A question about the use of historically accurate terms.

[NotWise]

The exact type of the ship doesn't matter much. The only reason the story is set in a historical period is because discovering sirens and enslaving them in this day and age will break the immersion. I don't mind going full on with historical terms for other things, but I don't want this story to be an accurate but boring piece of literature. I want this story to be highly erotic. But if panties and bras are gonna put people off, I have no choice but to use those archaic terms for erotic scenes.

You're starting to worry me. I think if you don't pin down your historic period a little better then you're going to get some ridicule in comments, no matter how sexy the story is.

Galley's were Greek/Roman/Phoenician. Galleons were Spanish, but like 1500 years later. Step-ins are from the 1920's and survive today as "teddies." There was no Spanish royal family until after 1500. Initially they were Hapsburgs, and Bourbons after the war of succession. The Spanish Hapsburgs suffered serious congenital problems. The Spanish were religiously very, very conservative, and invoking magic in any form might earn you an auto de fe.

I don't think you need to worry about the language very much--especially if your characters are Spanish speakers and your story translates to English. You can translate it any way you want. I've written historical stories from the Spanish sphere (Central America, circa 1800), and I didn't worry much about words for private parts. Mostly I didn't make direct reference to them. I did worry about names and culture.

 

[ronde]

I’m writing a long fantasy erotica involving the Spanish Crown, sirens, magic, amulets, galleys, carts, horses, and farms. But I’m reluctant to use historically accurate terms for garments and sex—words like chemise, drawers, and undergarments. I prefer modern words like panties, bras, skirts, cunt, pussy, tits. Would that feel jarring or out of place in a story like this? Or is it acceptable to keep the language modern for clarity and tone? As a reader, what would you personally prefer?

Just an observation here. If you do some research into erotica from the time books were printed, you'll find that the authors of those times didn't have any trouble conveying what they were talking about. In a lot of instances in erotica, it's the context in which the word is used rather than the word itself.

I don't go overboard with my historical fiction, but to me writing "panties" instead of "bloomers" or "pantaloons" breaks the feel of the story. The clothing of a period can also add to the erotic nature of the story. A woman in 2025 might rip off her top and shorts and be ready. It would take a woman in the 1700's a lot longer to undress and therefore longer for her to build that frenzy in her lover and in herself.

As far as the word "cunt", it's appropriate for any time up until the late 1900's. It definitely was in use as far back as the 1500's as there is documentation of a street named "Gropecunt Lane" in Bristol, England. If you use the word cunt in a historical setting, people will know what you're talking about. If you use it in current context, you'll probably irritate some readers.

There are a lot of terms for clothing and body parts that were formerly used and are not confusing to readers if put in the proper context. Just a little research will show you.

 

[NotWise]

I don't go overboard with my historical fiction, but to me writing "panties" instead of "bloomers" or "pantaloons" breaks the feel of the story. The clothing of a period can also add to the erotic nature of the story. A woman in 2025 might rip off her top and shorts and be ready. It would take a woman in the 1700's a lot longer to undress and therefore longer for her to build that frenzy in her lover and in herself.

Or she could just bend over while he flips her skirts up.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I would use the historically accurate terms if they're being said by the characters in the time period. You can always explain the terms in the narrative sections if you're concerned people don't know what they are. Both the clothing and the sex terms.

Personally, part of the appeal of writing historical stuff is getting the little details right, even if nobody but me notices. Obviously, you do you, but I think it won't hurt anything if somebody has to look up what something looks like because they're unfamiliar with it. I like learning new things as I read, even if it's on here.

 

[CyranoJ]

“You are gonna comeback to this place at midnight when everyone is asleep,” Luca smiled. Whoever is awake will be assigned to the deck for something to do. So, in the sleeping quarter, it is gonna be only you and sleeping men.”

For some reason, this feels off to me. I feel that if we're translating his dialogue from Spanish, it shouldn't include contemporary slang, especially in the mouth of a character who would be considered "cultured" and "educated" by his society's standards. You don't need to be using "thee" or "thou" or anything, but elite characters should sound like they think of themselves as belonging to the elite (unless they're consciously putting on a mannerism).

Using accurate terms for female underwear and other garments, if you're using something like a "period" setting, will make a big difference to the kind of audience that's attracted to a "period" setting. There's a major difference between panties and historical undergarments at virtually any point before the last two or three generations.

