Archaic language and men in historic fiction

[AnotherDayAnotherIdea]

Hi everyone!

I'm reading a novel at the moment and it is currently 1909. The protagonist is working class and from the middle of the UK but usually classed as Northern.

To my mind (I am 40) 1909 wasn't that long ago. Yet the language seems really archaic. Phrases like "for I shall" and things like that. My great grandmother was born at around this time and certainly didn't talk like this.

I'd love to hear others' opinions on this.

How can we find out how people talked at a certain time? I feel that if enough writers print enough books with forsooths and so on, there will eventually be a body of work that future generations will read and will assume that they are accurate depictions of the time, iyswim.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe people really did talk like this??

My second observation is that in historical fiction there do seem to be a lot of men who are borderline if not full blown rapists/ molesters. It seems like a glimpse of ankle sends men wild with lust or anger. Do these men not have daughters of their own and so know how to control themselves?

Maybe I'm choosing the wrong books, I'd love to hear other opinions.

1909 gives you plenty of options of books to read actually written at that time. I don't think 'for I shall' is out of period. Your great grandmother's language would have evolved along with everyone else's - think of the differences between the language of your own youth, and language now - by the time you knew her, your GGM would have left behind the language of the early 20th century.

Your second observation - you might say the same of contemporary fiction, look at the millions of psychological thrillers based on psychopathic male protagonists. It's a way (one way) of making a book exciting. You've probably reached the stage of having read too many books of a certain type, so they all start to seem the same and become predictable. Look for more 'literary' fiction if you want to get away from predatory males.

How can we find out how people talked at a certain time?

Contemporary fiction. Find out who were the popular authors of the day and track them down on Project Gutenberg and other free sites.

For the Victorian/Edwardian period, local newspapers can be a good source. They carry detailed reports of inquests and criminal cases, with witnesses often reported verbatim.

Or letters and diaries written by ordinary people. Probably rather more formal than speech, but they'll give you an idea.

Further back, Chaucer and Shakespeare wrote low life characters.

Contemporary fiction. Find out who were the popular authors of the day and track them down on Project Gutenberg and other free sites.

Excellent idea, thank you!

What the others said. Read contemporary novels, newspapers, magazines, court reports, letters.

And yes, what is this novel set in 1909 that you're reading? When was it written? Is it literary fiction, or genre (not that literary fiction has any kind of stranglehold on 'accurate dialogue for a particular point in the historical past, but, I don't know, Pat Barker's WWI novel trilogy took considerable research, and is more likely to reflect actual speech in the early 20thc than the kind of self-published 'historical romance' written by a Tennessee housewife and supposedly set in the Regency, but where the hero and heroine are called Brad and Krystal, where Krystal is continually gasping 'Prithee unhand me, sirrah!' before being ravished in a stagecoach by the dastardly Brad.

Good question. It's "the night brother", written by Rosie Garland, who according to Wikipedia is so well respected as a writer, she has letters after her name :-)

I read an account written by my GGF written in the early 20th century, about a day in the life (he was a working class miner). It was much closer to my own way of speaking than the characters in the book. I will definitely look up some work contemporary to the day!

I just glanced at the beginning of it on Amazon, and read a review of another of her Victorian-set novels (by Judith Flanders, who is a cultural historian of Victorian England, whose book The Victorian House I always recommend to anyone who wants to write fiction set in Victorian England, or enhance their reading of Victorian novels).

The actual dialogue in the bit I read seems fine to me -- she seems to be going for a fairly neutral English with jarringly modern terms and phraseology removed. What is it that is bothering you?

Also, I gather she's as much a fantasy/magical realist/steampunk novelist in a post Angela Carter mode, with an interest in 19thc circuses and freakshows, and magical transformations etc, so I'm not sure I'd be looking to her for particular realism, anyway?

It's "the night brother", written by Rosie Garland

I've downloaded the free sample. Will see what I think!

I see it's set in Manchester. Should be easy enough to find examples of turn of the century Mancunian voices.

set in the Regency, but where the hero and heroine are called Brad and Krystal, where Krystal is continually gasping 'Prithee unhand me, sirrah!' before being ravished in a stagecoach by the dastardly Brad.

I want to read this now! 😆

I didn't originally mention the title because I don't want to unfairly target and pick apart what is a really good book, I was just curious about this particular point :-)

I will grab the book out of the car shortly and pop up a few bits that I wondered about.

