One man's anachronism... What We're Writing

 

Anachronism: a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned. Often an anachronism is an object misplaced in time.

HALLIE EPHRON here, kicking off WHAT WE’RE WRITING WEEK. My work in progress has three generations of women in it, so I try to keep in mind their three different frames of reference.

Their past shapes everything about them--how they dress, their memories, dreams, their word choice, frustrations and passions, and on and on.

For instance, the grandmother, a baby boomer, came of age in the 60s. She was a hippie who hung out in the Haight. Her granddaughter has no clue who Janis Joplin was. Her grandmother, in turn, has no idea who Megan Thee Stallion is. The granddaughter cringes when her grandmother talks about "dialing" the phone or "taping" a TV show.

 As I try to keep each of their frames of references sorted, I'm reminded of an article in the New Yorker entitled “Frame of Reference” written by John McPhee. He talks about going into a high school class of nineteen students and asking them to raise their hands if they recognize each name or place as he read it from a list of more than 50 items.

Here's his list - read it and mentally tick off the ones your recognize:
Woody Allen
Muhammad Ali
Joan Baez
James Boswell
David Brower
Richard Burton
Winston Churchill
Truman Capote
Jack Dempsey
Denver
Jackie Gleason
Hallmark cards
“Hamlet”
Mexico
Samuel Johnson
Rupert Murdoch
Paul Newman
Vivien Leigh
Sophia Loren
Barack Obama
Laurence Olivier
Sarah Palin
George Plimpton
Princeton University
Norman Rockwell
Mickey Rooney
Mort Sahl
Barbra Streisand
David Susskind
Elizabeth Taylor
Time Magazine
Toronto

If you're like me, you know them all. Well, almost all. (I had to look up David Brower. Shame on me for not knowing who he was.)

What about those high school students?

All nineteen of McPhee's ninth graders had heard of Woody Allen, Muhammad Ali, Time Magazine, Hallmark cards, Denver, Mexico, Princeton University, Winston Churchill, “Hamlet,” and Toronto.

Eighteen had heard of Sarah Palin, Obama, Barbra Streisand, and Rolls-Royce. Seventeen Paul Newman. Eleven Elizabeth Taylor.

Only five had heard of Norman Rockwell, Truman Capote, or Joan Baez.

Three had heard of Rupert Murdoch, or Mickey Rooney.

Two had heard of Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier.

Just one for Vivien Leigh.

Not even a single one had heard of Jackie Gleason, David Brower, David Susskind, Jack Dempsey, George Plimpton, Sophia Loren, Mort Sahl, James Boswell, or Samuel Johnson.

I wondered how they’d do with Howdy Doody or Mark Rudd or Sandra Dee? Probably about as well as I do with today's musicians and actors who show up regularly in the New York Times crossword puzzle and in questions on Jeopardy.

Do you notice the characters' frames of reference in the books you're reading? Does it bother you when a character hums a rock 'n' roll tune in the 1950s or channels Abbott and Costello in the current day?

Rhys ponders on words that make no sense...

 RHYS BOWEN: I read an article the other day about how we all, unknowingly, use completely obsolete words. When we send an email and we CC we are adding a carbon copy—putting that sheet of carbon paper into the typewriter to make an extra copy. We say we are e-mailing somebody when in fact we are sending an electronic message, no mailman involved.

 We also say we are taping a program we are watching on TV, but nobody has video tape any longer.

 Announcers sometimes still say “don’t touch that dial!” as if we still have a dial on our TV. People still talk about dialing a phone when we haven’t had dials since my youth.

 Filmed before a live audience is not true. We don’t film any more. We don’t create albums on vinyl or call them records.

 The icon for the save button on our computer is still a floppy disc!

 I find that I email somebody saying, “It was great to hear from you again.”  No, I didn’t hear, I read a message from them.

 My husband John always calls his computer a machine. Not true as a computer has no moving parts, hence is not a machine.

 My granddaughters do not date any more, or even go steady. My granddaughter Liz says that she and Nick are “talking”.  That’s the stage before the going steady and who knows what that is called!

 I know I am horribly guilty of so many such words—are they anachronisms? First I am British so my vocabulary includes words like brilliant. I don’t say groovy, however. Or cool any longer. And second I write about the past so that vocabulary is constantly running through my head. My characters say “Heavens! And Golly! And Gosh. All of which I sometimes use.  I tell someone I’ll “ring them up”. Or “give them a ring” when I mean call them on my cell which is no longer a mobile phone. (although it is in England).

 I am aware enough not to call a flight attendant a stewardess, although I know people who do.  I am certainly aware enough not to use words like queer or gay although both of those had a perfectly good meaning when I was young.

 I do not actually write books, as in holding a pen in my hand over a piece of paper. I transmit my thoughts electronically. So the word writing means the act of creation not the way I do it. And I may announce that my books are “hot off the press” when they probably were never hot.

