, "Editors are NEVER kind."

I resubmitted it.

That was "THE DUKE'S WAGER" and it has since gone into several printings.

Ta da!

The question is, would I do that again? I mean stick to my opinions that firmly? I think so - for the really important plot points. Would you?

And now back to important stuff.

Isn't Hugo Norbert just beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!

Watching My Language

      From Loretta:
      
      This week the microwave died.  I vow, they’re doing this on purpose, those appliances, because they know I don’t have time.  This week I have Copy Edit.
      According to WORDS INTO TYPE (my style book--and I now seem to be the only person on the face of the planet who uses it), “even the finest writers have occasional lapses, and errors in spelling or inconsistencies in capitalization or usage of numbers creep in.”  The job of the copy editor is to correct these errors and inconsistencies.
      Yes, even I make these errors.  I fail to type in a “the” or type “foul” when I mean “fowl.”  I misplace an apostrophe or forget a comma rule.
      WIT goes on to say, “There are many cases in which acceptable usage is merely a matter of personal preference, and so long as an author is consistent, the reader scarcely notices whether it is percent or per cent, freelancer or free-lancer.”  I don’t know about the other Wenches, but I can’t remember any case in which the copy editor applied the consistency rule.  I tend to hyphenate a great many more compound words than is customary in American spelling style because so many of my reference works are from England.  The copy editors always go through and unhyphenate them, even though no American reader, I believe, would have any difficulty in reading them with the hyphens.  For instance, two of my references works used a hyphen for brew-house and no hyphen for bakehouse.  So that’s how I wrote them.  And that’s how I explained them on the style sheet I included with my manuscript.  The copy editor changed “brew-house” to “brewhouse.”
      Who cares?  Not me.  No big red “stet” in the margin on that one.
       I do become incensed, however, when “chaperon” is changed to “chaperone,” because to me that’s just abominable--again, though I seem to be the only person remaining on the planet who agrees with Fowler that “The addition of a final e is wrong.”
      I also have nails-on-blackboard reaction to “comprised of”--which to me is awkward and backward.  The rule I learned is that the whole comprises the parts, e.g., “His lodgings comprised two rooms.”  I agree with Fowler that the “lamentably common use of comprise as a synonym of compose or constitute is a wanton and indefensible weakening of our vocabulary.”
      Not that I agree with Fowler on everything.
      And not that even experts (most of whom seem to be self-appointed) agree on everything.  And how, I wonder, does one decide who is an expert and who is not? 
      Still, all in all, in the last few years I have felt thankful to the copy editors, especially when they make a cuckoo change to my deathless prose.  Or when I get a query I find completely insane.  Nine times out of ten, this indicates that the deathless prose in question is not going to make sense to the reader.  If it did make sense, the copy editor would not have gone all cuckoo and deranged.
      A recent example is “tapes” as referring to those narrow strips of cloth that helped hold women’s clothing together--along with pins (not safety pins, mind you) and hooks and eyes and drawstrings.  The copy editor queried “tapes,” wondering about the plural form.  I scratched my head over this one.  Then I finally realized that the usage tends to be found mainly in costuming books, which meant that the average reader might picture something very different from what I had in mind.  So I changed “tapes” to “fastenings.”  After all, this was not a treatise on early 19th C dress construction but a love scene.
      In writing my books, I try to channel the English authors I’ve read.  Still, I am a Yank and the majority of my readers are Yanks, so the challenge is not only to try to avoid Americanisms (which, as the comments to Jo’s post indicate, is a tricky task) and blatantly anachronistic language but to also avoid excessive use of British terms that would baffle American readers.  I try to remember that British English, is, after all, a foreign language, and it is not my first or many of my readers’ first language.  It’s also good to remember that a little 19th C terminology goes a long way.  As Susan/Sarah indicated, there are ways of conveying a different time period and language style without becoming incomprehensible.
      A couple of books ago, the copy editor queried “bosom bow.”  This was a term I’d come across in Regency after Regency.  Maybe even in Heyer.  I can’t remember.  But when I tried to look it up, I found it...nowhere.  So I changed it.
      Susan/Sarah and Jo have talked about language, and the discussions have been great fun.  AgTigress used the word “twee”--and I had to go look it up.  That got me wondering how much looking up readers will do or want to do.  Since it’s part of my job, I never think twice about looking things up.
      But what about you?  The copy editor’s job is to improve readability.  What do you think makes for readability?  To what extent are you interested in looking up puzzling words or phrases or references?  Do you think it’s OK to encounter a few such in a book?  What words or phrases or references have puzzled you recently?  Do you think I should have let “tapes” stand, or was it wiser to use “fastenings”?
      

