erastes

Yes, they had cannons - the chinese had cannons hundreds of years before they made it over here - but I had to use the words "broken cannons" rather than shrapnel.

I seem to read now with an anachronistic beacon on most of the time - one can't catch them all though. I'm quite sure that some English Civil War buff will email me and tell me that I was DOING IT WRONG.

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zamaxfield.livejournal.com

No kidding. Wow. You're a very brave soul. That's why, so far, I've only written one historical short story.

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mylodon.livejournal.com

You meant John Shrapnel, star of many a historical drama.

There is a third explanation. They were dyslexic.

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well no - I didn't go so mad as to have Mr Shrapnel on Cromwell's side, but I kept referring to the cannons loaded with broken fragments as firing shrapnel across the field.

*laughs* All the soldiers should have written L and R on their boots before the battle.

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fajrdrako.livejournal.com

Yes, yes, but - this is what the editing process is for!

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And I'm lucky my editor noticed the "right flank" thing. She's gooood. She didn't spot the shrapnel error, but she's not a historical person,so she's forgived.

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fajrdrako.livejournal.com

This is the kind of thing it's so hard to find when you read it over yourself - because you can picture the right thing - and it's so easy for another set of eyes to catch, because the other person is thinking, "I just can't picture this."

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That would have been hard to live down as my fellow historical novelists laughed in my face.

And you can rest assured, someone, somewhere, will pick up the slightest mistake. It never fails. Extra embarrassment points if it's someone who knows you. ^__^

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I'm worried about this one. I need an ECW expert to look it over, as I know there's going to be historical gaffes. What I also hate about editing is that I end up doubting myself and my reserach and I find myself revisiting the Battle sites and the weapons research to make sure I got it right. I was sick to death of the ECW the FIRST time around! And I used to think Prince Rupert was hot. I'd run him over in my car if I saw him in the street today.

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mzcalypso.livejournal.com

good thing cars hadn't been invented yet...

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If I had a time machine, then I'd take one back and squish him.

*SQUISH*

He has quite a few Canadian connections too. He was a busy bunny after the war. That will be he DID until I work out how to go back and squish him.

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I get that with corsets
they didn't wear german corsets until 1732 and you have them wearing them in 1731 when they would have been wearing english corsets
the difference between an english corset and a german corset is negligible, literally, it's like an inch longer, that's it
but yet.....
I thoroughly believe you could mess up the battle entirely and go haahaha the templars won at bannockburn as long as their underwear was right

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I thoroughly believe you could mess up the battle entirely and go haahaha the templars won at bannockburn as long as their underwear was right

ahahhahahahahahah!!
Yes. But (in my case) I have to get the Victorian toilet paper right. ;-)

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i know they used rabbit fur for sanitary towels
which is a lovely image
but I don't know about toilet paper,
and here's the rub - we know this rubbish
we have at some point looked it up, we have found it out, we have done our research, which obviously is in the wrong category for some, and yet they still tell us we're wrong
but i found myself doing it
I did all this research on the heian period of japan, and Im watching this american animated movie for Hellboy about their mythology and the ghost of the japanese princess is wearing a chinese gown! I actually pointed and said "that's wrong" and then i thought - ohmygod I'm one of them!

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I actually pointed and said "that's wrong" and then i thought - ohmygod I'm one of them!

Yes! I can't watch From Hell because there are so many little things that annoy me. LOL.

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never mind the little things with that movie, there's the big ones like her accent
and the fact it has absolutely nothing in common with the graphic novel....
but for saying that when a movie is gloriously and unabashedly wrong and plainly doesn't care - see 300 - it's great fun

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Out of interest, what did they use?

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Out of interest, what did they use?

I know in the late Victorian era they used to have little pre-moistened squares, in packages - almost like the handy wipes you can buy nowadays. :) And later there was paper on a roll, not unlike what we have, except the sheets weren't perforated...

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Cool! thanks!

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Old underwear drives me mad - there's so few resources - I am almost embarrassed to recall how long I spent researching civil war mens' knickers....

