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