(Prefatory note: Again, apologies to Dear Author for stealing their style. I guess I’m in a epistolary mood these days.)
Dear various American authors of historical romances who are trying very, very hard to sound authentically British,
It’s not like I’m the foremost Britpicker of all time. Not even close. But I’ve noticed a distressing trend among your ranks in recent days. I understand that you are probably sick of readers bitching and moaning about how American authors sound too contemporary and too American, so you’ve decided to inject some authentic Britishisms to spruce up the joint. I applaud your efforts. However, allow me to offer the following vocabulary tips:
1. Your Regency- or Victorian-era English aristocrat isn’t going to use the word “git” as a term that means “jackass” or “fuckwit.” Why? Well, partly because it’s a term more closely associated with the working classes, and the class cultures weren’t quite as permeable as they tend to be today. Partly because the etymological roots for “git” are probably Scottish. And lastly, and probably most importantly, because it didn’t become common usage until the 20th century.
2. Similarly, your aristocrat isn’t going to be calling a person “twat” for similar purposes. Because it wasn’t used as such until the early 20th century.
3. Ditto “minge.”
4. Also, please note that while “twat,” “minge” and “cunt” refer to girlbits, and cunt is used almost exclusively in the U.S. as a pejorative term for females and sometimes for homosexual or effeminate males, these terms are used almost exclusively to refer to males (regardless of sexual proclivities or adherence to traditional gender presentation) over in Englandwickcestershire. EDITED TO ADD: OK, based on comments from honest-to-God British people, sounds like cunt and minge are unisex terms of abuse (though I feel compelled to note that cunt is used almost akin to the American “dude” in certain contexts and sub-cultures—at least, if Irvine Welsh’s books and several of the Scottish and Irish movies I’ve seen are an accurate reflection of contemporary usage). I’ve noticed, however, that there’s less consensus about “twat.” Language is fascinating! I also love the fact that I’ve now typed twat, cunt and minge more frequently in the past 12 hours than I have in the past three years combined. GO TEAM!
Ultimately, getting period and cultural voice right is more than just an exercise in using the proper vocabulary or slang words. It’s a matter of syntax, and imitating syntax is really freaking hard because you have to leap out of the language and culture you’re immersed in every day. Besides rearranging sentences, it entails avoiding structures that are ubiquitous in contemporary American usage but relatively rare everywhere and everytime else, e.g., using “get” as an all-purpose auxiliary verb. Your battle is an uphill one, and I recognize it. I also recognize that some of you couldn’t give two shits about hitting the correct period voice, and I salute you, because hey, we’re looking for good stories, and if the story is good enough, I, for one, would much rather read a book that doesn’t even try for a period voice vs. one that tries and then fails. Those of you who do want to try, I would like to recommend reading a whole slew of novels, letters and periodicals published during the era you’re going to write in and dissect the crap out of the sentences. Letters are probably going to be the best source of how people actually spoke vs. how some writer of that era decided people should speak. You’re learning a different language, and there’s no more effective way of learning a language quickly than immersion.
I’ll admit that on top of sounding like an insufferable know-it-all, I’m being selfish in this request. My leisure reading time is extremely limited these days—I basically have time when school is out, which means a month in the winter and three months in the summer. I’m interested in cramming as much quality entertainment into those months as humanly possible, and coming across jarring word usage is like walking right into a glass automatic door that doesn’t open on time. Slams me right out of the story, and the book has to work that much harder to draw me back into its world. My DNF pile grows every day. Have mercy on a reader on a student’s budget, eh?
Love,
Candy
@ Patsy: Thank you for the reccomendation. I’ve just added it to my wish list on paperbookswap.
Ok – first of all, I’ve read hundreds of historical romances set in the UK – and never once have I seen the word “minge” or “minger” – in fact, until reading this article, I’ve never seen or heard of these words!!
Secondly…I’ve never been so glad that I’m dumb! I have no idea what the proper names are from 1800s, or how they “really” spoke, or how titles and surnames were used. If Devil Cynster had said “whoa, dude…my bad” – that would have thrown me off. If Jamie had said “Claire – I totally dig you” – I would have been unhappy. If cars and planes and electric lights had appeared before mid-late 1800s in books, I would have been startled. But otherwise – I happily read along, in my total ignorance, and enjoy the book, not having a clue what is right or wrong, what words are being used inappropriately, etc.
Ok – just asked the men and women in my office – NO ONE has heard the words minge or minger – are we all naive?