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i found as a writer i could find nothing
as a seamstress i was overwhelmed

www.costumes.org
is a wonderful resource but it's huge and it can be daunting
the V&A do a series of fashion in detail books that include underwear with construction notes and line drawings, they're not cheap but they're worth their weight in gold

did they wear underwear? the soldiers that is? the cavaliers might have, but my brain informs me that the previous periods men didn't wear underwear because it showed under their hose. (nothing worse than a panty line)
I can think of all manner of prophylactics from the period (silk condoms you laced up- because that'll work)

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Yes - they were simply "under breeches" made from a soft material than the breeches on top. Often called "strossers"

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markprobst.livejournal.com

Shrapnel is one that I certainly woudn't have picked up on and probably only die-hard historical experts would have.
In the first draft of "The Filly" I had the cowboys sitting around the campfire discussing women and mentioning "boobs". One of my family members who I'd let read it said, "Boobs? In the Old West? Boobs makes me think of Hugh Hefner and the playboy mansion." It had never occurred to me that boob was a modern word. I looked it up and found out that in the context of women's breasts it only dates back to 1945!

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I think that that's another instance of not many people will know and few will care. Not everyone is as obsessed with etymology as I am! :D

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shrapnel is one of those pain the ass words that entered modern parlance and is the right word but wasn't the one they used at the time
so where do you draw the line with that kind of anachronism, because when they did run out of musket balls they used anything to hand, broken bits of tools, cutlery (he was killed by a spoon sir!) broken glass, sand, wood, anything that could go in the cannon, usually in a wet sack (to stop it burning) they'd do it with their muskets too
some of the ones that baffle me are words we think are very modern and aren't like gay (there are arguments about this because victorian novels refer to gays as prostitutes and the word could come from it as much as the acronym), calling a penis a cock is medieval, 19th century gay bavarians were called spinach pokers (it kills me, makes no sense but invariably gives me the giggles) cunt is medieval,
i have a very funny poem about a chicken somewhere that is literally the most pornographic thing you could ever read and it's from the dark ages
it's that whole anachronism thing, as a modern woman writing it you can use the word shrapnel in author voice but the characters can't and that's where I always draw the line
I find that reading a lot from the period helps which would be your thomas kyd, marlowe (shakespeare was wordy) up to maybe milton,
I like words - the fascinate me

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Yes, I'm a word-geek too. Not an expert by any means.

I know that my characters - in mid 17th C - wouldn't really be speaking the way they are, and that's the fine line one has to tread the further you go back - you can't write a book in middle-english for example because no-one would read it. But I do try hard to avoid words that will jolt some readers out of the period. I know that fuck was used, for example in times gone past, but not in the same way like "oh, FUCK!" when you drop a hammer on your toe or something, and you see that a lot in gay historical fiction these days.

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do you know the work of Barry Unsworth, he writes using medieval pacing but with modernish words, but his characters use medieval slang, they're not that hard to read either
words change meaning, for example nunnery used to mean brothel now is another word for convent
did you know tolkien invented the word dwarves, the correct plural is dwarrow, it fascinates me, and you can learn so much about something just looking up where the word comes from
that's how geeky i get, I can spot latinate, norman or saxon a mile off, and the odd buggers like paradise which is persian.

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gehayi.livejournal.com

words change meaning, for example nunnery used to mean brothel now is another word for convent

Which changes the whole context of Hamlet telling Ophelia to get herself to a nunnery. There's quite a big difference between "oh, go be a nun" and "oh, go join a whorehouse."

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he is telling her to get to a brothel
most people often seem a little surprised that he thinks so very little of her
but then again at that period it wasn't unusual for the bishop and abbesses to rent out their nuns like that for extra money
which is probably where the confusion comes from

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lee-rowan.livejournal.com

One of my favorite reference books is Brohaugh's English Through the Ages - it lists when words first showed up in common usage. But before you know to look a word up, it's got to set off the anachronism alarm first.

What you need is a trustworthy English Civil War fan who is either gay or gay-friendly.

Hey... maybe a personal ad? Historical writer seeks GM, must be into English Civil War, re-enactor or advanced history degree preferred, must enjoy descriptions of battle and sex (not necessarily simultaneous.) Object: critique.

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