 I still hear “running out of steam”,  “blowing off steam” “on the flip side” “flash in the pan” And what about “nose to the grindstone”.  How many of us have actually used a grindstone, let alone put our noses anywhere near it?

 So I’d like to know what outdated words and phrases you still use, probably without thinking of their original meaning?

And having talked about writing, at a keyboard, I thought I'd end with some levity! Have a great weekend.

And Edith’s tote bag goes to Nora A. Email Edith at Edith@EdithMaxwell.com

And Susan’s winner is Flora. Please contact Susan at scauthor@me.com

RHYS on Getting it Right

 RHYS BOWEN:  I have just finished teaching an online class on writing historical mysteries to the Sisters in Crime Guppy group. One of the things I've stressed is the need to GET IT RIGHT. Gone are the days when your train could arrive at London Station and your characters could claim to be British by saying "Pip pip, cheerio" to each other. Everybody is savvy these days. The internet is there to check everything and if you get one small thing wrong you will know it.

Sometimes the writer feels like shouting "IT'S FICTION, DAMMIT!" but the point is that if you choose a real place and time for your story, the everything has to be right about that place or you have jerked some readers out of the story.  I read a book by a well-known author (who shall remain nameless) in which she got several things howlingly wrong...incorrect procedure and form of address at the English court, the wrong island, and I was so angry I couldn't finish the book.

I was asked to blurb another book in which a train from Yorkshire came into Victoria Station in London. That one got thrown across the room.  How can authors get such basic things wrong?

It should be easy to do the big research--when I wrote the Molly Murphy book, For the Love of Mike, I read the senate depositions after the Triangle Fire so that every abuse that happened to a girl in my book had happened to a real girl. Not necessary but really satisfying for the author and a way of making the reader feel that everything you are telling her is real and valid.

It's not always easy to avoid anachronisms, however. (Isn't that a lovely word. Anachronism. Say it out loud. Most satisfying). When I was writing my first Molly book my copy editor queried the use of Streetlight. And she was right. Not in use at that time. They were still lamps--lit by lamp lighters in many places, and even when electricity had been introduced they were still referred to as street lamps.

A very small thing and one that wouldn't upset anybody but it's satisfying to get it right.  I remember researching once with a friendly librarian when elastic came into use in women's undergarments. I wanted t know how easily my hero could rip them off? Such are the small things that obsess a historical writer.

Also in the Molly books I found that the word Car park was not in usage before 1920. Also Freud was just in the process of formulating his theories so none of the characters could be stressed, need to relax, be obsessed... such concepts didn't exist.

I am very conscious of anachronisms recently because I have watched Bridgerton and The Crown.

Bridgerton--OMG, anachronism laden, and I don't mean the choice of actors of various ethnicity. I was unable to recognize one thing about what is supposed to be London. It's the Georgian period. When I lived on Queen Anne Street when I worked for the BBC my house was Georgian. Plenty of Georgian buildings to use, but I had no idea where we were in any of the scenes. Was this perhaps because it was meant to be a fantasy world? Maybe.

But small things annoyed me too: court etiquette. Three daughters are presented at once to Queen Charlotte. The mother remarks she can try again next year. I'm sorry but unless things have changed significantly you are presented once, at eighteen. I rather think that court etiquette is written in stone.

And then there is the Crown: You should see the buzz it created in UK with all the little things they got wrong: the scenes at Balmoral when they go out stalking the stag. Those who know about these things say you'd never shoot at an animal without a backdrop (ie, a hillside behind it) so that there is no risk of the bullet going through the animal and striking someone beyond.  You'd never shoot without wearing ear muffs to deaden the sound.  I can't believe they didn't offer Mrs. Thatcher a pair of boots, not let her tramp through the heather in high heels. Nor can I believe she was clueless enough not to find out in advance what the dress code might be with her hosts! If I were going to spend some time in the wilds of Scotland I'd definitely take warm trousers and a rain jacket and stout shoes, wouldn't you?  It's easy enough to find pictures of the royals and see what they wear--of course, they wear kilts and she couldn't...

When Prince Charles is fly fishing apparently he's using the wrong type of rod for the stream. Again something that wouldn't matter to you or me but would matter to a fisherman.

I also find when I am writing that sometimes my problem is the opposite. I know something is true for the period but I can't include it because my readers would never accept it. It might be a form of slang that just sounds wrong or it might be a photo that I have of Macy's food counter in 1900. The center of the display is a stack of cans of chili con carne.  If I wrote that Molly went home and opened a can of chili I would be besieged with letters telling me how stupid I was.

So I'm interested to know how much it bothers you if you find a mistake in a book you are reading?

Do you continue to read or do you, like me, throw it across the room? And writers--have you ever made an error you came to regret? (confession time--I put Claridges Hotel on the wrong street in a Royal Spyness book. Unforgivable as our next door neighbor was the night manager of Claridges!)