I would recommend deciding what the "period" really is -- or what you want to draw upon for your fantasy version of Spain -- and learning about fashions from that time; there's plenty of retro-fashion information online. Women at the height of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century typically wore a chemise or a smock as the base layer of their undergarments, for instance. At that time, something similar to panties as we know them would scan as a cache-sexe and would be something exotic and barbaric and associated with "the natives" in "wild" places like sub-Saharan Africa or certain uncolonized parts of the Americas or Southeast Asia. (If you want your heroine in something like this, it adds an extra psychological layer of humiliation to what she's being menaced with, which maybe you want or maybe not.)

By contrast, I wouldn't bother trying to archaize the earthier erotic terms: one's cocks and cunts and pussies and so forth. Faux-archaic terms for these can be distracting and you have to be really comfortable with that kind of register, and with how specific historical terms scan, to be able to use it effectively. If you don't have a specific taste for period erotica (or period erotica in translation) then it's probably not worth the effort.

That's my two cents. Good luck.

 

[StillStunned]

Galley's were Greek/Roman/Phoenician. Galleons were Spanish, but like 1500 years later.

Galleys were still in use until about 1800, if I'm not mistaken. (Taking my nautical history from Hornblower, which is usually pretty safe.)

 

[CyranoJ]

Galleys were still in use until about 1800, if I'm not mistaken. (Taking my nautical history from Hornblower, which is usually pretty safe.)

Galleys remained in use in the Mediterranean until the nineteenth century. But the basic point is a good one: if one is going to mention ships, it's probably a good idea to know at least something about them. A story set on a galley is in a radically different setting than one set on a galleon.

 

[NotWise]

Galleys were still in use until about 1800, if I'm not mistaken. (Taking my nautical history from Hornblower, which is usually pretty safe.)

I stand corrected. Wikipedia has a good article.

 

[Randi_McRando]

Would that feel jarring or out of place in a story like this?

Yes, honestly it would. Because some of these modern clothing items would be so anachronistic it would take the reader out of the time period that your story is supposed to be set.

For example, bras weren't invented until the early 20th century. That might be a small detail to you, but to somebody who reads historical fiction regularly this would be about as jarring as having a zipper or Velcro mentioned in a story that's supposed to take place during the French Revolution. Most people know those kinds of things didn't exist back then. People fasted their clothing with things like buttons, ties, pins or brooches. You don't have to be 100% historically accurate, but it really helps sell the setting of your story if you at least try to include references to items that existed within that time period. At the very least, using general terms like "shirt", "skirt" or "undergarments" are vague enough that it's at least hinting at the type of clothing you're trying to refer to without referencing a very specific item that wouldn't have existed back then.

 

[Voboy]

I worry very little about a lot of these things when I'm writing historical stuff, especially in dialogue; I reason that I'm altering their language quite a bit already, given that I'm writing Anglo-Saxons without letting them speak Old English. Things like that. So I go for a minimally formalized, modern-style vocab, and I explain as much in a brief foreword.

But that's just vocab, terms like "cunt" (which is very old anyway, and was probably mainstream for many centuries before the 1700s) or cock or slit or twat or whatever. In clothing, I do try to be more accurate, mostly for the sake of historical verisimilitude. For example, OP, never would I ever use the term "panties" in a historical story, because if I was a reader, "panties" suggests a very specific-looking garment that would not have existed at the time I'm setting my stories.

So, in using more modern vocab, I am careful not to use modern-style terms for things that did not exist at all. Anachronism bothers me. For undergarments, I generally use the historical term (or a version of it that should be understood by my readers).

 

[ronde]

Or she could just bend over while he flips her skirts up.

I've written that scene into a story.

 

[Britva415]

It could be worth it to consider the difference between accuracy and precision. Inaccuracy (incorrectness) means that precision (specificity) is useless. Imprecision (unspecificness) doesn't destroy accuracy (correctness).

You could always just call ships ships, call boats boats, call underclothes underclothes. There are no points off for that. It doesn't introduce inaccuracies. Whether a more precise name is called-for is a purely stylistic choice. One does not have to ape, or invent, a particular (inevitably contemporary) style of "period fiction" to write a period setting.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

I guess it boils down to how much you want to transport the reader into the world you create. But there's a good book on how to avoid some of the more common anachronisms:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15997779-medieval-underpants-and-other-blunders

Thank you for the book recommendation. It looks like a good read. I will take a look at it after I've fixed obvious anachronisms.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

I'm confused and probably completely missing the point, but 1984 was written in 1948 and the language of the imagined future was very much at the front of Orwell's mind.