I agree with many commenters here. I would like to single out a special case that so many authors seem to love associating with good ole Engerlund or for some, the working class: Bloody.
Regency-era heroines who say ‘bloody’ seemingly every five minutes? It amuses me so much because during that time, it’s similar to having heroines saying ‘fuck’. I’m looking at you, Amanda Quick / JAK and the rest.
British newspapers apparently wouldn’t even print ‘bloody’ until 1920s or 1930s. So if you want historical English heroine or hero to say ‘bloody’, do it as long as you understand that it has the effect of saying ‘fuck’.
@Tam – Sometime ago I raised an issue about the name ‘Lauren’ and I was told, many times, that MARY BALOGH IS WELSH-BORN THEREFORE SHE CANNOT BE WRONG!
Please, give me a fucking break. British authors might have an advantage over non-British authors in many aspects, especially where nuances are concerned, but they aren’t 100% immune to making mistakes and using creative licence. Even Heyer, bless her socks.
I missed you Candy 🙂
@J
There’s nothing wrong with that, actually.
I get cranky when readers or/and author herself say it’s “historically accurate” (or authentic or whatever) when it isn’t. I prefer “author’s interpretation/portrayal”. That’s more realistic and easier for me to tolerate some not-so-British quirks.
Has anyone mentioned how formal speech was in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially among the upper classes?
A gentleman would never have uttered an obscenity in the presence of a lady, and if he did so in a moment of temper the apologies would have been abject.
Fifty years ago the young men of my acquaintance would apologize for saying “damn” in my presence.
The old saw about how formal everything was in ye olden days is a good example of how popular perceptions of history color what readers perceive of as accurate. My favorite is the one about husbands and wives addressing one another as Mr. and Mrs. I suspect that a lot of this comes from a lack of familiarity with primary sources, and a failure to distinguish public, formal writing, from private, informal writing. Having slogged through 5000+ pages of 18th century journals and letters, I can testify that they are very different indeed. Speech undoubtedly followed the same pattern.
Re DM and formality – I was always taught that in Pride and Prejudice, the fact that Mr and Mrs Bennett refer to each other as Mr and Mrs was an indicator of their emotional distance from each other. And also that while Mr Bennett might have been ironic, Mrs Bennett might well have been keeping up appearances. I’ve been reading Jane Austen’s letters recently, and the patterns for a young woman of gentle birth are pretty clear – family addressed using Christian names, Aunts/Uncles/Cousins sometimes by Christian name, sometimes by family name – it’s not entirely clear to me what governed the difference, but I would guess general intimacy with that family and frequency of encounters with them, and then pretty much other people by Mr/Miss/Mrs + family name.
The link between formal and informal is really important. It’s not that it doesn’t exist in the States, it’s that it’s different.
I tried to write a book about New York Old Money, set in the present day. I found the “rules” and expectations so convoluted and difficult to understand that I gave up for that book, and only wrote it in when I thought I understood it better. And even then I asked more than my usual two beta readers to check it for me. Bless them, they did.
If American writers took care, they could get it right, but it takes a lot of effort for little reward. Sales don’t depend on the accuracy or otherwise of the books, so publishers don’t really bother to check, or have checked, the books.
I try to turn the other cheek, forget about the books I don’t get along with and on the whole, it works, but occasionally, when a critic praises an author for some “accuracy” that is no such thing, it does rile.
There is a difference between making an informed choice about something, and using something because the writer doesn’t know any better.
Mostly, I think a book where the author has taken care to get it right, be it contemporary, historical, fantasy or whatever, has a depth and a richness less well researched books don’t have.
While I cannot think of an actual example right now, I am frequently dismayed to find modern language in a historical romance. It does interfere with my enjoyment of the story, so, right on, Candy!
For what it’s worth, my grandfather, born in 1905, and my uncle, born in the 1920s, were both named “Lauren.”
I’m coming very, very late to the party here, but I couldn’t resist commenting on a post (a fab post) with the words minge and minger in it! I’m a Scot, and we tend to use the word mingerto mean someone whose personal hygiene lacks attention. Minge, as someone else has pointed out, refers to pubic hair and not lady bits generally, and though it might not be related to minger, it also implies lack of personal cleanliness! If you want to be really vulgar about lady bits in Scots, try using quim (which I haven’t seen in a Historical romance, but it is used in Roy Roy – as in young Cunningham was unable to tell arse from quim – I can’t believe I’ve just written that).
