I'll make that one of these days. It's rather expensive here - but worth it!
or the elusive lampuki pie?
I never actually tried that....
Or even pastizzi?!
When I'm feeling brave and have time to cook it! Meanwhile, Twistees will have to do.
Some of the words that look like anachronisms turn out to be very old and some words that sound old, aren't. I like to look things up as much as possible and my usual rule of thumb for settings after 1600 is: if it's in Shakespeare, it's okay. Luckily I know Shakespeare well enough for this to be useful.
There are two caveats to that. One is that there is a whole class of words that are perfectly legitimately old but don't sound it, and readers tend to think they are very modern even though they're not. I try to avoid these too - after all, in a story, the important thing is the mood and the effect, not the literal reality.
The other problem is that some old words simply sound archaic and obscure and I don't want to confuse readers or come off sounding like Sir Walter Scott (whose writing I do not admire, with apologies to Judith Wilt). So they may be okay in terms of history, but they aren't okay in terms of writing style.
I don't really apply any of these notions when I'm writing with a medieval or classical setting - I figure that's in translation to the modern anyway and actual words have to be evocative rather than accurate. In other words, I may be able to read Anglo-Norman and Palestinian Old French or Latin, but I'm sure not going to write in those languages!
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Date: 2005-12-18 03:44 pm (UTC)I'll make that one of these days. It's rather expensive here - but worth it!
or the elusive lampuki pie?
I never actually tried that....
Or even pastizzi?!
When I'm feeling brave and have time to cook it! Meanwhile, Twistees will have to do.
Some of the words that look like anachronisms turn out to be very old and some words that sound old, aren't. I like to look things up as much as possible and my usual rule of thumb for settings after 1600 is: if it's in Shakespeare, it's okay. Luckily I know Shakespeare well enough for this to be useful.
There are two caveats to that. One is that there is a whole class of words that are perfectly legitimately old but don't sound it, and readers tend to think they are very modern even though they're not. I try to avoid these too - after all, in a story, the important thing is the mood and the effect, not the literal reality.
The other problem is that some old words simply sound archaic and obscure and I don't want to confuse readers or come off sounding like Sir Walter Scott (whose writing I do not admire, with apologies to Judith Wilt). So they may be okay in terms of history, but they aren't okay in terms of writing style.
I don't really apply any of these notions when I'm writing with a medieval or classical setting - I figure that's in translation to the modern anyway and actual words have to be evocative rather than accurate. In other words, I may be able to read Anglo-Norman and Palestinian Old French or Latin, but I'm sure not going to write in those languages!