Old Time Vocabulary

 

Slang and even formal vocabulary change over time. As a writer of historical fiction, my challenge is to stay true to the period without confusing my readers with words they define differently.

Some slang is practically timeless. “Okay” has been around since at least 1840, and “kids,” as in little children, was in use as long ago as the seventeenth century. Since my characters and my readers have the same understanding as to the meaning of these words, I don’t have to think twice about including them in a manuscript.

Other words aren’t as clear. I ask my middle-grade beta readers whether there are any words they didn’t know and couldn’t figure out from the context. When I got back the evaluation forms for a novel set in 1925, one fourth grader included “fast” on that list. At first, I was confused. Who doesn’t know what that word means? But when I searched the manuscript looking for it, I came across a scene where my protagonist asks her mother if she can get her hair bobbed and the mother responds that short hair makes women look fast. Now I understood the beta reader’s comment, and I found a way to rewrite the scene using language today’s children are more likely to know.

Then there are the slang words that need careful handling. Historically the word “gay” meant cheerful or merry, and all of my characters would have understood it that way. Defined that way, it was in frequent use during the periods covered by my novels, so avoiding it seems a little stilted. But because my readers would give it a different meaning, “gay” doesn’t occur in any of my middle-grade manuscripts.

Then there is the question of when a particular slang word entered the American vocabulary. Would my character have used a particular word at the time of the story? Fortunately, about two years ago I found a used copy of the 3^rd edition of the Dictionary of American Slang by Chapman and Kipfer. If I look up a word, that dictionary may tell me whether it was in use at the time. If it doesn’t have dates, or if the word is not included, then I’ll do an Internet search for “[word] origin.” And if I still can’t figure out when it became popular, I won’t use it.

Writing historical fiction is always a challenge.

But it’s rewarding to get it right.

__________

For more on this subject, you can read my January 25, 2021 and February 1, 2021 blog posts.

Using Period Slang--Part II

 

When using slang in a middle-grade historical novel, it is important to use words and phrases that were actually used during that period. The graphic shows some of the slang used in 1894 when my current work-in-progress takes place. I put it together with slang my characters might have used in 1894, and it’s amazing how hard it was to find something that began with A. Actually, there were plenty of choices, but none of them would have gotten past the censors. Even “ante up” is basically a gambling term, but twelve-year-old boys have been known to engage in that activity down through the ages. And “loaded” is one of the many slang terms my characters could chose between when referring to a drunken person.

There are other considerations besides using slang authentic to the period.

Most importantly, my middle-grade readers must be able to decipher the meaning from the context. It can’t be obscure, and it helps if the slang is still used today.

I also don’t want to use slang with several meanings that include one that is demeaning. I’m not referring to words that apply to someone’s behavior, such as “rat” or “fink,” which don’t discriminate. But many of the words that were in play in 1894 have racial connotations, and those are inappropriate for my book. Because of the age of my audience, so are words that relate to sexual conduct even if the meaning is relatively mild.

Finally, although I feel that I need some slang to make my characters authentic, I don’t want to overwhelm my readers. As it is, I may have to cut some out in my next draft.

Using slang in fiction—historical or otherwise—requires good judgment. I expect to make numerous changes in subsequent drafts as I try to get it right.

But it’s worth the effort.

Using Period Slang--Part I

 

I’m currently working on a middle-grade novel that takes place in 1894, and I want to use period slang. So how do I make sure it is true to the time?

First, I checked for Internet resources, but I wasn’t happy with what I found. The best was the Historical Dictionary of American Slang at www.alphadictionary.com/slang. but when I put in 1880 through 1890 as a range, I got some terms that I questioned. For example, it gave me “juice” as meaning electricity and “tube” for the telephone. It also said “live wire” was an exciting, energetic person. While the telephone was invented and electricity discovered before then, neither was available to the average person, and I find it hard to believe that slang words for them were in everyday use.

So then I turned to Amazon to find a slang dictionary. I ruled out a number of choices that weren’t very comprehensive, appeared to concentrate on more recent slang, or came in multiple volumes (with the later part of the alphabet not yet published). In the end, I purchased a used 3^rd Edition of the Dictionary of American Slang (Robert L. Chapman, Ed.) from an Amazon seller. While it is not as thorough as the multiple-volume set might have been, it is good enough for my needs.

A particularly helpful feature in the dictionary are the date references. Although a particular usage may have existed before then, the date tells me when it became common. Since my characters wouldn’t have said it before it was in common usage, that ruled out a number of words I might otherwise have used. And if there is no date, that means the editors either couldn’t find one or that the slang is more recent, so I know not to use those terms, either.

Some of the entries are surprising. Words I don’t even think of as slang include “hi,” and “okay.” Both were in play by 1894, but “hi” didn’t come into common usage until 1862. Hopefully I didn’t use that word in my previous works that are set before then, although I wouldn’t have even thought to check. Another surprise is that “rat” and “fink” were both in use by 1894 to mean a despicable person, but the combined “rat fink” came later. It’s amazing what you can learn about language from a slang dictionary.

Next week I’ll talk about some of the dilemmas I face when having my characters use slang. And if you want to know how I came up with the slang words in the graphic at the head of this post, I’ll describe that next week, too.