I know 1984 is not a very good example, and I should've elaborated more. What I meant was reading 1984 as a person who is currently alive in 2025 isn't really jarring even though we know that the technology in Orwell's vision of dystopian descriptions of 1984 was just an amped up version the available technology of his time and isn't really compatible with the extent of dystopia in the novel. (That is you'll need way more than tele-secreens and hidden microphones to control people to that extent. Or to have such a big change in geopolitics. And for countries to be reduced to just Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.) But as readers, we tend to suspend disbelief and enjoy the novel anyway. The suspension of disbelief might not work with finding anachronisms in historical pieces as many of you have already suggested.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I just did a long drive into underwear because this thread got me curious. Long answer short, a lot of ancient underwear is a big unknown. Step-ins weren't even invented till the 18th century. So you might be best off with just using the vague underwear or undergarment.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

You're starting to worry me. I think if you don't pin down your historic period a little better then you're going to get some ridicule in comments, no matter how sexy the story is.

Galley's were Greek/Roman/Phoenician. Galleons were Spanish, but like 1500 years later. Step-ins are from the 1920's and survive today as "teddies." There was no Spanish royal family until after 1500. Initially they were Hapsburgs, and Bourbons after the war of succession. The Spanish Hapsburgs suffered serious congenital problems. The Spanish were religiously very, very conservative, and invoking magic in any form might earn you an auto de fe.

I don't think you need to worry about the language very much--especially if your characters are Spanish speakers and your story translates to English. You can translate it any way you want. I've written historical stories from the Spanish sphere (Central America, circa 1800), and I didn't worry much about words for private parts. Mostly I didn't make direct reference to them. I did worry about names and culture.

Yes, the distinction between Galleys and Galleons might have a merit since I am thinking about a ship operated solely by wind. There shouldn’t be a group of people below deck rowing the ship. The characters don’t have to be Spanish speakers strictly speaking. They will speak different languages depending on their nationality and whenever they are together, it is assumed that they speak a common tongue. But I get your point. The dialogue can be quite modern as long as they don’t call each other “Bruv” or “Homies.” My only doubt is with the attire. Taking a woman’s gown off to discover that she is wearing drawers (Like short trousers) is very off putting. But there seems to be a consensus in this thread to avoid anachronisms, so that’s what I’ll do.

 

[Voboy]

Yes, the distinction between Galleys and Galleons might have a merit since I am thinking about a ship operated solely by wind. There shouldn’t be a group of people below deck rowing the ship. The characters don’t have to be Spanish speakers strictly speaking. They will speak different languages depending on their nationality and whenever they are together, it is assumed that they speak a common tongue. But I get your point. The dialogue can be quite modern as long as they don’t call each other “Bruv” or “Homies.” My only doubt is with the attire. Taking a woman’s gown off to discover that she is wearing drawers (Like short trousers) is very off putting. But there seems to be a consensus in this thread to avoid anachronisms, so that’s what I’ll do.

It’s fine just to call it a “boat,” especially if the speaker is not a sailor.

How many non-sailors nowadays could differentiate between a yawl and a ketch without looking it up? Or how many would even bother to do so?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I’m writing a long fantasy erotica involving the Spanish Crown, sirens, magic, amulets, galleys, carts, horses, and farms. But I’m reluctant to use historically accurate terms for garments and sex—words like chemise, drawers, and undergarments. I prefer modern words like panties, bras, skirts, cunt, pussy, tits. Would that feel jarring or out of place in a story like this? Or is it acceptable to keep the language modern for clarity and tone? As a reader, what would you personally prefer?

As others have mentioned, some of these "modern words" are anything but.

His hand travelled to her lip, making Anne quiver. “There, you take off your dress,” he said. “Underwear and everything. You fold them neatly and put them in your trunk. You will then take your favorite pair of panties in your hand and return here. Then, wait for me,” he ended the conversation.

This, OTOH, would throw me right out of a story.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

Just an observation here. If you do some research into erotica from the time books were printed, you'll find that the authors of those times didn't have any trouble conveying what they were talking about. In a lot of instances in erotica, it's the context in which the word is used rather than the word itself.

I don't go overboard with my historical fiction, but to me writing "panties" instead of "bloomers" or "pantaloons" breaks the feel of the story. The clothing of a period can also add to the erotic nature of the story. A woman in 2025 might rip off her top and shorts and be ready. It would take a woman in the 1700's a lot longer to undress and therefore longer for her to build that frenzy in her lover and in herself.

