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Accidental anachronisms


Kit the Human
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Have you committed any accidental anachronisms? I have two that I remember/know so far. Nothing big! But I was surprised to learn that they came later. The name Flynn (easy fix) and apparently kraken wasn't a term until around 1752 and even then it was Danish. My dumb American colonist in the early 18th century certainly wouldn't be using the word.

 

Not game breaking or glaring (to me)! Still made me go, oh whoops! Let's retcon.

 

Have you got any silly ones you'd like to share?

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Huh, you know. . . this isn't something I generally think to hard about when writing. Outside of obvious things that wouldn't fit the time, but at the same time sometimes I don't think of stuff that does fit cause I think it doesn't for some reason. Now I'm curious though. Going to have to look at some of my posts and see if I've done this anywhere. Of course, it's not something I really pay attention to when writing. If I did it would probably drive me up a wall lol

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  • 2 weeks later...

I remember frequently referring to potatoes in posts (well...not frequently but enough) before I twigged that they didn't come over for several hundred more years. That was a massive d'oh moment for Sara, I hang my head in shame. 

 

A recent one was that I made a common character and it took me two weeks, two weeks, before I realised I hadn't actually explained how she was fluent in Norman-French when she was a commoner and spoke Anglo-Saxon. Some maaaaajor rewrites of her app because I'm a bloody flipping idiot. 

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I think this is a common factor in historical gaming more than we realize. Coming in to this genre, influences from books, movies, and television happen often. One thing I know that catches me up will be language particulars, like certain names.  On one of my more recent WiP's, I gave a character the name Leilah. Now, granted, she has always been Leilah, or "Lee" for short. However, on researching that name? I realized she would have to get it from a traveling British ancestor because it was a name from  distant part of the world (India) and in fact didn't become known in English literature until after 1800. D'oh!  Hence why the mixed race Native American was given a name that has been "in the family" due to a relatives former time in the British East India Company!
 

Things like that are easily made more "novel" or "original" to a setting with some tweaks. One large thing that has always haunted me in gaming, even Fantasy, is the drinking of tea.  It is such an easy thing to break out!  However, water was not a trusted source back in the Middle Ages and further onward for awhile, so most everyone was drinking something fermented.  The history of tea being what it is, one day, it slapped me that unless it was a specific herbal infusion, it'd be awful hard to have tea in more true to life medieval settings. Tea culture wasn't around. Potatoes is another one!  I can't tell you how many dishes I've written with that tubular only to have to fact check my history/point of origin.

Another one that used to kill me was when there would be a medieval ball being written in a setting that was much more historically inspired, and I found it began to kill me when no one wrote about period dancing in lines, no folk dancing, and always wrote about the waltz.  It never fails!  We all have that period image of Prince Charming waltzing his sweetheart into romance....ooooonly no one was waltzing for a really long time unless you were a peasant in Germany or an Austrian/Germanic noble between the 13th-16th centuries. Even when Waltzing did come about, before it became popular? It was scandal to the max for so many who favored the stately, rigid dancers of yesteryear. So, one thing I found myself doing (and noticing others too) was including the origins of the waltz in posts, potential character reactions to said dance, and how the characters felt engaging in it. One more anachronistic port for the records! 


In our former alternative history 14th century Scottish group, and because who doesn't love a good seasonal play, we increased regional observations of "Yuletide" things and included Christmas trees and regional glass blowing people with a fashion for decorated Yule trees to appease the fae folk..or some such. It was AOL, and December.  We were rewriting history as it was! 

One that occurred in our India story that was more an organized decision among a bunch of tea/chai nerds was the making of chai as some sort of "regional delicacy" that would begin to spread from our area outward, so that there would be a chai culture at our present time, and so we could include it in area tea culture.  We've gone an increased the presence of women quite awhile before they arrived in larger numbers, so darn it, we shall have chai!

History can be equal parts funny and entertaining. 

Edited by Seahorse
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6 minutes ago, Seahorse said:

One large thing that has always haunted me in gaming, even Fantasy, is the drinking of tea.  It is such an easy thing to break out!  However, water was not a trusted source back in the Middle Ages and further onward for awhile, so most everyone was drinking something fermented.  The history of tea being what it is, one day, it slapped me that unless it was a specific herbal infusion, it'd be awful hard to have tea in more true to life medieval settings. Tea culture wasn't around. Potatoes is another one!  I can't tell you how many dishes I've written with that tubular only to have to fact check my history/point of origin.

 

I feel you so hard on both the tea and potatoes thing. The French really resisted the idea of potatoes (thought they were toxic) for a good long time, so my homey lady just wouldn't be cooking potatoes.

 

And tea? Apparently, not really a thing until in the mid 1700s for England. Prior to that, green tea was apparently acceptable amongst aristocratic male society. Now, tea was more common in America thanks to the Dutch but was not publicly for sale until around 1690, this is all centered around New York. 1720 was the point that tea seemed to be properly normalised. Which is a long way of me saying that this same homey lady probably wouldn't just be pouring tea for everyone as it probably wasn't that readily available, and she ain't rich.

 

One day, I'll write that we've captured a Dutch tea merchant and all of his wares are now in Nassau. So my lady can have a frigging cup of tea!

