I read romance sites and blogs and have for a long time. Becoming a publish author myself, however, means that from time to time I suddenly run into mentions of my name or my book when I’m least expecting it.
The first time it happened it nearly gave me a heart attack. I was reading this opinion piece on DearAuthor.com, about the truths and perceptions of historical accuracy, when I came across this paragraph:
Recently I read a book set in the late 1800s in England that referred to New York harbor on Independence Day (1885); werewolf (Old English); velvet lined handcuffs (pre 1900s). The book was historically accurate but because I have had a decade of reading almost solely Regency related romances, when I first started reading, I had to remind myself of the time period. The more immersed I became in the story, the less this became a concern.
That book, of course, was Private Arrangements. And what gave me the heart attack was that I’d never thought to check up on any of those things, especially Independence Day, which according to Jane’s research came into use only 8 years ahead of the time setting of the scene in which it was mentioned — I totally lucked out there.
And it’s not as if I don’t research. I’m constantly looking up words, phrases, people and constantly learning dates that surprise and sometimes dismay me.
For example, the word “dreadnought“. I had my heroine’s mother barge into a duke’s path like a dreadnought. I loved that simile: this refined, petite woman compared to a deadly hulk of steel. Alas, according to my dictionary, the term “dreadnought,” at least as referring to a class of battleships, did not come into use until 1906. There went my wonderful imagery.
Another place in my manuscript originally had a phrase that went “Mycenaean bronze, still-vivid relics of Minoan fresco, glass-encased fragments of papyrus from the time of the Pharaohs.” Upon further research, however, I discovered that the word Minoan was coined by British archaeologist Arthur Evans, who had yet to start his major digging on Crete when this particular scene took place. And I couldn’t find mentions of fresco being found lying around, so Minoan fresco became “seals from the island of Crete.”
And other examples abound. My first copyeditor caught quite a few of them. The phrase “femme fatale,” for example, isn’t old enough: it came into use only in 1912. The word “deadpan” is even newer: 1928.
The word “Marquis,” however, is too old. My copyeditor commented that in England, the word “Marquis” had been deprecated in favor of “Marquess” since the early 1800s. At which point I said “You’ve got to be @#%&ing kidding me!” and hauled myself to the university library. I went through several hundred pages of a Debrett’s Peerage from the turn-of-the-century, and sure enough, not a single marquis in sight.
So, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, now we have words that are too old, and words that are not old enough. What are words that are just right? Yep, we have a few of those too.
“Shag,” for example. I know a lot of people think Austin Powers but shag, as in to copulate with, dates from 1788. The word “bang,” as referring to sexual intercourse, dates from some years after the setting of my book. But I took a little artistic liberty as the dates given in dictionaries are when the words first make it into written media, and it’s safe to assume that vulgar slang words could hang around for years — especially in those more restrictive days — before showing up in print.
And of course, the word “fuck” is as old as dirt. And the first instance of it in known writing? A satirical poem composed partly in code, which when deciphered, reads “they [the Carmelite friars of Cambridge] are not in Heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely [a nearby town]”.
Hehehe.
CONTEST!
Comment on any of today’s four Sherry Thomas guest posts with whatever crazy thing you’ve done for love, or the strangest anachronism you’ve ever read in a book or seen in a movie, and you could win an ARC of Sherry’s 29 July 08 Bantam release, Delicious, and a Private Arrangements t-shirt! (Two prizes, one winner.)
Remember, only one entry per IP address is eligible for the prize, but you can comment as often as you wish. Winners will be chosen from comments entered between now and midnight tonight, 24 March, according to the blog’s timestamp (U.S. Central).
Good luck!
I love words. My s.o. and I joke that no matter how serious or trivial the topic of conversation, the one thing we can be sure will happen is that either one of us will derail it into a conversation about language.
Sherry, I’m enjoying these posts immensely, thank you for being here! (and thank you duckies for inviting her over)
I always cringe over mis-use of a common phrase. For example, “could care less” makes me crazy. If they COULD care less, it means they still care some. However, if they COULDN’T care less, it means they could give a rats ass. I actually still see authors get that wrong.
Sherry – what was the process like working with editors and copy proofers? Do they catch a lot of that in early drafts? Not in YOUR books, of course, but in general. 😉
Darn!!!! I have marquis in my second book. Now I have to go back and change all references. You learn something new everday.