My biggest problem with attempts at Scots dialect is not so much historical accuracy (because apart from anything else, pretty much every Highlander would have spoken Gaelic until quite recently, and aristocratic Scots would have made every attempt to acquire an English accent), it’s the assumption that ALL Scots sound like Mrs Doubtfire. We dinna, ye ken, ma wee bairnies.
My own solution is not to get my characters to sound Scottish, but to get them to use real language. I would be the first to admit though, that I mix and match lowland and Highland, 18th Century and 20th. It’s not about accuracy, as someone else pointed out, that’s impossible, but it’s about sounding authentic – or at least trying to.
Hey, can you give me the site of the favorite heroes, please?
One of my all-time favorite heroines is Min in “Bet Me” by Jennifer Crusie. Described as “curvy,” Min puts up with her carping mother who values appearance above all else. She’s VERY FUNNY (as is the book. Naturally: it’s by Crusie), beloved by her friends and sister, and it’s total fun to see her fall in love with a great man, a hunk who totally appreciates her and her curves. This is one book with a “curvy” woman where she does not transform herself into a sylph by the end.
@Marguerite Kaye – I’ve seen “quim” used numerous times – but again, am I the only one for whom Minge and Minger are brand new, never seen/heard before words? I even lived in Ireland for a few years and had Scottish/English friends and never heard those words come up! I had no idea that quim was any naughtier than any other word for a woman’s parts – to me it sounds kinda sexy!
Minging (rather than minge) is quite commonly used in Scotland, mainly by mouthy male teenagers to other mouthy male teenagers. It’s the kind of word that seems to have a lot of meanings amongst kids, but I understood that it just meant really dirty or filthy. Am I missing something? It’s not generally considered worth washing the lads’ mouths out for!
@ J: no. I’ve never heard of “minge” or “minger” either. On SmarBitches, you learn something new every day!
Anemone: were you thinking of Sir Walter Raleigh? (“A honey tongue, a heart of gall, is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.”)
The Hopkins poem is “Spring and Fall,” not “Spring and Autumn,” and the Norton Anthology gives its date as 1880. The OED also cites Carlyle in 1854. So not a mistake to put “fall” in the mouth of a Recency Englishman.
People have already pointed out that even Heyer contains inaccuracies and Balogh was born in Wales, but let me just say, because the patronizing tone of many of the comments here truly offends me: not every anachronisim is an Americanism. It was, for example, just as rude until recently for an American man to swear in front of a woman as it was for an Englishman to do so. (Funny story: in 1985, when I was a summer associate in a very old, white-shoe law firm, a lawyer giving me an assignment said “I want to get these fucking bastards,” then apologized for swearing, then realized that was no longer PC and apologized for apologizing. He was no geezer but a guy in his thirties, so you can see the custom persisted for a long time.)
@ J – I always associate minger with the South East of England. It tends to be associated with a somewhat Chavvy element. Minge has been around for a very long time. But, like a lot of euphemisms for bodily parts, there are regional variations. So, if you use minge in South Wales, in Dorset they use minnie; & I expect a lot of the Brits on this list could come up with other examples.
This is a link to a documentary that Germaine Greer made a few years ago regarding the entymology of the C word
It .makes for interesting watching.
As for me my favourite swearword of the moment comes courtesy of Dawn French’s new book & it’s twatwanker! I can’t wait to see if that one gets shoehorned into a Regency !
It’s not always easy to tell what was used in dialogue back then and what was printed. Even letters were substantially more formal than speech, and some of the words used in dialogue, particularly rude words, were considered obscenity and were unprintable. And it’s quite clear that there were words and phrases that entered the lexicon long, long before they appear in etymological dictionaries.
My rule of thumb is that for slang, I give the OED a ten-year girth: If it’s written down in 1870, I easily believe it was used in speech in 1860. And the truth is probably even more forgiving than that.
Case in point: “bloody hell” which Lynne Connolly complains about upthread.
First attested in the OED as of 1886. Definitely in use, together, in 1838. It was in the reports of the petty sessions that I was reading from the Bristol records office. The image is here:
http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2010/06/22/the-records-office/
Not used as an interjection—but I have no problem using “go to bloody hell” in a historical. So I think that’s justified—so long as it’s not used as a flippant comment, but a really, really coarse, vulgar thing for one person to say to another. And that there picture is of something that was actually written down in 1838. So it’s simply not true that the words “bloody” and “hell” were never put together until the 20th century.