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11 minutes ago, Kit the Human said:

 

I feel you so hard on both the tea and potatoes thing. The French really resisted the idea of potatoes (thought they were toxic) for a good long time, so my homey lady just wouldn't be cooking potatoes.

 

And tea? Apparently, not really a thing until in the mid 1700s for England. Prior to that, green tea was apparently acceptable amongst aristocratic male society. Now, tea was more common in America thanks to the Dutch but was not publicly for sale until around 1690, this is all centered around New York. 1720 was the point that tea seemed to be properly normalised. Which is a long way of me saying that this same homey lady probably wouldn't just be pouring tea for everyone as it probably wasn't that readily available, and she ain't rich.

 

One day, I'll write that we've captured a Dutch tea merchant and all of his wares are now in Nassau. So my lady can have a frigging cup of tea!


YES THIS!  Some things just go together with particular settings!  Homey characters. Home cooked meals. Potatoes. What if my character doesn't want a beet or a radish? Little did they know that the toxic nature of the potato came from all that metal they were cooking on >.>  Be a rebel. Eat the potato. Cut into the love apple. 

Can you also believe that the tea party as it is known now, especially the taking of afternoon tea, wasn't a big hit until the Duchess of Bedford was credited for it in the 1830's or so?  There is proof of tea being taken prior in England as a meal of sorts,  and we know the Dutch had tea gardens long before this. Coffee houses and tea houses were a thing, so it is interesting how the idea of ladies at tea is played so much prior to this point of the 19th century. It is a staple for social conversation, really!  I'd argue it is almost the backbone of colonial social plays, the spreading of tea culture.  

One fun thing about tea is how valuable it became, what varities were fashionable over the others, and the fact that people would smuggle tea, pirate for tea! Tea, of all things!  Catherine of Braganza brought it with her to England in 1662,  from Portugal, on the occassion of her marriage to Charles II. It  then became fashionable because the Queen made it so. You'd have to wonder, especially with the age of tea formal tea wear, if someone wasn't hip to the "tea party" even then! 

I hope your character gets their tea. It's important, dang it!  Tea, potatoes, and apples for everyone! 

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  • 1 month later...

Once upon a time, when Internet wasn't even a dream into a creator's mind, and I was in middle school (I think), I had met a woman with a little daughter. She was married to an Italian, and her daughter was called Vanessa. I was told then that it means Venetian, and I loved the name. Then, I named a doll I had from Italy with this name. Years later, but still a decade before Internet, I named so a character from the Venetian colonies, because in my 16 years old mind made sense, if her parents longed for their native town while deployed in the colonies.

 

Fast forward 20 years or so, I decided to transcribe (and improve) said story, checking with the Internet all the facts there. And I discovered it wasn't true about the name signification and origins. So... edit, find and replace all, suddenly Vanessa became Vittoria... because it wasn't possible otherwise.

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  • 1 month later...

One anachronism for me was in a Victorian RP, forgetting about gin palaces. With how popular they were it was a bit of a glaring oversight, but no one else knew any better either, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Beyond that, I try not to get worked up about it. I do prelim research if I have something concrete to look for (like Roman family dynamics), but I try not to get too up in arms about it or I'd never get any writing done, I'd just be obsessively reading historical details.

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  • 7 months later...

APPARENTLY MY SHIPS WERE ANACHRONISTIC

 

All my pirate/privateer books were so busy insisting that English privateers (and pirates) sailed in sloops that they forgot to mention that this wasn't until at least 1710 (unless they stole a ship from the Dutch or the French). In fact, in the period I was writing in, the Navy had ten sloops, all were purpose built to enforce the ban on wool export. They were lightly armed and not much larger than the group that was delivered back in 1670 (and later sold off as useless).  These wool export enforcers boasted two whole guns.

 

It wasn't until 1704 that the larger sloops were commissioned and it wasn't until 1710 (thereabouts) that they were commissioned in larger numbers, but the survivors were sold off a few years later.

 

So that explains why I was struggling for research.

 

The other piece of information I wish I knew about English sloops? There is no typical sloop. "Sloop" seems to have been a catch all term for an unrated ship that wasn't a ketch or a brig. It could have one to three masts, it could have any rigging system and any sail set. In fact, this seems to have been the class that was experimented on, the 'commanders' (not captain! The rank 'captain' needs to have a rated ship) were expected to write a report on the ship's handling. Many sloops were altered, with the masts moving to and fro and the rigging/sails altered.

 

Also, this lot of sloops were unstable and the commanders kept asking the navy for more guns. Given the rate of capture/sinking of these sloops, it looks like they were ill-equipped against their French counterparts.

 

Clerk of the Survey in Portsmouth and a commissioner, Thomas Blanckley, has this to say of sloops:

 

Quote

Sloops - Are sail'd & masted as mens fancys leads them sometimes wth one mast, wth two and wth three, with burmudoes, shoulder of mutton, square lug & smack sails, they are in figure either square or round stern'd

 

So that explains my struggle!

 

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PSI: an Occult Investigations RP

Roleplay Architects: Grab a friend (or many friends!) and just write.

You can also find me at:

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