The craziest thing I ever did was go out sailing on a boat that my husband built himself. Luckily there were no leaks.
Azteclady,
I’ve always thought of you as a hard one to impress. 🙂 So I’m glad you liked my posts.
Gwen,
I was under the impression that both “could care less” and “couldn’t care less” mean exactly the same thing. Read it somewhere in an article about phrases that should mean opposites but don’t.
And yes in MY books. I’ve a hard time with commas–I’ve never met one I couldn’t press into service, apparently. So I think half of all my editor’s and copyeditors’ proofreading marks are to take out excess commas. 🙂
My editor pushes me hard, so I’m always having to write better–which I need, b/c I’m a lazy ass left to my own devices. The copyeditor for PA caught a ton of things, some of which I listed up above, a lot I don’t remember any more. The copyeditor for Delicious didn’t catch that many things, and I’m actually very nervous about it, because I expected a lot of things to be caught.
Bev,
Ain’t it awful? At least these days we can do a universal search.
Maureen,
Good for you both!
Sherry – perhaps there wasn’t that much for her to catch. That would mean you’ve conquered English and it’s time to move on to another language.
German, perhaps? I hear their nouns get particularly challenging. 😉
One of the things I really liked about Private Arrangements was the historically-appropriate metaphors–such a treat!
As for odd anachronisms, I submit Mauve & Magenta. Mauve, the first commercially successful synthetic dye, was not invented until 1865. Magenta soon followed. I’ve seen magenta mentioned a few times in Regencies–usually to describe the hideous waistcoat of a Regency-era fop. Also, the original mauve fades quickly, so the color the Victorians called Mauve was considerably brighter than current definitions of the color.
I can’t pick on anyone else’s anachronisms without mentioning one of my own. Specifically, in a story set in a pre-industrial society I once described a fabric as “jacquard” though the jacquard fabric was named for the loom invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801 (d’oh!). On the plus side, after realizing my mistake, I looked up the great man, and found that the punch cards used to define operations of the jacquard loom were an important step toward the development of computer programming (yes, I am a huge geek, but this is fascinating stuff to sci-fi writers). Ok. I’ll shut up now.
I like the word shag. Tee Hee. Maybe it is from watching Autin Powers too many times.
If I ever wrote a historical novel I would need an encyclopdia with me at all times. Remembering all those facts and words would drive me batty.
I personally like seeing the word “shag” in historicals but an author I know, who has a good reputation for historical research, once mentioned that she got a hella lot of emails about using the word in her book because all most people think of is Austin Powers.
One of the reasons I posted about “shag” is that Eloisa James warned me I might get some grief for it. She mentioned that she gets taken to task for using the word “suburban” even thought that’s been a word since Shakespearean times.
Thanks, Bettie. Some of those took a long time to come up with–how’s that phrase to drive a copyeditor nuts–so I’m happy somebody noticed. 🙂
I remember in Judith Ivory’s Black Silk, she had a footnote about magenta: that it wasn’t quite invented yet, but she felt there was no other color that suited the hero’s mistress as well as that, so she used it anyway.
Gwen,
LOL, it’s not the English mistakes that I’m worried about. It’s the factchecking part. A good copyeditor will catch where you are sloppy. They will look up words to see whether they were in use in the era and see that if you mention a historical personage, whether that person was alive then etc.
On the third round of copyediting for PA, the copyeditor caught a mistake that escaped everyone prior to that. I’d referred to Queen Elizabeth as “young” when the Spanish Armada sank. She was in her fifties. I somehow thought that she was new on the throne when it happened–erroneous memory from some reading I’d done in high school–and I never looked it up myself. It’s that kind of mistakes, when I really don’t know what I think I know, for which it’s sooooo helpful to have an eagle-eyed and diligent copyeditor.
Strangest anachronism??? I did stumble upon some but at the moment I can’t remember a single one. However, I do remember several romances dating from the Dark Ages to the Turn of Century era, featuring such lovely gems of dialogue like “Oh yeah baby, give it to me, harder! Damn, you have a nice [xxx]. You are a great [f…er]…” and so on, as if it was straight from a “Debbie Does Dallas” DVD *g*.