struggle-buggy: students’ nickname for a car, because making out in one was a struggle.
– The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition Through World War II
It’s time for another installment of my series on avoiding words and phrases that derive from a technology that’s not present in the story you’re writing.
Have you ever been captivated by a story set in a Medieval world when suddenly someone lets fly with a scene-stopping anachronism like, “Let’s go to the tavern and blow off some steam”? You don’t have to be Sheldon Cooper to recognize “blowing off steam” as a railroad term that is way out of place. A writer who goes off the rails like that, sabotaging his story and letting his readers get sidetracked by his literary tunnel vision, will never make the grade.
Well, actually, maybe he will… but wouldn’t you like to avoid faux pas like that in your storytelling adventures? Let’s say you’re writing a tale in a world that never knew a tamed bird of prey. Let me show you some words and phrases that you may not realize owe their origin to the kingly sport of falconry. Continue reading
Storyville. A large restricted district operating in New Orleans between 1897 and 1917. It was named after city alderman Sidney Story who introduced the ordinance setting aside a specific part of the city for prostitution.
– Prostitute Dictionary of the Old West
“At the time [the 1920s], pulp magazines were a thriving industry, providing cheap entertainment for millions of readers and employment for hundreds of writers who churned out piece-work at the rate of a penny or two per word.”
– from “The hard-boiled novel” by Sean McCann, in The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction
Adjusted for inflation from 1920 to 2013, that would be 11 to 23 cents per word.
TOLLIBAN RIG, subs. phr. (old). — ‘A species of cheat carried on by a woman, assuming the character of a dumb and deaf conjuror’ (GROSE).
– Historical Dictionary of Slang
In the intro cinematic for the popular Medieval fantasy video game, Skyrim, the player finds herself in a wagon full of prisoners being hauled to a fort for punishment. When the wagon arrives, one of the prisoners mutters that it’s “the end of the line.”
Did a nasty squealing-to-a-halt sound just rip through your mind? Then you must know that “end of the line” is railroad terminology. The phrase has no place in a pre-industrial setting like Skyrim.
Historical fiction and fantasy occasionally stumble over technologically misplaced language that can knock informed readers out of the story. (Or informed viewers … check out this piece on the timeliness of fonts in the TV series “Mad Men.”) If you want to avoid jarring and alienating your smartest fans, it can help to know the technological origins of some of English’s common words and phrases.
In this new series, I’ll introduce you to some terms you might not know originated in a specific technology. If the tech’s not part of your setting, you can detour around the terminology. On the other hand, if it is part of your setting, you can find interesting ways to use the jargon!
And, although the series is called “Timely Terms,” it’s not merely about anachronism; if your setting is a desert world with no oceans (and therefore no sailing) you might want to avoid language derived from the Age of Sail. But, let’s get started with the first topic, suggested by Skyrim: the railroad. Continue reading
The other day, I was reading Raymond Chandler’s classic mystery The Little Sister
“How so?” you might ask. Speculative fiction requires the writer to adhere to strict literalism, because the reader might misinterpret any clever, poetic, or metaphorical description as something that is really going on. Continue reading
TAIL-RACE. _ The water which leaves the paddles of a steam-boat. Also, the water-course of a mill beyond the water-wheel.
– The Sailor’s Word Book
There’s very little serious discussion these days on what to do about US passenger rail service, outside the occasional silly swipe about Amtrak’s low ridership compared with the much more generously subsidized air travel and highway systems, or a smarmy comment about railroad nostalgia. It’s a bit idiotic, really, to blame nostalgia for encouraging America to keep up with the high-tech bullet trains of other countries, and only slightly less idiotic to expect an anemically supported mode of travel to run neck-and-neck with the steroid-pumped, oil-promoted interstate highway system.
But, these tend to be the twin drums beat by the anti-rail crowd, and the accompanying arguments are usually no less lacking in reason or vision.
For example, about a year ago the Freakonomics blog published a fairly comprehensive selection of recent commentary on US passenger rail, with a title that couldn’t miss the point further if it tried: “Can Amtrak Ever Be Profitable?” Continue reading
One of my favorite speculative fiction writers, Rahul Kanakia, shared some interesting thoughts after attending the recent Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference, and since I’ve been wanting to get back into the habit of blogging about genre I felt I should share them. Continue reading