As far as the word "cunt", it's appropriate for any time up until the late 1900's. It definitely was in use as far back as the 1500's as there is documentation of a street named "Gropecunt Lane" in Bristol, England. If you use the word cunt in a historical setting, people will know what you're talking about. If you use it in current context, you'll probably irritate some readers.

There are a lot of terms for clothing and body parts that were formerly used and are not confusing to readers if put in the proper context. Just a little research will show you.

Ok! I am convinced. There is an overwhelming consensus on avoiding anachronisms. But I wonder. What about wedgies? In one scene, one of the submissive girls gives wedgie to her mistress. With non-elastic historical clothes, it might not be a thing. I guess, she can still pull up the cloth between her crack, but you know…it is not the same thing. Or she can tie a rope up her cunt to replicate a modern wedgie.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

For some reason, this feels off to me. I feel that if we're translating his dialogue from Spanish, it shouldn't include contemporary slang, especially in the mouth of a character who would be considered "cultured" and "educated" by his society's standards. You don't need to be using "thee" or "thou" or anything, but elite characters should sound like they think of themselves as belonging to the elite (unless they're consciously putting on a mannerism).

Using accurate terms for female underwear and other garments, if you're using something like a "period" setting, will make a big difference to the kind of audience that's attracted to a "period" setting. There's a major difference between panties and historical undergarments at virtually any point before the last two or three generations.

I would recommend deciding what the "period" really is -- or what you want to draw upon for your fantasy version of Spain -- and learning about fashions from that time; there's plenty of retro-fashion information online. Women at the height of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century typically wore a chemise or a smock as the base layer of their undergarments, for instance. At that time, something similar to panties as we know them would scan as a cache-sexe and would be something exotic and barbaric and associated with "the natives" in "wild" places like sub-Saharan Africa or certain uncolonized parts of the Americas or Southeast Asia. (If you want your heroine in something like this, it adds an extra psychological layer of humiliation to what she's being menaced with, which maybe you want or maybe not.)

By contrast, I wouldn't bother trying to archaize the earthier erotic terms: one's cocks and cunts and pussies and so forth. Faux-archaic terms for these can be distracting and you have to be really comfortable with that kind of register, and with how specific historical terms scan, to be able to use it effectively. If you don't have a specific taste for period erotica (or period erotica in translation) then it's probably not worth the effort.

That's my two cents. Good luck.

Ok! No slangs. And get the period right!

 

[TheNovelist2000]

I worry very little about a lot of these things when I'm writing historical stuff, especially in dialogue; I reason that I'm altering their language quite a bit already, given that I'm writing Anglo-Saxons without letting them speak Old English. Things like that. So I go for a minimally formalized, modern-style vocab, and I explain as much in a brief foreword.

But that's just vocab, terms like "cunt" (which is very old anyway, and was probably mainstream for many centuries before the 1700s) or cock or slit or twat or whatever. In clothing, I do try to be more accurate, mostly for the sake of historical verisimilitude. For example, OP, never would I ever use the term "panties" in a historical story, because if I was a reader, "panties" suggests a very specific-looking garment that would not have existed at the time I'm setting my stories.

So, in using more modern vocab, I am careful not to use modern-style terms for things that did not exist at all. Anachronism bothers me. For undergarments, I generally use the historical term (or a version of it that should be understood by my readers).

Noted!

 

[TheNovelist2000]

It could be worth it to consider the difference between accuracy and precision. Inaccuracy (incorrectness) means that precision (specificity) is useless. Imprecision (unspecificness) doesn't destroy accuracy (correctness).

You could always just call ships ships, call boats boats, call underclothes underclothes. There are no points off for that. It doesn't introduce inaccuracies. Whether a more precise name is called-for is a purely stylistic choice. One does not have to ape, or invent, a particular (inevitably contemporary) style of "period fiction" to write a period setting.

This might be the only solution I need. I will try to be precise at first, then as the story progresses, I will use more vague terms. To let the audience imagine themselves.

 

[ronde]

Ok! I am convinced. There is an overwhelming consensus on avoiding anachronisms. But I wonder. What about wedgies? In one scene, one of the submissive girls gives wedgie to her mistress. With non-elastic historical clothes, it might not be a thing. I guess, she can still pull up the cloth between her crack, but you know…it is not the same thing. Or she can tie a rope up her cunt to replicate a modern wedgie.

