Writing about writing, (instead of actually writing.)
When a person is writing about the past, especially fiction, especially dialog, there is a temptation to go one of two ways. Either you find yourself sliding into 'ye olde timey pirate talk, arrg," or you render everything modern and strip the past away. It is hard to get the balance. (At least for me, maybe those of you who have done it more or
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For what it's worth I think you always hit the right note with your dialogue in your AoS writing. I am no shakespeare scholar so I'm looking forward to seeing what words you unearth from your concordance. Words are good, I love words. I remember being very surprised by Donat Henchy O'Brian using the phrase "hearts as cold as asbestos" in his memoir about his escape from Bitche. Amazing.
Kit never promised to be a good boy-- and I have my doubts about Ovid.
I have absolutely no doubts about Ovid ;)
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I think we are delicate flowers over here in the USA. (I know I am, can you tell??)
With Archie there is that whole upper class going-to-make-your-ears-shrivel profanity thing. It is and was the middle level that was so concerned with being proper.
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With Archie there is that whole upper class going-to-make-your-ears-shrivel profanity thing. It is and was the middle level that was so concerned with being proper.
Oh definitely! I once met a very well to do and highly respected museum director who had an absolutely eye watering vocabulary. He was notorious for it.
I think we are delicate flowers over here in the USA. (I know I am, can you tell??)
Course you are sweetie ;)
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The rugby songs were just funny because it is such a community type thing. I don't know, it is just funny. I think I was picturing JB and IG who have such a reputation for being polite and kindly. It made me laugh.
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Yup, I do swear a lot in my normal speech, probably unconsciously too, so possibly even more than I realise I'm swearing... It's just standard language for most people here, I guess. I wouldn't be surprised if as a nation, Scottish people swear more than anyone else anywhere. :-D
To go off at a bit of a tangent, I'm currently reading Anthony Burgess's 'A Dead Man In Deptford' and loving the language and style he's found in that novel. I also really enjoyed Elizabeth Bear's writing in her novels 'Ink and Steel' and 'Hell and Earth' (historical fantasy featuring Shakespeare and Marlowe). Although quite different, both of these writers manage to create a sense of period language that works really well for me, although I suppose for some readers it might take a wee while to get into it initially.
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I love 'A dead man in Deptford.' I finally had to stop reading it, for fear it would leak into my writing.
Another one I love is 'Christopherus, Tom Kyd's Revenge' It is the one and only fiction book I have ever read about Kyd. I think it is hard to find. I got it on Amazon though.
I liked 'Ink and Steel' very much too. I love how everyone sees Marlowe their own way.
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Failing that, just watch The Thick Of It for a good idea of top quality creative Scottish swearing ;)
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Dave
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And of course, there are many moods of sexual interaction. The speechless vulnerability is perfectly historical if it is right for the person.
I was kidding with Anteros about being a delicate flower. I am no such thing of course. I grew up artificially inseminating goats in our kitchen. My mother had a chest freezer full of frozen Dunkin' Donuts, bits of our own butchered goats, and thermoses of semen.
I once delivered a friends baby.(Not planned, total accident,) Bodies don't scare me. But words... I had to practice saying 'penis' in the mirror, when my son was a tot. i wanted to teach him the right word, and I had never actually said it. Circumlocation, as you say.
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My mom would buy the donuts whenever she went off-island, bring them home and freeze them. Big treat!!
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having sung rugger songs with the 'nice young men' from a leading Public School (capitals because they are hyper private in the UK) when I was at school with them (oh the joys of being a pioneer girl in one of those establishments!) I've never done anything but call a spade a spade (except to refer to a 'person of color' ;) )
It seems to me that in the recent half century a kind of prurient prissiness has taken over the correct use of the English language; words that are inoffensive are deemed 'obscene' by the vocabulary-challenged (no-one here I hasten to add) and so the phrase 'this man is holding a teeny weeny pussy cat' was deemed by the 'mother of a christian household' - her words - on one website as to contain 2 obscenitiesA penis is a penis - that is the anatomical label - why have difficulty with it. By extension (oops!) the word 'chest' could give real problems (especially if you are writing about the C18 when suitcases didn't exist!) ( ... )
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re: chest - no suitcases, as such, but surely there were sea-chests, and blanket chests? Though I am still sorting out the difference, in historical context, between a "chest" and a "press".
Books of the time - I certainly have read them. Part of my difficulty is that, at the turn of the 19th century, the shift to more delicate language was already taking place. I'd have a much easier time making a modern reader believe in a character of Chaucer's or Shakespeare's day saying "cunt" than one of Jane Austen's era.
And, oh dear, the way people giggle over "seamen." It's easy enough to make a historical character say it. A modern one? "Sailors" is MUCH easier without provoking giggles.
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And maybe I am borrowing trouble. Marlowe is still in jail. He is not inclined to talk about anything!
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Charlton Heston once wrote about that, regarding 1959's "Ben-Hur".
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