Inaccuracies in fiction

Yes, she's such a great character, and Peter is so good with her whilst still being completely himself.

I love all the DLS character nicknames on here. There are really quite a lot of us

What about very easy mistakes? Reading an alphabet book with my toddler and "R is for rainbow" has a picture with the rainbow completely backwards (eg red on the inner curve) - how hard it is to get a rainbow right?

Yes, Geoff must have impregnated Pam moments after delivery!

Absolutely nothing to do with inaccuracies in books, but I did find this wonderful old film on swimming strokes when I was looking up Old English backstroke, which I thought some other posters might appreciate!

I've looked up Old English Backstroke, which I had never met, sort of frog kick plus upside down butterfly arms. I always did the arms under water, so it could be used in rescue, which I have never needed to do, thank goodness.

A few years before I retired, after teaching starters for all my school career, with techniques taught me in college, I was required to get qualified with a set of courses, and a book, and cards. It was all based on getting children to competitive standards, instead of confidence, faces in water, feet off the bottom, etc. Not relevant to children who had never had a bath, only showers, for instance. I remember being taught to demonstrate back stroke on the side of the pool with a little twiddle of the hand as it returned to start moving up again. The children didn't need twiddles, they didn't have the motor skills. And they should have the fingers of the hand slightly apart. I had enough trouble getting them to use the hand as a flipper, and not fingers splayed. Bit of a derail, I suppose, but I don't think it is possible to visualise Charles or anyone using an actual, approved by the swimming authorities stroke. Or dog paddle. I think there's an early teaching book with illustrations from the 17 century, but the magazine which referred to it didn't show much.

Peter's an anomaly in any case. There can't be much more than 18 months between Ginty and the twins, and he has to fit in there. Mrs M. must have fallen pregnant very quickly both times, and the twins must have come very early - not implausible for twins, of course, and would fit with them having been considered 'delicate' in their early childhood.

Yes, it's something like 'For those who prefer accuracy where they can get it' and relates specifically to Peter being a naval cadet at Dartmouth; by the time of the later books, Dartmouth had stopped taking under 18s but short of expelling Peter, AF had no option but to leave him there anachronistically.

From Sussex, where the county badge has martlets in it, I recall it was believed they did not have feet, swallows, martins or swifts (no wires anciently) and spent all their time in the air. Should have stuck to starlings.

I really came back about Peter Tremayne, who, while using Irish names for things like satchels, and food, uses blasted metric for measures. I know Ireland has gone metric for distances but not back in Fidelma's time. He could have character explain distances in time for the journey, or someone explain to Eadulf the Saxon in miles, and if he has to be modern, include a table along with the pronunciation of names. It brings me up with a jolt every time.

I suppose it’s possible. I still reckon they messed up. 😄

We have had swallows in our barns for years and I have never seen them perch in trees and I am fairly sure it is not swallow behaviour. When not in their nests in the sheds and barns they seem to favour wires, roofs, eaves and sometimes fences. It seems as if the author just assumed all birds behaved the same way. It honestly has put me off.

Antonia Forest has an author's note in some editions, doesn't she, explaining the timeline. My books are upstairs, and can't be bothered to go and look.

I still remember the joy with which I seized Falconer's Lure when I saw it in a library sale in the town where I was living back in the '80s. I'd had it from my own local library as I grew up, and never managed to find it again.

I started reading these in the 80s when they were hard to get hold of, and read Autumn Term first, then Cricket Term - and the dual timeline really threw me at first! Steam trains in the last one I'd read, Top of the Pops in this one, yet less than two years seemed to have passed. The fact that Karen, who'd been preparing for Oxford in A.T. was now married with three stepchildren added to the general confusion. It wasn't until the advent of EBay and Amazon that I was able to fill in the puzzling gaps with the missing books.

I’m sure I’ve read lots of things that have annoyed me but I can’t think of any specific examples now. Except the general language point that very, very few writers - even some extremely good ones - seem able to grasp the difference between 'prone' and 'supine'.

'She lay prone, her hair streaming back from her face and a beatific expression on her sleeping features' is the sort of phrase guaranteed to make me launch the book across the room (and not just because it’s crap - it’s wrong! 😠)

Reverting to a previous user name to say I wish we had seen more of Hilary.

And yes, Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club was very good at showing the impact of the War. And the long term impact on Peter himself throughout the series, of course.

Lynne Murphy who is an American linguist at the University of Sussex has an excellent book on this subject called The Prodigal Tongue.

Roast onions being described as crunchy.

@SheilaFentiman You had it tough, that's for sure.

Very off-topic now, but I think the story of the Fentimans junior was DLS being very aware of the effects of the war on both men and women, and writing them very effectively.

Yes! And I think there are loads of others, if I remember the Bill Bryson book correctly.

@HilaryThorpe how could Lady Peter forget you, when you were clearly the teenage draft of her? 😀

(if you believe the suggested timeline of Conundrums for the Long Weekend, the New Year’s Eve part of The Nine Tailors fell between Harriet’s first and second trials…)

I would be boastful about predating you both, but I’m too tired from keeping house and home together single handed 😀

@LadyPeterWimsey I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that the American pronunciation of “herbs” as “erbs” was the way the English said it up until the nineteenth century.

Not at all, @HilaryThorpe! I'm hoping you went on to university and other great things after the jewels were recovered 😉

Have you forgotten me Lady Peter? Though I was before your time.

@SheilaFentiman I would love an original edition of GN. I did get a Folio Society edition of Strong Poison for my birthday, which is lovely.

I'm positive 'dump' is original Sayers. And I haven't investigated further, but I'm always surprised at the words we think are Americanisms but were used happily here until they fell out of fashion, but were retained in the US. Bill Bryson's Made in America was very good on this.

PS love your username 😁

Style indirect libre! I just remembered the name. Was Fay Weldon a Flaubert fan?

Separately, someone mentioned being annoyed by an American author writing about Cornwall and using American terms like faucet and sidewalk. Surely that’s OK in the narrative, as told by an American, as long as the English characters do not use US terms in direct speech? Otherwise nobody would be able to write a book set outside their own country.

I haven’t read this, but is it possible @Chitterlina that the description of “wife” is through the eyes of another character who assumes they are married? There is a name for that thing where the author writes through the eyes of one character but still in the third person and without necessarily stating expressly that this is what they are doing, I think it is used in Madame Bovary?Might even be a device to underscore how much the partner thinks that being married is how he wants them to be seen?