kanbukai.com 2023-01-14 23:21:10
Saturday, 14 January 2023
people bitching about the usage of “too modern” words in fantasy or historical fiction is sometimes justified, but ultimately I think it’s a waste of time because
- all words exist within a specific time frame and it’s pointless to avoid the fact that you’re writing with the language of your own time
- which words are actually “newer” than other words is sometimes wildly unintuitive
according to the dates given in the Oxford English Dictionary, if you wrote a book set in 1897, you could have your characters say “fuckable,” (1889) “sexy” (1896) “uncomfy” (1868) “hellacious” (1847) “dude” (1877) “all righty” (1877) and “heck” (1887), but not “wiggly” (1932) “moronic” (1910) “uptight” (1934) “lowbrow” (1901) “fifty-fifty” (1913) “burp” (1932) “bagel” (1898) or use the word “rewrite” as a noun (1901)
Some more words where the date of their first known usage just Doesn’t Sound Right:
- hangry, as in the portmanteau of ‘hungry’ and 'angry’ (1912)
- dildo (1590)
- yucky (1970)
- grungy (1965)
- freebie (1925)
- shitty (1768)
- boost (1815)
- boss (1856)
- TGIF, as in Thank God It’s Friday (1941)
- yay (1963)
Fucked up (1863) is much older than fuck you (1943) but older still is the now-obscure fucked out (1862) which means what it sounds like—exhausted from too much sex.
Tori