Lord Peter Wimsey - linguistic question

[Flyingfish2019]

A linguistic question I (as a non native speaker of English) had reading Lord Peter Wimsey novels. There is sometimes unusual grammar like.

“To myself says I“ or “I see him. Mr. if forgot his name) that is“ or use of ain’t all the time.

To me it seems like “I said to myself“, “I see him. That is Mr...“ would be more correct English. Are the characters meant to speak odd or is it oldfashioned English or is it just me not knowing enough about the english language?

I just want to read some now!

I'm waiting for a bleak winter's day when I can sit by the fire with a pot of tea and my copy of The Nine Tailors - bliss!

What you need to bear in mind is that Lord Peter is always quoting — anything from advertising slogans and the Bible to Anglican hymns and music hall lyrics. As a pp said, ‘Said I to myself, said I’ is a refrain from a song in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe. I can’t remember where Peter says it, but the song is sung by he Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe and is called ‘When I went to the bar’ — is LP making a legal joke?

@Clary Oops, really? Like I said it has been a while since I have been reading that but I was very, very sure because I recall how I thought “To myself says I“ sounded really odd.
Here I founded in Tommy but spelled a little different “I outs into the street again an to myself sez I: “O it’s Tommy this and Tommy that“... on the other hand “I said to myself“ rhyme in this case.

The quote I found is from five red herrings btw, was that the book you were thinking of?

I forgot to post the link: www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_tommy.htm
To myself sez I

Maybe because of the rhyme but “To myself said I“ would rhyme just as well.

Yes, I think it is the five red herrings. He mentions he feels like Sherlock Holmes at this moment.
I think he does t have two proudest moments of his life.

If something sounds odd, it's probably because it's a quotation (or a slightly muddled one). He quotes Shakespeare, but also quite a few poets, and there's definitely one where Alice in Wonderland has a few mentions.

Anything that was originally a poem or song probably won't sound "standard" English.

Maybe because of the rhyme but “To myself said I“ would rhyme just as well.

Yes, but 'Tommy Atkins' is an ordinary British soldier, probably a Cockney, and 'sez I' is his way of speaking. You need to imagine the words being spoken by Michael Caine, or someone with a similar accent.

I know he is a Lord, I realised after I had posted that in that context is was probably upper class slang . Generally ain’t is used in the other sense though.

Remember that though Lord Peter was very posh, DLS was rather less so, and made mistakes.

PG Wodehouse is much more reliable on toff speak.

I think the "Mr xxx, that is" (wish I could ID the book) is kind of, "I see him, Mr xxx, I mean" which is not especially unusual. Would need to find the actual quote tho to get more context.

'Says I to myself' is/was a common phrase, a humorous usage of poor grammar. Lord Peter has a particular bantering style which is rooted in his time and class (and I mean 'banter' in its original sense, of a light-hearted, teasing manner of expression).

As previous posters have said, this is completely characteristic of a certain elite in the 1920s and 30s, but it's also key that Lord Peter had a formidable intellect and had suffered shell-shock after being wounded on active service in WW1. He often hid his considerable intelligence behind what was described as 'a mask of impenetrable frivolity'. Hence, quite a lot of the time, the silly wordplay and quotations/references/borrowings.

Still think I agree with pp that it's a G&S reference. Iolanthe I seem to remember?

It's perhaps worth noting that a lot of the Wimsey books contain fairly grotesque linguistic stereotypes. I say this as a former avid (obsessive) fan - after a break of a few decades I picked up Twelve Red Herrings a few years ago and really struggled to finish it. The main characters come across as jovial, aspirational in some ways - but pretty much everyone else is typed by their language. They border on Dickens in places. I wish I hadn't revisited them, they were such a happy part of my early teens...

Ooops. Five red herrings, not twelve.

Iolanthe, yes. Google is my friend!

To be honest, Five Red Herrings is not one of my favourites, either, want. It could be worth reading Strong Poison to recapture the love!

Also the AA Milne children’s poem, “Disobedience “ has the same syntax. Here users.umiacs.umd.edu/users/ridgelocal/disobedience.html

I got out FRH last night. It’s definitely the worst of the PW books - you can sort of ignore the snobbery and “hilarious” working class characters in the others- sort of. One thing I did notice as a mildly interesting historical point- all the swear words are left to the imagination- “I’ll break your [qualified] neck”- but “ni*r” is cheerfully written out in full.

Ha! Don't read Angela Thirkell, then! Plenty of n words re music

I wasn’t objecting-just commenting.

Regarding quotations, etc. Schoolchildren used to be required to read and recite reams of poetry. From the public schools to the one room pit village classrooms, kids would be memorizing a lot of Tennyson etc. A lot of the readership would "get" the references at the time.

Bertrand the PW story I've just read also uses the word n**r, but we should remember that, although the word is, quite rightly offensive now, it wasn't then. In the context it appears within the text I have just read, it is quite clear that the person using it is bigoted, ignorant and racist.

For non-English speakers, the quirks of language in books of this time are difficult to follow. English has borrowed, twisted and mutilated words from many languages over time, and patterns of speech change depending on era and class.
I've not read Tommy but I can imagine that if it is about a standard/average soldier, then he will be working class - someone who drops his h's, and uses 'sez' and drops consonants from the ends of some words.

Flying if I can help at all, do feel free to PM me.

Busman's Honeymoon, although the PW/HV love story is interestingly examined after their wedding, does have some particularly atrocious "working class lingo" going on iirc.

Am I right in thinking that Busman’s Honeymoon was originally going to be a stage play? Sorry if I have misremembered that. It’s ages since I read any biography. Anyway perhaps the broad characterisation was influenced by that.

DLS was quite a character, I wonder how she would have done in a less judgmental society. She had an illegitimate child to support and educate, and could never tell her friends about him.