While I have to admit I didn't go too crazy about this in Dragonfriend, preferring to come down on the side of middle-grade "readability" rather than being overly concerned about historically accurate Old English vocabulary, I did ask my editor, Darren Robinson, to flag any eye-poking anachronisms.
A few of the words Kowal ended up pulling out of her book "because they either didn’t exist in 1815 or that didn’t mean what they mean now" are: "cliquish," "mannequin," "laundry," "titanium white," and "wastepaper basket" (for which she writes, "Weird note. Trashcans, wastepaper baskets, garbage cans… none of these exist even as a concept. Everything got reused, fed to the pigs, or burned in the fire.")
For me, it was more a case of catching myself wanting to put in modern (American) slang words like "okay" and having Darren flag things like "biz," "Father Christmas," and "halfpenny" which he correctly points out, "only dates back some 700 years, long after Arthurian times."
How about you? Any vocabulary challenges in your own work of historical fiction (fantasy or otherwise)? Or a case of being derailed by anachronistic word choice in a book you were reading? Let us know in the comments.
2 comments:
I did research for extra vernacular (slang) of the times for my books or listened to music of the period/watched movies, old TV shows, read old newspapers as well so that I may correctly evoke a sense of the era /decade...of course my current works reflect the decades from 1920-2000. For extra "pings " I added in events or news of that time that the characters comment upon or react to which also gives the reader a sense of the character's mindset or opinion. Not hard to do really. Now I am beginning to do historical research for my next series prequel books taking place from 1600-1900's, much
more difficult a task, plus I write in multiple languages! Egad! What a task! But how fun it is!
Chris: I do believe that researching period appropriate slang adds much to historical/fantasy fiction. I haven't gone as deep into it with my books as you have, but, as you say, it can be both difficult and fun!
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