"Historical fiction novels" Topic

I quite like the historical fiction novels, stuff like Cornwell's Dark Ages saga, Simon Scarrow's novels about 2 legionaries, Conn Ilggulden and the Ghengis Khan story etc…

This holiday I read a new one by Ben Kane, about 3 blokes who end up in Crassus' army that gets trashed by the Parthians. A good holiday read and I will get the next in the sequence.

But, it really started to tick me off as to why latin words were in italics. Why do they do that? And how do they decide which words will be better in latin?

The book was full of referances to various parts of Roman life and often used latin words in italics. It was annoying as the different typeset drew the eye and actually made it harder to read. It was also vaguely patronising I felt as it seemed they were trying to tell me that this was a special latin word they used in the old days!! Does the author think we are dumb or does the editor do it because he thinks it's better?

Grr!!!

Steve P

It's proper English to italicize Latin words.

Unless, of course, we've "borrowed" those words and mangled them for our own purposes!

I agree. Flashman talks about sowars and naiks and stuff without italics.
Why would Roman soldiers use italics when using Latin terms? Makes no sense.

It's proper English to italicize Latin words.

How am I supposed to vent my spleen if you are going to pee on my bonfire ? ;)

Interstingly in looking up the rules for this sort of thing (italics that is, not ranting) I note that the last sentence of the very first point does concur that overuse can come across as patronising.

link

I feel suitably vindicated.

Steve P

Proper and annoying often go hand-in-hand.

It could be a prop for the current abysmally incompetent crop of editors in the publishing industry.

I've been reading S.M. Stirling's Nantucket trilogy to the missus in the evenings. Any non-English word or proper name--heck, any word that can't be found in an elementary phonics primer (and even a few of those)--is subject to wild variations in spelling. For example, the name of the Mittanian princess alternates between "Raupasha" and "Raushapa" from page to page.

Italics may simply be an editing tool to mark the "funny words" the author uses.

"Proper and annoying often go hand-in-hand."

Damn straight, Skippy. And that's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) we like it.

Allen

Authors can be a bit funny when they don't follow formal convention.

I'm reading an Ian Heath book on China at the moment and the author has decided to use "the more familiar English names for things". This can be extremely confusing to someone who is not familiar with the "more familiar names" that have been out of use for a generation or two. It also comes off a bit colonial and old-fashioned. Maybe that's fitting for a book on 19th century China, but I find it frustrating, and to me, it detracts from the academic value of the book.

I'm reading a historical fiction book called Lamb right now. It is not as good as advertised, but it is still clever in parts.

Nycjadie, the problem with an approach like that is WHICH "more familiar Englsih names" to use.
I can be as jingoistic as the next guy, but at least "Beijing" solves the problem of what the natives call it. Peking, Peiping, etc… I have seen a lot, but none official.

The more the politically correct Beijing stuff is used, the more "familiar" they will become.

I'm reading an Ian Heath book on China at the moment and the author has decided to use "the more familiar English names for things". This can be extremely confusing to someone who is not familiar with the "more familiar names" that have been out of use for a generation or two. It also comes off a bit colonial and old-fashioned. Maybe that's fitting for a book on 19th century China, but I find it frustrating, and to me, it detracts from the academic value of the book.

I tend to take the opposite point-of-view. I find it extremely annoying when a large body of authors have, over the years, made an effort to keep terminology fairly constant so that it is easier to convey information and someone comes along and wants to "update" it just to be, in my opinion, pedantic.

I think the Peking/Beijing terms are more familiar to people. So might Saigon/Ho Chi Minh. But what if I wrote Dong Kinh? How many would know that was Hanoi? Or Gyeongseong?

This gets even more confusing for the names of individuals. If they've been spelled one way for 90 years, why revert to a colonial spelling? And then when you change all those y's to j's and vice versa, and I start having to take notes to keep it all straight, that's a real problem in my view.

When I was in academia, the approach was always to use the terms in current usage. Some might refer to those as being politically correct, but I view it as just using the terms that are used. Personally, I'm not offended by the term "oriental", but I certainly wouldn't use it either.

This gets even more confusing for the names of individuals. If they've been spelled one way for 90 years, why revert to a colonial spelling?

I would find 90 years a convincing body of data and would not revert to something earlier.

…about 3 blokes who end up in Crassus' army that gets trashed by the Parthians.

Sounds like a Duggan ripoff: his novel "Winter Quarters" is about two Gauls who end up in Crassus' army in Parthia and get sent to live out their lives in "the sea of grass", i.e. the Steppes of Asia.

I highly recommend Alfred Leo Duggan's historical fiction. None better, imho….

I'm reading a historical fiction book called Lamb right now. It is not as good as advertised, but it is still clever in parts.

What, the Christopher Moore one?

nycjadie

It's a pleasure to hear from a wordsmith.

All foreign words aer supposed to be italicized, if they haven't been adapted into everyday vocabulary. Take a look at Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Over a hundred years ago, they were still italicizing words we use everyday.

Proper English usage and rules just aren't important to people any more. I heard in England they even stopped teaching the i before e rule, or at least it was proposed.

Maybe spelling will go back to the age before Daniel Webster codified everything in his dictionary.

JW

All foreign words aer supposed to be italicized, if they haven't been adapted into everyday vocabulary. Take a look at Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Over a hundred years ago, they were still italicizing words we use everyday.

That's a choice of style. Personally, I find it distracting – it derails my train of thought every time I hit a change in typeface.

I was going to say something, but never mind.

Why not read it in the original Latin.
:)