There are other words I’ve found much, much earlier than attested in the OED by doing date-restricted Google Books searches, too—“breath-taking” (attested 1880 for Google) is one that comes to mind—and I think the first printing of it you can find using Google Books is 1836. (You have to be careful about date-restricted Google Books searches: Google’s dates aren’t always right, and you need to make sure the word is used in the sense you want to use it—but it’s nonetheless a valuable tool.)
My point being, etymological dictionaries are not Bibles.
cate – thanks, but OMG – now I feel even dumber – as I’ve never seen/heard the word Chavvy and had to look it up – and the descriptions/definitions on urban dictionary and other Google links left me just as confused. I’m 46, have lived in lots of places – but today I feel like I’m a 100 year old hermit who knows nothing!
Courtenay, all I can say is that I was brought up blue collar – working class – and I was told never to say “bloody hell” because it was vulgar. My Nana used “bugger” and even that was considered not as bad as “bloody hell” because only crude people used it.
One isolated use of the word doesn’t make it a regular thing. I can’t believe that the British aristocracy would use a phrase like that, especially in polite company.
Looking at the records you cite – yes, that’s the context. A drunk and disorderly.
Using “bloody hell” as an exclamation isn’t the same as being told to go to “bloody hell,” either.
Needless to say I use it all the time, these days. Ancestors are revolving in their graves.
The records of Leicester Quarter sessions are more or less complete, from the late 16th century to the early 20th. I can’t recall a “bloody hell” in there.
It’s a bit like the “gotten” argument that rages and rages on and on. If a British reader comes across a “gotten” in a historical romance, he or she automatically assumes that the writer is American.
I avoid it altogether, because in American grammar, there are correct usages of “gotten” that sound odd to American readers if “got” is used. So it’s easier just to rephrase.
And “terrorise.” Since my book was set in the 1750’s, my editor at the time, the awesome Angie James, got it spot on.
But why there wouldn’t be any vulgarity in the 1800’s, Lynne? Even amongst the fancy pants?
I think everyone can play dueling banjos of research for days and not come to any resolution of “bloody hell” here. I thought someone debunked the noun-to-verb thing upthread? There were examples from the 1600’s-ish.
I came to England in the 1970s, even then, fellow children would gasp with shock whenever I used the word “bloody” as an adjective (I was being daring and repeating shocking things I had heard, yeah, for show). No one else used it, it was considered very rude and low, which I found irrational, at 10 years of age, but there you go!
Now, whenever I read a historical that has ‘bloody” anything coming from a woman, I find it coarse and unbelievable.
Ladies were ladies, and though they might have fought the enemy and saved the keep, they most certainly didn’t swear, nor blaspheme.
Check out this site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A753527 which will show you that bloody is blasphemous and therefore not OK!
“Vulgarity” a la my Nana was something crude and unmentionable, the things the layabouts and people with no education or refinement did. Anemone hit it on the nail – low and coarse. You might be poor, but never coarse! “Vulgar” and “fancy pants” don’t belong together.
Young men might affect it in the dens and hells with their cronies, but never in polite circles. Remember “Pygmalion”? “Move your bloody arse” was as much about the third word as the fourth (actually, I think they turned “bloody” into “blooming” in the film, and left the “arse” intact, so to speak).
I wrote a great post—eloquent, precise, persuasive, full of bon mots—and then I misread the spam filter. Arrgggghhh! Anyway, from memory—but not half as good as the original:
I was born and raised in England, but I’ve lived in the States for a long time, and the word that always gets me is “twit” which was slang used by children to call each other “stupid.” Other than the Monty Python skit, “The Upper-Class Twit of the Year Award,” I rarely heard adults use the word. When I come across noblemen and gently-bred ladies calling each other or themselves “twits,” it always stops me in my tracks.
As for “bloody,” prior to the mid-20th century, few women would have used the term in public—and not many more would have used it in private. Regardless of her class, for a woman to use the word “bloody” would indicate a certain, shall we say, coarseness of character.
Also, it’s not just romance novels that suffer from this anachronistic or other misuse of slang: I’ve noticed the same thing in mystery novels. There are some American writers who are producing what could be termed “proper British mysteries” (for example, Elizabeth George or Deborah Crombie) but George especially gets slang a bit askew.
Cate said:
I will admit that all the way through one of the Gail Carriger books, I was hurled out of the book by her constant use of the word ‘Ladybugs’. Once wouldn’t have bothered me, but they just. kept. saying it.
