Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

[erastes]

After Elton have a poll for the best gay books ever, my five? The Charioteer, At Swim Two Boys, As Meat Loves Salt, Swordspoint, Wicked Gentlemen. Perhaps the latter two aren't in the EVAH category, but the best I've read for a while - and ones that stick in my head, which is the point. Belimah sticks with me just as hard as Laurie for example.

I've bitten the bullet and told my editor that she'll have the rewrite done of Transgressions done by Sunday.  This means I need to do 50 pages a day starting today.  I'm hugely impressed with her work, actually - after the bad time I had with the edit of Standish - she's not done an historical before but she's working bloody hard to get her knowledge up to snuff - reading about the time period and - get this - checking just about every word for etymological correctness. (!!!)

Words that she's queried under the cut.



The book is based 1642-1649

Adam’s Apple -1755

cocoon - 1679

trek - 1821

erotic - 1651

vaporized - 1803

paralyzed - 1804

embargo - Spanish—1593 *I’m going to assume given the UK/Spanish relations that this work would have worked it’s way into the vocab by the time of the story)

ambiguous –1528, but since it’s Latin in origin, I’m going to go with them learning it from or through the church

pro bono - 1970

vilification - 1630

sniper - 1832

androgynous - 1651

foreplay - 1929

turgid - 1620

profligacy - 1738

scrotum - 1597—pertaining to animals

vacuum - 1550—you’d have to decide if such a concept would have made it’s way to them by the time of the story

automatic - 1748

claustrophobic - 1889

taciturn - 1734

hub - 1608—again, concept; hub of activity or hub of wheel?

lackadaisical - 1768

vibrato - 1876

ramshackle - 1830

recalcitrant - 1843

penis - 1668

flaccid - 1620

foramen - 1671

gauche - 1751

adroitly - 1652

skeptical - 1639

emigrate - 1776

spooning - 1715

Draconian - 1775

wheals —1808

sadist —1888;

boss —1653

travesty —1673

fatalistic —1678

presumably —1841, so never in speech or thought

Now this is an interesting dilemma because how far does one draw that line in historical fiction? I've seen this argued over and over again on the Historical Novelists Society. One can't actually write the speech in the exact manner that the people of the time really used because it would be 1. pretty impossible, due to dialects and boring the reader so how far does one really go in using anachronistic words?

Granted the term Adam's Apple wasn't around when my Cavalier is kissing his lover's AA - so does one erase it? Is it ok to use it in narrative but not in speech? Such as "The sweat glistened on David's skin, and his Adam's Apple jumped as he nervously contemplated what Tobias had in mind." but not in direct thought/speech? Such as: "The hollow of his throat and that lump is adorable" Hmmm. One must have had SOME kind of word for these concepts even if the word wasn't used. Plus of course, etymology uses the first written record of these terms, so perhaps we can give some ideas the benefit of the doubt.

Stuff like Draconian, mesmerism and sadism though - she's bang on target and I am slapping my hands for even putting these words in, but I find it fascinating, because I'm a word geek, that these words and concept are so much a part of our speech that I can call my Witchfinder a sadist (which he SO is) without even questioning where the word came from even though I know where it did.

'Tis a puzzlement. However - I'm going to try and winnow out as many of these words as I can - I don't think stuff like "presumably" is necessary - but most of them can be replaced.

What do you think? How far would you go?  What about further back? Step back from the 17th century and the language becomes even more obscure.. I'm planning to do an Elizabethan one at one point - and I'm certainly not going to be writing the entire thing in nonnys and nuncles.

In other news, the cover is done and I should have it soon. I'm crossing EVERYTHING for a good one.