Inaccuracies in fiction

[HoppyHat]

Do they bother you? I realise I am annoyed/disappointed by simple "mistakes" which surely a decent editor should notice?

A couple of examples

A very very popular novel. Set in modern day London. Character regularly gets the bus from A to B along a named road all of which exist in real life. But they don't use the correct bus number! Nothing bad happens on the bus, the driver isn't awful, nothing libellous. So why not use the correct bus number?

I've just finished a book which I really liked. The author is American. But part of the book is set in a posh English school in the 1950s. The headteacher calls the season following summer "Fall". And says (more than once) "you need to write your sister" (or similar) not write TO.

To me these things are so obvious and quite jarring. Anyone else?

In Malory Towers, when the Riverses are driving down to the school, they have 'rugs' in the car, so I assume they are what we'd now call throws - smaller than blankets but serving similar daytime purpose.

People often had tartan rugs in their car. A small blanket with fringes. Car heating wasn't what it was. I remember driving my Morris 1000 in v cold winter weather. The windscreen froze on the inside and my legs were trembling with cold - this was partly because of icy roads so I was driving slowish.

Yes, we still have two in the car! We refer to them as travelling rugs - is that unusual?
They come in handy for all sorts of things. I used one as a towel when I went swimming in the sea spontaneously one day. It was a bit scratchy though ..

I think the ‘rugs’ the Famous Five are always using (sleeping bags not yet being an ordinary thing to own) will mean ‘something blanket-like that isn’t bedclothes and is a bit more robust’, like travelling or car rugs — as well as taking rugs in cars, people would take them on train journeys too.

Goodness yes travel / picnic rugs that you could also wrap round you to sleep when camping.
In an open sports car you always had a rug wrapped round your legs and you wore a headscarf. 😂

In Malory Towers, when the Riverses are driving down to the school, they have 'rugs' in the car, so I assume they are what we'd now call throws - smaller than blankets but serving similar daytime purpose.

In the old days cars didn’t have heaters. My grandmother who died in 1985 aged 90 always took a rug with her in the car - old habits die hard.

My parents always had two in the car, which were used for picnics and sitting on beaches and definitely getting changed into swimming costumes under, and getting changed in the car after horse riding under

I am very adept at a full clothing change sat in a car under a rug 🤣🤣

We have two innthe car as adults but they get slightly less use

But for some reason they always need to be slightly scratchy, tartan and preferably bought on a holiday in scotland

There's a reference to Felicity hanging onto the 'running board' to say goodbye so I can well believe it doesn't have a heater!

At my posh gels school we were taught how to get in and out of a sports car elegantly. 😮

My grandmother talked about blankets on the bed but rugs for daytime use. Like in a car, on a picnic or in the lounge in winter. Floor rugs were mats or carpets to her.

He set World Book Day on a Friday in April- it is always the first Thursday in March;

@2mummies1baby - World Book Night is in April, could it have been that? I’m always getting the two of them confused.

I didn't even know there was a World Book Night! How exciting! Unfortunately he definitely meant WBD, as it was to do with a little girl dressing up for school.

My kids school used to do a lovely thing on World book day in the evening. Everyone would go into school in pyjamas, and the teacher would read a bedtime story. The pta served hot chocolate. Possibly a few duvets or blankets (or rugs) and pilliws were provided for kids to snuggle under. It was always a lovely event.

(not a sleepover, an evening event)

That's really cute, I'd love to do that! (I'm a primary school teacher.)

Well, they were published between 1946 and 1951, though it never really feels like they were set then because of the lack of any references to the war, rationing etc. A RL coastal boarding school of that period might have been requisitioned by the army or navy, many parents would have been called up or doing war work if not in a reserved profession, and the midnight feast foods would have been a lot more restrictive. Some people do suggest that the focus on delicious ‘treat’ food, especially sweet food, in so many EB books was a response to restrictions and rationing, of course. (The tinned fruit in particular would have coded as far more luxurious then, of course. I think as a child I was mildly bemused by the focus on tinned pineapple chunks and condensed milk.)

Sorry, got sidetracked — was intending to say that I imagine lots of cars from then would have had running boards, even if we assume Mr Rivers has a high-quality, but non-flashy, non-new British car, because he’s the Right Type. As distinct from flashy Jo Jones’s father, the road hog with four enormous cars he speeds in. I thought I remembered EB specifying that Mr Jones drives an American car, but it’s not in the Faded Page edition…

World Book Day was originally April 23 - Shakespeare's birthday. It was moved to March just in the UK in the late 90s.

That's interesting! But the John Marrs book I was referring to is set in the UK in the last few years, so it doesn't let him off the hook! 😂

My DCs school still did WBD in April when they were were. No idea why they did it on a different day to every other school!

World Book Night is still celebrated in the U.K. on April 23rd - there are some fun activities sometimes.

One was to nominate a book and who you’d give 10 free copies to. I gave out I Capture The Castle at a local 6th Form. It was cool.

Another year there was One City, One Day, One Book, when hundreds of free copies of Perfume were given out in Leeds.

@2mummies1baby , was the book set somewhere other than the U.K.? (which is the only country I can find that moved it to March to avoid hitting its school holidays)

Sorry to disappear down a side road on the thread

I loved when the kids’ primary school swapped to this. The last lesson of the day was a story time and we had milk and cookies.

The previous project was “bring a prop from your favourite book” - a lot of fun too, and so much less hassle than finding 3 costumes each year for my children.

I was thinking Connie Willis. I loved Doomsday book but there were a few discordant Americanisms in there. It was a while ago and I can only remember muffler rather than scarf but there were many. Why not run these things past a UK reader I wonder?

That's weird!

Unfortunately not!

My mum, born in the early 1920’s, always put rugs and kelims on sofas and called them throws. I can safely say they were bloody itchy, as I suspect it was lying on Freud’s couch. In Tudor times they used rugs as tablecloths - if you look up Holbein’s The Ambassadors, there is a rug on the table in that. I don’t know if the implication was you were so rich, getting food on a valuable Turkish rug didn’t matter to you, or what. All very different to the throws you get from Dunelm etc nowadays, that’s for sure.