I had the same problem with the Carriger books. In one scene a European man tells the two female characters that they will need to “bunk in” with one another. WTF? I could go on and on with other examples. I was willing to overlook it for the sake of the story, but still . . .
enough29: after 29 of these, I wanted to say “enough” already
PS: I go along with Margaret Frazer’s approach – she says her characters don’t know they are talking in period speech, so she writes with contractions, etc., so they sound like real people.
I never heard/read the words minge or minger before, so I learned something today. Thanks, Smart Bitch Candy!
bad87 – I’ll bet there are at least 87 other bad words I don’t know. I lived a sheltered life.
Actually, you’ll see both now, as a result of persistent American influence. However, it only refers to one specific type of bikkie – the flat, unfilled type, usually hard, not softish like an Anzac biscuit. But ‘biscuit’ or ‘bikkie’ is pretty much standard now in Australia.
I’ve never ever heard anyone use ‘minge’, and my English spouse says the same. However he’s certainly heard ‘ginger minger’ (soft ‘g’) because he is of the red-headed persuasian. Never knew they were calling him a cunt before 🙂
DiscoDollyDeb: It’s happened to me twice now (maybe it’s trying to tell me something?). My sympathies.
I’m just not getting what mid-twentieth-century working-class attitudes about vulgarity (or anything else, really) have to tell us about pre-Victorian aristocratic ones.
Long’s writing was so bad, and so filled with anachronisms and errors, that I barely made it through her first book and was never able to bring myself to touch another one. *shudder* I’ll never understand the huge number of readers who loved that book (with the historically illegal plot and the pedo hero).
I would have to add a word that is used wrong in historical fiction, but it is not a bad word. It is gender. Gender was not used the way we use it today until the 1960s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. I always get frustrated when I hear it and it completely disconnects me from the story.
There is a very strong connection, because traditional working-class mores, even as late as the mid-20th century, were innately conservative, and to a significant degree reflected the customs and assumptions of pre-Industrial Revolution society, in which a person’s social class was essentially fixed by birth, and was clearly evident through his or her clothing, accent and demeanour — and was often a matter of pride even amongst those in the ‘humbler’ ranks of society. Pretending to be what you were not was Bad Form amongst all classes.
The really difficult area is the distinctive and changing culture of the middle classes, which burgeoned so enormously during the Victorian period, as did the possibility of moving up (or down) the social structure, concealing class origins by aping the language, accent and behaviour of the ‘desired’ status. That process of potential social mobility was not fully in place until 1945, when it first became feasible for children from poor working-class backgrounds, both rural and urban, to raise and totally transform their status through free education. The War itself had also started to erode the traditional class system, in a way in which the Great War had not.
As several people have already said, the issue of language is inextricably tied up with that of social class, and the American class system (yes, of course you have a class system: all humans, and indeed all gregarious mammals, have social hierarchies) has been markedly different from ours ever since white American society began to evolve. More different than the basic language. For example, it is hard for most Americans to understand the meaning of the modern (from late 19thC) ironic/derogatory use of the adjective genteel.
Please put me solidly in the “do not care camp.” This is a conversation I have frequently with my neighbor and we happily disagree on authors because of this. Reasons for my stance of “do not care”:
1) Authors are writing historical characters but for a MODERN audience. I’m not going to understand some historical usages of words without running to a dictionary and I don’t want to read with a dictionary by my side. Also, modern inaccuracies often help me (and other readers I’m sure, but I’ll just speak for myself) understand the emotional punch or feeling behind the character because it’s language I would use. When I read a book written in the period, I know I’m in for a schoolin’, but otherwise—I read fiction for pleasure. Don’t have a medieval king eat potatoes, but I don’t care if a Regency buck uses “bloody hell.”
2) I’m dyslexic. Part of the pleasure of reading romance novels is short paragraphs and relatively simple language. I like Dickens and Austen, but I have to read them with a bookmark under the lines like a child and I have to read some paragraphs several times to catch all the bits of the language I missed. Please don’t get me started on Heyer, who (despite all the comments above) is said to be pretty good with her language usage. The language and slang she uses makes those books mostly unintelligible to me. I get bogged down in the slang and mess up my letters (those crafty ps and bs) and don’t know what the word is in the first place and then I chuck the book at a wall and pick up something else.
I wouldn’t read historical romances if they were truly written with full period accuracy. I’d just get a headache. When I want the full period experience, I read something written fully in the period.
