The Crossroads of the Aether
Victorian Vernacular
I wanted to ask all of you if you know of any good references for speaking like a Victorian or proper etiquete language? Someone told me to just read "The Difference Engine" but any other tips would be splendid.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jenesse Wannall on -
my suggestion would be literature of the period. Reading the books and articles written at the time of which you speak will surely give you insight to the vernacular of the day.
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Permalink Reply by Papa Toad Bone on -
Read Victorian literature. Wells, Dickens, Verne, Doyle, Darwin even. Read anything from the era, even earlier works like Tennyson, Iriving and Poe, as they would have read these as well.
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Permalink Reply by White City Rippers on -
Proper ettiquete is all well and good. If you would like to display more local color and speak like a ruffian, I highly recommend "The Secret Language of Crime: The Rogue's Lexicon." It was compliled by a New York cop in the 1800s, cove.
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Permalink Reply by Papa Toad Bone on
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Excellent advice! Properly low brow.
"ah'm finkin awl be nickin dem watches too guv'na"
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Permalink Reply by Noah Meernaum on
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Scribe Greebles,
All the prior recommendations here are well advised. The difficulty in creating Victorian dialogue is often understanding how people would speak differently to a gentleman or lady, rather than addressing a coachman or say a maid in that era. In the advised literature of the period, you can glean this,yet not always understand the meaning to the larger plot. I would second Charles Dickens works in particular to assist in this, also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories of which for wit and drama, my favorites are Silver Blaze, The Adventure of the Blue Carbunkle, and The Man with the Twisted Lip. Also recommended for writers, (if you can find it), W.S. Baring-Gould’s The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. This explanation of words, concepts, and other details of the Victorian Age is very enlightening to re-create stories of that era.
The Flashman series by George McDonald Fraser also has a rip roaring riotous dialogue of the era, and carries the verve and pip of the empiric Englishman!
As to the best current writers to look to exploring a Victorian era, two of my favorites are Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet or Fingersmith are highly recommended) and MIchael Cox (The Meaning of Night, The Glass of Time).
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Aspiring Writer Geebles,
One further web site that provides some assistance in regards to Victorian language (and culture), that I have found helpful is The Victorian Web:
http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/litov.html
There is a particularly interesting section in this literature section that touches on Victorian back slang.
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Permalink Reply by Papa Toad Bone on
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He that would pun, would pick a pocket.
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Permalink Reply by Richmond Strange on -
Dear Mr Greebles
I would add to the above advice that a geographical and cultural understanding is imperative in attaining the correct speech patterns and mannerisms. For instance, I recently read a modern short story set in the 1890s where the main characters travel to the north of England. A cab driver in the northern town is revealed to have a cockney accent that is quite out of place in that location. The famous stereotypical London cabbie has never been a national feature. He has always been a resident of the city and more commonly of the East End. Outside of London during the Victorian period you would be extremely unlikely to find any lower class London accents at all. Despite its tiny size compared to the USA or Australia, the regional accents in England differ immensely over distances as little as a hundred miles. Fifty miles in some cases. It all rather depends on the geographical features and what had seperated regions from each other for millennia.
It is also worth remembering that the written language used by authors such as Dickens is rather formal and often written for the purpose of reading out loud to audiences. It may not reflect how they actually spoke, and characterisation is of course just that so may not reflect accurately the speech of the time despite resonating with audiences then and now.
Mord Em'ly by W. Pett Ridge (written 1901) is available for free at this site:
http://www.victorianlondon.org/
(use the search facility to find "Mord")
The author phonetically incorporates the speech patterns of street gangs and urchins and I suspect, although I cannot say for sure, that it is an accurate representation. My confidence is based on the fact that for three years I rented rooms on Walworth Road where the story is set. Do please remember that this is a central London dialect though, not one to be found in every bog and by-way of the British Isles.
RS
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Permalink Reply by Wilbur Lovegoode on -
Sir,
I believe you will find these aetherweb links of use to a greater or lesser extent:
1) A gentle guide to social conventions
2)Victorian Slang
3) 19th C. Lower class vernacular
4) Colourful terms
5) My personal favourite resource for unusual and archaic words Every gent should have a few odd'uns up his sleeve for the discerning conversationalist's oblectation ;)
Kind regards
W. Lovegoode Esq
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Permalink Reply by Ms. Zion B. Silvertongue on -
I really like this website, although it’s not particularly Victorian I don’t believe. It has glossaries of obscure words for all kinds of things. Being obscure, rare or “lost” I can imagine many of these words could be used for a steampunk story or if you become adept at it, every day conversations!
http://phrontistery.info/index.html
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Permalink Reply by michael helsem on -
i find that Bulwer-Lytton is very sensitive to contemporary slang; i have picked up whole sets of interesting words from books like Pelham & Paul Clifford...
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2cnr369
http://preview.tinyurl.com/26vv2ph
or if you like reading online
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7623
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7735
m.
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