Time for Another Guest Interview

Mark your calendars and tell your friends!  On Friday, November 10, Mary Jo Putney will interview Laura Resnick in connection with the mass market release of Laura's urban fantasy, DISAPPEARING NIGHTLY.  The SF Chronicle describes Laura's book thus: "Seasoned by a good measure of humor, this fantasy mystery is one of the best titles Luna has issued, and a genuine treat for readers of any genre."  If you'd like to know more about this book which Jennifer Crusie calls "A  paranormal screwball comedy adventure. Light, happy, fantastically funny," then please join us on November 10.

Angel Rogue: Blatant Self Promotion

By Mary Jo

I’ve had a good run of reissues this year.  The latest is Angel Rogue, which is the last of my Fallen Angels series to be reissued, (though not the last book in the series.)  So everyone who has emailed plaintively over the years can now find a nice, clean copy of a book with one of my favorite heroes.   

Some characters take shape slowly, over months or years.  Others are created in an eyeblink.  Lord Robert Andreville was in the latter category.  Originally, Robin was invented as wallpaper when I began writing The Controversial Countess, a traditional Regency.  That story was set amidst the swirling politic currents of the Paris peace conference that took place after Waterloo.

The powers of Europe had already gathered once at the Congress of Vienna to decide what to do with that upstart, Bonaparte.  Their conclusions had been kicked to the curb when the sneaky Corsican escaped from Elba and declared war on Europe once again in the spring of 1815.  Napoleon’s return was stopped at Waterloo, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, and now the great powers of Europe were distinctly peeved.  Hence the Paris peace conference that ended with Napoleon being shipped off to St. Helena in the southern Atlantic.

This turmoil created a great background for the lost-love-regained story of Rafe, the Duke of Candover, and Margot, his first love, who has been working as a spy on the continent for years.  Now she is masquerading as a Hungarian countess and swanning around the high society of the conference. 

When we first meet Maggie, she’s fuming over being told that she has to work with the beastly duke, whom she has neither forgotten nor forgiven.  I figured that she needed a foil—someone to fume to.  Thus was born Robin, enigmatic Englishman, friend, spymaster, and former lover.  Maggie has always trusted him, though by the end of the book she had justifiable doubts.  Like a cat, Robin wound in and out of the story, and by the end it was clear that he needed a book of his own.

His story in Signet Regency form was called The Rogue and the Runaway.  After The Controversial Countess was revised into the historical, Petals in the Storm, of course Robin’s story also had to be edited and lengthened into Angel Rogue.  The book starts when Robin returns to his ancestral home in Yorkshire because he can’t think of anywhere else to go.  Turns out he’s the younger son of a marquess, and clearly he’s suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome after too many years of selling his soul, piece by piece, while spying for Britian.  He and his older brother, Giles, have a fond but somewhat awkward relationship.  One of the things I enjoyed most when I revised the book from a Regency was adding depth and complexity to  the relationship between Robin and Giles. 

Robin drifts aimlessly until a very determined young lady trips over him when he’s napping in the woods.  Maxima Collins is ‘half Mohawk and all-American,” and she’s hiking from Northern England to London to discover the truth of her wastrel but beloved father’s death.  One reason for Maxie’s mixed heritage is that romances with native Americans usually feature Plains tribes.  Plus, it’s almost always the hero who has Indian blood. 

Naturally, I thought this needed changing. <g>  I grew up in Western New York State, where the tribes of the Iroquois Confederation once held sway.  The reservation of the Senecas, keepers of the western gate, was only a few miles away.  My mother had a Mohawk friend who lived nearby, having married a Seneca.  I interviewed Theresa Jemison before writing the book, and with her permission, I used her Mohawk name, Kanawiosta, for Maxie.