I give it to you as a plot prompt.

If you're interested in historical Mancunian dialect, Walter Greenwood's 'Love on the Dole' (1930s, Salford) is full of it. One of my favourite books.

There is some footage/audio of Victorians/Edwardians (often WW1 survivors) on Youtube. Obviously accents/dialects differ but I can hear some of the speech qualities of my own grandparents, both born early/mid 1890s, Midlands.

For instance, if you talked about spending money on my (lovely) Nan, she'd say "I don't desire it". Or if commenting on somethings superiority "it's nothing so common as [whatever])

Small differences in many ways but there.

Ok, I've found a couple of bits, and I must stress, this is a great book and I haven't been able to put it down, and I do defer to the writerly skill of the author, she's very skilled.

'You have me, sir, may I be permitted to undress myself behind a screen'

'My prophetic sense indicates you are tussling with yourself over whether you should....'

'You are prevaricating'

'I was forced to surrender my lodgings'

'I doubt if you will need to labour quite so hard'

'For speaking to me as a friend, not as a stranger to be kept at arms length with falsehood'

I really feel like I'm coming across too critical of this book. I don't want to be. I am an amateur writer, nowhere near as good as this lady, and I am interested in knowing how to correctly pitch historic dialogue. The above examples are just examples of dialogue I wouldn't have expected, but I am very likely just totally in the wrong. If there was too much manchester slang I probably wouldn't have understood it! 😂 I've had some brilliant suggestions on this thread for some research methods which I will follow up :-)

Hmm..those examples aren't striking me as particularly authentic TBH @AnotherDayAnotherIdea although "I was forced to surrender my lodgings'" I could imagine in Dickens.

I did know quite a few Edwardians but absolutely not an expert and willing to be corrected! In fairness to any author, I think it's a hard thing to get totally right and there are a lot of variables, class, area, dialect.

As an aside, one of the worst (and funniest) things I've ever read was a translation of Catullus into 1950s "jazz" speech.

"Hey hep cats, what's jiving down the Forum" and similar. I get what they were trying to do but it proves that there is nothing more outdated than the slang of a couple of generations ago, or the previous generation TBH.

The first time I watched 'They Shall Not Grow Old' I was reminded of some of my great grandfather's speech patterns (WW1 survivor). He died when I was about 10 and I hadn't realised until then that I remembered the way he spoke. It's such a good thing that all those veterans' spoken memories were recorded before their deaths.

My Scottish Grandfather (must have been born late 1800's, had my uncle in 1914 and my father in 1924) used to address my mother, his daughter-in-law, as Mistress HerMarriedSurname). He died when I was 10, in 1967, and called her that right up till my last memory of him.

If I read that in a novel set in 1909 I would think they'd got it wrong, if I hadn't witnessed it myself.

Edited to add it always seemed to be a mark of respect.

Your examples are not convincing to me as most seem standard English and at most you want to change one word - work is now used more than labour , grappling rather than tussling.

But so minor to me - after all different words have different popularity around the uk today

Convincing in what way? Sorry for misunderstanding.

As in they don't seem examples of archaic language - I mean I am sure I have used exactly "you are prevaricating" in the last week ( particular friend )

work perhaps rather than labor, but you would still say labor market , hard labor etc

Oh I see what you mean!

Lodging isn't used today but in the 1950s lodgings were common

True. It was the forced to surrender bit that sounded very old.

The Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories were written in the late 19th/early 20th century and are a great light read (especially the short stories) if you haven't already read them. Just the thing for a cosy winter read!

One notable and rather (childishly) amusing dated linguistic feature is the frequent use of the word 'ejaculate' to mean a violent exclamation. It's still technically a valid use today, but I didn't 'arf chuckle at Homes 'ejaculating' all over the place when I first read the books as a young teen😆

To my mind, prevaricate is a reasonably common word. I've often told my son he's prevaricating about something or other. So I certainly wouldn't call that archaic. The rest does seem to be a bit anachronistic. My parents were born in 1915 and 1919 respectively and (even allowing for their language evolving) didn't talk remotely like anything you've quoted. As for men being rapist and molesters - stories with villains sell books I suppose and it certainly isn't representative of the time, any more than it is now (although it sometimes feels like it).