More important, to me, is that people understand that in Romance genre fiction we have widely imposed late-Victorian mores (a la Heyer) onto the more raucous and wild Georgian (and inclusively the Regency) period. There are accounts of Georgian peeresses with quite vulgar mouths and there are rants by such against the new mealymouthedness of their grandchildren (the proto-Victorians). Mores swing. I consider the court of Charles II as being at one extreme, and the post-death of Albert Victorian court as being at the other. The Georgian era is transitional.
It’s also hard for us to grasp the concept of peasant. I certainly didn’t until I visited my best friend’s family in Turkey. They from an ancient and noble family, and it still means something there. I couldn’t understand their relationship with their maids (who did very little work, stole things, and acted like spoiled children) or the way the maids and gardeners all dressed in wildly clashing clothing. Kamal’s father shook his head and said, “Dear, they’re peasants. It’s our responsibility to employee them.” Open my eyes, I tell you.
I was child in the sixties, the daughter of an Oxford professor, I recall the wicked feeling of saying ‘bloody’ and the frisson even when refering to my genuinely bloody nose, with an eye on the adults present in case I would be reprimanded. Also my shock on hearing my Mother say ‘bloody’, I don’t recall which of my brothers provoked the outburst or what they had done, but I knew my Mother was absolutely furious. I can not imagine her saying cunt and still find it jarring myself, one of the most shocking things anyone has ever said to me (in the late seventies) was ‘Is any of us going to get our cocks up your cunt tonight?’
And on the class thing it is still difficult for us (Brits) to understand the classes we do not belong to, whatever we may say about social mobility and the increase that happened as a result of the ‘45 Education Act. Many people who got that apparent social mobility will tell you that they just ened up feeling they didn’t fit in either class.
Absolutely right. The obsession with ‘refinement’ ties in with the expansion of the middle classes during the 19th century.
Writers of Heyer’s generation (born 1902) still had to observe all sorts of constraints in their writing, regardless of their own personal views and manners. But today’s novelists have far greater freedom, as well as much more extensive and easily accessible research opportunities, and so have little excuse for inaccuracy.
I just wanted to stick my oar in on behalf of my glorious nation and stake claim to “minger” and “minging”. They’re most definitely Scottish words, stolen from us by those pesky English (ha ha ha), and unless used in a modern, more working class context, I’d find it really jarring.
More generally, I do agree with a lot of what’s been said here. If an author is going to invest time in creating this world, surely sparing a bit of time to research a few things is nothing in comparison? I suppose whether ‘invest’ is an appropriate word to use is important, though, because for me, it’s only in the case of a really good book, one which you can tell has that special sumfink straight way, that this misuse of language becomes an issue. So many novels are just generally rubbish that a couple of mistakes such as these make no real difference, and in the case of those books, I’d really not be trying to pay very much attention to the fine details of them anyway.
Right . . . but I’m pretty sure that my accuracy and your accuracy and Lynne Connolly’s accuracy aren’t identical (though I bet our venn diagrams would have large overlaps).
For example, based on the usage demonstrated on this thread and my own research, I have no problem using bloody as an intensifier. Not a causal one, but I do use it, usually as part of the hero’s internal monologue when things have really gone south or he’s have what my friends have termed a “depiphany” (the sudden horrible realization that you’re screwed).
Oddly enough, I just finished Teresa Medeiros’ After Midnight, her Regency vamp romp, and was irked by her aristocratic vampire hunter’s repeated use of “mate” and “bloody hell.” I’m not going to argue for or against the accuracy of these words for these characters in this period. The thing that irked me, and also makes Jeanine Frost unreadable for me, is that in both cases the authors are cribbing Joss Whedon.
Can i just jump in with the others on the differences between 18th and 19th C England (even at during these two centuries England, Wales, Scotland were still understood as separate and not as Britain). Mid to late 18th Century England, and London in particular, was an extremely rude and vulgar place – just look at some of the Gilray or Rowlandson prints. Among the upper classes gambling, swearing, drinking and infidelities often with prostitutes were the norm and while its true it was more spoken about among men, women were also engaged in pretty much all these activities. Charles Fox (the leader of the opposition in parliament) once published a book entitled The Art Of Wind about farting and the prime minister PItt once said he could not answer one of Fox’s questions during parliament as he was too hung over from a party the night before – so not the most polite or refined period ever.
I have pretty much had to stop reading historicals set during the 18th C as they are so inaccurate. The sad thing is that an accurate romance set during the period would be brilliant – it was just such an entertaining time.