I must admit that a major reason for my heroine's name was so that when Robin first met her and she said her name was Maxima, he could survey her very petite figure and say that she looked more like a Minima than a Maxima.  Robin never could resist a bad pun. <g> 

It isn’t easy writing about a depressed hero, but once Robin and Maxie meet and he insists on escorting her to London, the story took off like a rocket.  Maxie finds Robin baffling and probably useless, but it’s hard to resist his sense of humor.  As for Robin—well, Maxie and her determination remind him why life is worth living. 

As they become acquainted, they are pursued by a worried marquess, a parasol wielding aunt, a Bow Street Runner, and a controlling uncle.  This is as close to a romp as I’ve ever written, and I still adore Robin, who is “every other inch a gentleman.”  (I stole quips from all over to put in his mouth!)  Angel Rogue is hitting the stores just about now, and I hope new readers as well as ones who have been waiting will enjoy the story.  Click here for an excerpt:  http://maryjoputney.com/angelrogueexc.htm 

As always when I have a new book, I’ll do a giveaway.  Anyone signed up for our Word Wench newsletter by Sunday, midnight EDT, will be eligible for the drawing.  And note that we actually did send out a newsletter to announce Teresa Medeiros’s visit!  Now that we’ve done it once, we might make it a habit. <g>

Mary Jo

Conjuring Tricks

Happy post-Halloween!
It’s Thursday, Jeudi, Jeuves, Giovedi, Diar-daoin, der Donnerstsag, Torstag, Thor’s Day, and Friday Eve.... and Susan Sarah is back again!

Language, what a great, juicy topic, something writers could go on about indefinitely. I loved RevMelinda’s question about language accuracy, and Jo’s post, and the great discussion that got started (am I not allowed to say ‘got’? *g*).

So I’ll roll up my sleeves on this Friday Eve of Halloween week, and jump in as well (actually I tried to comment last night, but Typepad wouldn’t accept my comment, hmmph. So I’ll come in the front door of the Wenchie parlor, as it were, and post a more elaborate version).

In the case of historical fiction written in the here and now (as opposed to fiction written contemporary to the actual time period), readers know the writer is contemporary, and depend on that author to create, or conjure, a particular time and place, and people it with interesting characters running around in an interesting and believable story (hey, a clumsy defnition but it’s early and you know what I mean!).  Believable: the reader willingly sets aside that disbelief thang and buys into the author’s construction. Story, setting, time and place, environment, costume, and characters who behave appropriately to their time period (or at least approximately...) are all part of this.

And language, whether it’s dialogue or narrative text, is a big part of the success of the whole conjuring effect.  Language is one of the factors that can make or break it, can tear that fabric of the story, or keep it intact, for the reader.

I write mostly Scotland; I’ve written several medievals, and some stories set in the Jacobite/Georgian, Regency, Victorian eras. Language is a particular concern of mine, because many times, my characters do not even speak English – they speak Gaelic, French, Latin, Norse, Saxon, or early forms of English and Scots (which technically is not considered a dialect of English, but rather a language form in and of itself).

When my characters speak Gaelic...I’m not likely to have the hero say,
"Thainig sinn o Dhun-Eideann," nor will I let him go on like that in Gaelic, with a glossary at the back. But that would be the more accurate thing, since he speaks Gaelic, not English.

But accurate is not always what is needed. What serves better, often, is authentic language in a historical, rather than historically precise. OK, so the character speaks Gaelic, but we want to understand him. We want to be there with him, sharing that moment. A little sprinkling of accurate language, salted and seasoned here and there, gives the reader a feel for the story, character, time, and moment. A touch of too-modern language jars the reader. We are dependent on the author's ear, and sensibility, for language as well as time period. The author can build a bridge between the reader and the time period, so the reader can go visit. It need not be an exact replica, since then it might not be accessible.

Back to our Highland hero (who, btw, might not be in a kilt, but a wrapped plaid) saying "Thainig sinn o Dhun-Eideann." 

A simple translation works here. If the story is medieval, it doesn’t sound right for him to say, “Hey, I’m going to Edinburgh.”
Better: “I am for Edinburgh” or “I am headed to Edinburgh.” If it’s an early-set medieval, pre-1100, he really should say “I am headed for Dun Edin.” The name 'Edinburgh' didn’t exist until Malcolm III decided to adapt the Saxon system of boroughs.

