Historical Facts: What color is that?

When writing historical novels, seemingly simple details like the color of a woman’s dress, can get the author into hot water with people who take their history seriously.

For example, I bet you think black is the color to wear for mourning. Yet in Europe those attending royal funerals always wore white. White was the color of “royal mourning”. As recently as 2004 the four daughters of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands wore white to their mother’s funeral, and when Queen Elizabeth of England attended a state funeral in France her couturier had to make her an entire series of outfits in white.

I was totally fascinated by the way some of these rules are exactly the same as in old China. People in mourning in China always wore white, and yellow was never worn because yellow was the Emperor’s color. Apparently in Regency Britain yellow was virtually banned as well.

Fortunately Collette Cameron has written an excellent blog on the correct colors people wore in Regency days. http://blog.lbjoramo.com/?p=184

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Happy birthday OK

One hundred and seventy-five years OK first appeared in print on page 2 of “The Boston Morning Post”, back then one of the most popular newspapers in the United States.

It’s the only survivor of a fashion for giving abbreviations to deliberate misspellings of common phrases. Eg KG for no go (know go), NC for nuff ced. OK Stood for "orl correct".

But while the others died out, OK hung around as it was so very useful. Plus, other people popularized it as well. OK truly entered the national lingua franca in 1840, when spin doctors for Democratic presidential nominee Martin Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, New York, insisted to voters that it meant “Old Kinderhook.”

OK fits in with many languages. In Choctaw “okeh” means “it is so”. The Scottish say “och aye,” the Greek “ola kala” (it's good) and the French “aux Cayes,” which refers to a Haitian port famous for its rum.

These days it’s also proven handy for anything with a limited number of characters, like Twitter and texting.

So whether you prefer OK or okay, it’s okay to wish OK happy birthday today.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Historical words

I’ve spoken before about historical anachronisms, which ought to be avoided in your books,
(http://helenwoodallfreelanceediting.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/anachronisms.html http://helenwoodallfreelanceediting.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/anachronism-2.html)

but this is also true of romantic-type words to be used in historical stories. I have just finished reading a really good historical romance. The characters are lively and engaging yet completely true to the time period, which is wonderful. But the author used twentieth century words like “sexy” to describe her heroine.

I have no doubt women have been “sexy” for thousands of years, but that word didn’t come into use until the twentieth century. Even the word “sex” only meant gender, nothing else, back then.

However, anyone who read Chaucer in school knows that even in the Middle Ages there were plenty of words used to describe a pretty woman, a handsome man and human anatomy as well. There’s even a book from the seventeenth century that lists 552 synonyms for the f word. People who use that word in every second sentence today should be forced to read it.

Meanwhile, go to the online etymology dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/) and check that those words you are about to use were in common use back then. And please note, “bloody” as a swear word was NEVER used, even in England, between 1750 and 1920.
Happy researching.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

A versus An

A lot of people learned in primary (elementary) school to use A before a consonant and An before a vowel. That’s a rough way of looking at it which covers the basics. But a more accurate way of dealing with the rule is that it’s “a” before a consonant SOUND and “an” before a vowel sound. That’s why you say, “Fred just received an MBA.” Because the word MBA stars with the sound of an E (em bee ay.
This is why people get so confused with words starting with an “h” because quite often the “h” is silent. An hour, for example but a horse. The same with words starting with “O”. Is it an “O” sound or a “W” sound? A one-way ticket to Paris, but an only child.
See, it’s not so hard after all.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

40 Worst Book Covers and Titles Ever

I know your response will be exactly the same as mine. As soon as I read that headline I couldn’t resist clicking on the link.

Warning: These covers and book titles are bad. Seriously bad. Some because the meaning of words has changed over time. Others because the person writing them must have been living under a rock for the past decade or so, and others are so bad they’re hysterically funny.

Go, on, click the link. But swallow your coffee first!
http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-book-titles-covers/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Cliches

Using clichés can pull the reader right out of the story. Maybe it’s a saying so old they remember their grandpa saying it and can’t adjust to the fact that the character who used it is supposed to be their own age. Maybe it’s something the boss says ten times a day and it makes them grit their teeth with annoyance. Or maybe it’s just inappropriate. A word or phrase pulled out its true context and used far too often by modern society.

But for whatever reason, avoid clichés like the plague.

Also watch out for nouns being used as verbs, verbs as nouns, and adjectives as adverbs. The only true way to “brand” yourself is with a red-hot poker, and the only place it’s acceptable to call an invitation an “invite” is on Facebook.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.