Avoiding everyday phrases that would be anachronistic

[Chilari]

There are loads of little phrases and metaphors which we use on a daily basis but which wouldn't be suitable for a fantasy world. Phrases like "flying under the radar" only make sense in a world where aviation and detection of planes etc are things that exist. Waiting "til the sun's over the yardarm" requires a culture in which naval technology involves square sails. Calling someone a "cheeky monkey" implies a culture that has had reasonably regular contact with small simians. And there are a lot of often more subtle phrases that you might not even realise would be anachronistic or out of place until you really stop to think about it - or even investigate the etymology of the phrase.

What phrases have you caught yourself using which would be anachronistic within your story, and how have you changed things to portray the same meaning without the anachronism? Have you ever read back and old story and found something you'd written which is anachronistic? Have you read a published book containing stuff like this?

 

[Butterfly]

Telling archers, siege weapons, etc to 'fire...'

There's actually no fire involved. Comes from the use of firearms.

I need to remember the command would be, 'Loose!'

 

[Svrtnsse]

Telling archers, siege weapons, etc to 'fire...'

There's actually no fire involved. Comes from the use of firearms.

I need to remember the command would be, 'Loose!'

This is a good point, but it's also depends on what kind of story your writing. If you're not going for a high level of accuracy/realism you'd probably get away with using fire. You may even raise less eyebrows with fire than loose. Most readers of today will instinctively associate the word fire with shooting a weapon - even though it may not be technically correct for non-fire arms.
Using a word like loose may cause the reader to stop and reflect on it - even for just a moment - which may bring them out of the story. Something like that is also worth taking into consideration.

 

[Jabrosky]

Telling archers, siege weapons, etc to 'fire...'

There's actually no fire involved. Comes from the use of firearms.

I need to remember the command would be, 'Loose!'

Meh, doesn't have the same impact for me. How about "release your arrows"?

 

[Myoho]

'Loose' or any other phrase or word would not be very useful in a combat situation involving thousands of soldiers. Come to think of it, we maybe have come to be all too familiar with the close up of the commander shouting to fire, opening a battle scene. I would choose for the raising of a flag or banner to indicate the start of an attack or hearing an incoherent shout in the distance ( much like in real life combat today, by the way).

Just a thought though. It is a very good point indeed. Thank you for that Butterfly!

 

[Steerpike]

I figure the fantasy novel is being written in modern English, and so certain usages of modern English phrases don't bother me. The use of "fire" wouldn't bother me for that reason. The fantasy characters are using an alien word that is the equivalent, in their language of what the modern reader knows as "fire," so sticking with that word keeps things simple.

Entire phrases like "under the radar" are much more problematic, in my view, and refer specifically to a piece of technology whereas use of the word "fire" is an implication only.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I once accidentally posted a story that referenced "loyalty to the country" in a time period where "loyalty to the king" would be more accurate. (This was a last minute edit to appease a beta who was a Game of Thrones fan and was baffled that I was portraying a female noble as wanting her daughter to do something besides get married and have babies--long story short, that was part of her goal, but not the entirety of it.) Anyway, I was a bit embarrassed by it, but no one ever commented on it, so I guess it didn't matter.

(I actually intended for the parts set in medieval times to be a shared hallucination from the modern-day characters, based on their inaccurate conceptions of what medieval life was like, but none of my readers caught that. That story was weird.)

 

[Nobby]

Going back to the 'fire' versus 'loose' discussion, I prefer 'loose'. 'Let fly', would be a more poetic (or cinematic) version, but 'loose' being one yawped word seems like it would make more sense in a battle.

Trying to avoid saying 'OK' is much harder!

 

[Nobby]

(I managed with an in universe 'a'reet' [all right] BTW)

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Some of the ones I've had to think carefully about recently:

- Rolling the dice (dice and gambling with them is incredibly old but it still seems out of place in a traditional fantasy.)
- Someone being described as a pawn (chess is also actually very old but wasn't played a lot in medieval Europe which is what a lot of my traditional fantasy is based on. It started in India and then spread to Persia.)
- Loosing vs firing arrows as already mentioned. (Fire is innacurate obviously, but more understandable to readers. Loose is probably accurate but jarring.)

As you can see a lot of the time the answer you need to use in your work is not the one that's historically correct.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I've had some great fun coming up with my own phrases. It's a bit tricky as they need to fit the setting and the character while also be easy to understand and read. When it does work, it feels awesome though.

 

[Penpilot]

For myself, I only avoid the truly obvious anachronism like the mentioned "under the radar." I might use something like "Shake a leg," if it fit, but if I didn't, I'd try to make up my own phrase.

 

[hots_towel]

for me, the fun is in making up your own phrases. i knew I should have written them down, but when im thinking of a dialogue bit, and an opportunity comes up to insert a real world phrase, converting it to something more fitting to the story is quite fun.

EX: in my WIP, people from region A meet people from region B, and people from A constantly use the term "Pete" to generally refer to someone (in place of the word "dude" in our world). confusion ensues between the two groups as group A thinks everyone knew about their words. then there's other things like accents, calling the same things by different names, and differences in phrases that i think make for funny little bits.

And as for the fire vs loose business, i dont have a problem with saying fire, as it lessens the seriousness of the story. But if you say loose, then im probably going to hold that to you and expect the rest of the world to be accurate. Pretty much why i have my sergeants yell "Volley!" when they want a mass attack unleashed.

 

[Malik]

"Loose arrows!"

"Son of a *****! Find them again!"

(See what I did there?)

 

[Devor]

The only word I try to avoid is "okay." But I do play with the syntax a lot, especially with the dialogue. Back in High School I wrote a drama class monologue in an Irish accent, and I had to read to about Irish syntax. The only thing that I read that I remember talked about how the Irish try to emphasize something by rearranging the words instead of doing it with their voice.

John went to the bar today. Which word is important? Normally it's whatever word you emphasize. John went to the bar today. But according to the thing I read ten years ago, in an Irish accent it would look like:

It was John that went to the bar today. John was the one who went to the bar today. Something like that. You read it out loud without emphasizing any of the words because it's done for you in the word choice.

For whatever reason that one random thing stuck with me, and I've found it useful to think about when I write dialogue. It feels older to me, and it's particularly helpful because we can't use our voice to emphasize a word on paper.