If it’s a Regency setting (and there were still Gaelic speakers in the Highlands), he might say something a little more formal, such as, “I’m traveling to Edinburgh.”  The same phrase can be translated differently for each historical context, nuanced to suit the time and setting.
 
Another way that I’ve handled the presence of Gaelic speakers in my books is to give a sense of that specific language in English. For example, Yes and No don’t exist as simple forms in Gaelic as they do in English. Yes and No depend on the context and tense of the question or statement.
So I don't use plain Yes and No in dialogue for certain characters (this can make copyeditors nuts, but it’s worthwhile). To the question, “Are you headed to Edinburgh?” the heroine does not answer “Yes” or “No.” She would say, “I am” or “I am not.”
To the question, “Will you head to Edinburgh?” she says, “I will,” or “I will not.”

It’s not Gaelic, it’s not medieval, but it manages to convey the sense of both. Convey and conjure--I think those are two important words for the writer of historical fiction.

One thing that personally makes me a bit nuts in some historicals is the use of broad Scots for just about any Scottish character. If they speak Gaelic, they’re not speaking Scots in the translated form of the dialogue. If they are from any part of Scotland in the early medieval era, they’re not speaking Scots, it did not exist in that form then. If they're actually speaking English as native Gaels, then their English is more likely to be a soft, lilting, more correct British English, without much trace of Scots (depending on time period). These things mean a lot to me, and I'm careful about them in my stories, because to me that can make or break the historical world I'm building for the reader, and can be a stumbling block along that bridge.

Whether it’s romantic fiction or mainstream, as a writer I want to understand the context of the time frame in which I'm placing my characters. I don't feel that I need to be completely accurate, if accuracy is as much a context-breaker as modern language. For example, my medieval heroes don't sleep in hats, and they do bathe.  And I try not to let the dialogue and narrative text become unreadable for the modern reader. Have you ever tried to read Scots literature, accurately represented (try Lewis Grassic Gibbon, or some of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short stories)?  It’s crazy difficult, slows down the story, and the reading experience can become a thick wade. It's an aspect that becomes more an artistic touch, the story as artwork, than the story as entertainment for the reader.

Other thoughts... if the hero is a Viking, and the heroine is Irish...how are they communicating?! This bugs me when it's blatantly ignored (it also bugs me if every paragraph of the narrative is salted with 'twas and 'twere, but that's another post *g*). If the heroine is Saxon and the hero Norman, or the heroine Gaelic and the hero an Englishman, and so on through many time periods and combinations –- I feel as an author that I have a responsibility to explain to the reader just how those two are talking and comprehending each other.
Sometimes this can become a fun story element: sign language, body language, learning curves, teaching one another. Sometimes it can be a great way to show a character’s educational level or social position. Maybe they both speak Latin or French, for example, depending on time and place.  The dialogue is in English, but seasoned with a few foreign phrases to set the tone, it works. It lends immediacy and yet story integrity is still intact.

As a fiction writer, I'm not necessarily RECONSTRUCTING history, the way that a historian might put together known facts and educated guesses in order to put together an understanding of some historical event. I'm trying to RECREATE aspects of history. Using the same facts and information, I'm trying to conjure not exactly what happened back then --c'mon, I made most of it up!-- but what it was like to have lived back then. I think there’s an important distinction there, and that's where the various elements, like language, can form a bridge for the modern reader. Authentic trumps accurate, in those situations.

There are always exceptions. Anachronisms can be fun where they are deliberate. The soundtrack of the new Marie Antoinette movie, for example, or the soundtrack and some fun bits in the movie A Knight’s Tale. But if the aim, as in most historical romance, is to create a sense of a time and place, then nuancing the language, massaging those foreign phrases or that sometimes very stilted Regency language is a good thing –- it requires a thorough understanding of the time period, and a good ear too.

~Susan Sarah

Words for Wenches

Commenting on Pat's post yesterday, RevMelinda wrote:
"I have a question for any of you wenches that might be interested--I
know a while back that Susan Sarah mentioned the OED as a crucial
resource for writers. However, I have been noticing lately that many
"historical" romance novelists are increasingly anachronistic in their
use of language: using words, phrases, idioms that surely did not
exist several centuries ago. (Was reading a regency-set historical the
other night and the spunky heroine said to some suggestion made by the
controlling hero, "That's your problem!"--didn't quite sound right to
my ear--actually, didn't sound English, much less 19th century. . .or
maybe I'm just over-sensitive?) Does this drive you all crazy too, and
do you try to avoid it, or do you feel that a more modern language
style/sensibility helps the reader--or is it just not important? Are
editors alert for that kind of thing? (Even if you're a
gazillion-selling author?-- smile)
Did 19th century English folk really say "I'll be in touch with you" or
"I'll contact you" (two more things that grate)--I don't have an OED
(though I do have a Greek lexicon!) so would love to have your guidance
on this and all matters historically linguistic.
(You are, after all, the WORD wenches!)"

Excellent question, RevMelinda, and as usual, the answers aren't simple. But I'll get to my conclusion before I go any further -- to work in a work of popular fiction, the language used should flow smoothly past the reader, not giving her a sense of uncomfortable strangeness or one of anachronism. It's not always easy to hit that spot, especially when we add the factor of most writers of historical romance today we're talking about are writing about Britain but are not British.

Was it Shaw or Chesterton who described England and America as two nations divided by a single language? (I'm not too laze to look it up; I'm too short of time. I usually do my post late on Tuesday and I forgot. The gunpowder must have gone to my head!)

After 30 years of living in Canada my sensitivity to nuances of the language is blunted, and my critiquers sometimes catch me in an off phrase. And they're all Canadian born and bred!

Also, I do think a lot of readers today like a breezy tone in a historical novel, and that's hard to achieve without anachronisms both of words and of style of speaking. "I'll be in touch" seems like an example of that.

Anyway, it really isn't easy. There are words we could use, but which would startle people out of the story, like car for carriage. And ones we shouldn't but that hardly anyone would question, like sex for sexual intercourse. I've tried to avoid that since I found out, but it becomes so clumsy at times I've decided to just use it now and then.

An interesting one is hello. It sounds okay, but it's not. It's not related to halloo! the hunting cry. It's from the telephone. I quote.
"This greeting is much newer than most people think. The use of hello as a greeting is only as old as the telephone. The first recorded use is from 1883. It does, however, have earlier origins in other senses. It is a variant of hallo, which dates to 1840 and is a cry of surprise. That in turn is related to halloo, a cry to urge on hunting dogs. Halloo dates to about 1700, but a variant, aloo, appears in Shakeepeare's King Lear a century earlier than that. And there is an even earlier variant, hollo, which dates to at least 1588 when Shakespeare used it in Titus Andronicus. There are also cognates in other Germanic languages. Helo was not a shoo-in for the telephone greeting either. It competed with several other options, including Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion of Ahoy, but pulled into an early lead and by the end of the 1880s was firmly ensconced."
Link to original page.

Apparently this was all because they felt an urgent need of a word to say. I've never figured out why "Good morning/afternoon/evening" was impossible. It must be some arcane form of etiquette no longer understandable.

Yes, I do come across phrases that are obviously absurd to me, which make me wonder how it got past a copy editor. I remember a duke who said he's not pay "one red cent." Just to confuse things, however, they did sometimes use the word dollar for their coinage, for reasons too complicated to go into now.

On the other side, I've had readers write to tell me there weren't any corn fields in England, when "corn" is the English term for wheat, oats, and barley. And to berate me for my lack of grammar if a character says, "That ain't funny." That is perfectly good upper class slangy usage. My solution to those two is to stop using them because it isn't important to me to do so. I often write around difficulties.

For example "He looked out the window" is like nails on a board to me so my characters are more likely to look out at the street or something like that to avoid fights with copy editors.

As morning is my writing time, I'm going to stop here. I'll do more later.

How important to you is British sounding language in a British set book?

Do you like a taste of difference? Do you like a lot of difference so you really feel back in another time?

Any examples of language you thought very wrong? Please don't name the authors. We don't want to embarrass anyone, and anyway, you might be wrong.

Jo