Well, since until relatively recently, women either didn't wear an undergarment under their dresses, or wore two loose tube things that tied at the waist but didn't join at the crotch, there would be no cloth to make the wedgie. I would suppose that when women did begin wearing undergarments joined at the crotch, a wedgie would be possible, but you're going to have to stretch the morals of that era until they scream to pull it off.

 

[Phatfeet]

I’m writing a long fantasy erotica involving the Spanish Crown, sirens, magic, amulets, galleys, carts, horses, and farms. But I’m reluctant to use historically accurate terms for garments and sex—words like chemise, drawers, and undergarments. I prefer modern words like panties, bras, skirts, cunt, pussy, tits. Would that feel jarring or out of place in a story like this? Or is it acceptable to keep the language modern for clarity and tone? As a reader, what would you personally prefer?

Here is an excerpt.

Luca’s expression hardened as he replied, "The courts don’t give a damn about excuses. As far as the Crown is concerned, your father is a thief and will be tried as such." He went closer to her, whispering: "Your father is a good navigator though. Losing him would be a shame.”

"What do you want from me?" Anne said meekly, her heart racing faster. She had always noticed the way he looked at her whenever they met on the deck. His gaze always wandered to her intimate places—though the same could be said for the whole crew—piercing through her clothes.

“I want you…,” he murmured. “You are not like those whores that money can buy. But you will give yourself to me tonight”. Anne flinched as his hand touched her cheek, the warmth of it sickening.

“You are gonna comeback to this place at midnight when everyone is asleep,” Luca smiled. Whoever is awake will be assigned to the deck for something to do. So, in the sleeping quarter, it is gonna be only you and sleeping men.”

His hand travelled to her lip, making Anne quiver. “There, you take off your dress,” he said. “Underwear and everything. You fold them neatly and put them in your trunk. You will then take your favorite pair of panties in your hand and return here. Then, wait for me,” he ended the conversation.

To me as a writer and reader your approach is wrong, and for the following reasons. However, this is just my opinion and you can do as you feel of course.

1. As a writer we should strive to be accurate. The goal of any writing is to pull the reader out of the world they are currently in and make them feel as if they are immersed in the story. When using modern day names for garments of old, you are not doing that and introducing doubt into the reader. Instantly they are pulled from that "fusty smelling dungeon that echoes cries from other prisoners within the rocken lair," and right back into their apartment where they are reading the story. It is the last thing any writer wants to do.

2. If choosing to write historical stories, there is an obligation by the writer to do their research. While mistakes might be made occasionally, overly using the wrong name for articles of clothing of old suggests a lazy writer and researcher. Knowing the right terms and not using them suggests just not caring at all, so maybe historical writing is not your writing genre. It would be like me writing about being in London and instead of saying Lorry, I say Truck, and instead of pavement I say sidewalk, or instead of saying tights I say pantyhose. It is so blatantly wrong that it becomes infuriating to the reader. If I am going to constantly do that, why even have a London setting? It is the same thing here, why write about a historical time if you will not use historically accurate terms?

If I am reading and I see the occasion wrong term for some old article of clothing I will just say to myself. "oh, the reader did not know the olde tyme name for that". But read the wrong name 2-3 times for other items and I just stop reading. It just no longer becomes a fun read.

But I write a lot of historical stories and love the research that it takes to be accurate, and what you suggest goes against every grain of my being. So I struggle with understanding why a writer of historical time periods would purposefully write inaccurately.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

To me as a writer and reader your approach is wrong, and for the following reasons. However, this is just my opinion and you can do as you feel of course.

1. As a writer we should strive to be accurate. The goal of any writing is to pull the reader out of the world they are currently in and make them feel as if they are immersed in the story. When using modern day names for garments of old, you are not doing that and introducing doubt into the reader. Instantly they are pulled from that "fusty smelling dungeon that echoes cries from other prisoners within the rocken lair," and right back into their apartment where they are reading the story. It is the last thing any writer wants to do.

2. If choosing to write historical stories, there is an obligation by the writer to do their research. While mistakes might be made occasionally, overly using the wrong name for articles of clothing of old suggests a lazy writer and researcher. Knowing the right terms and not using them suggests just not caring at all, so maybe historical writing is not your writing genre. It would be like me writing about being in London and instead of saying Lorry, I say Truck, and instead of pavement I say sidewalk, or instead of saying tights I say pantyhose. It is so blatantly wrong that it becomes infuriating to the reader. If I am going to constantly do that, why even have a London setting? It is the same thing here, why write about a historical time if you will not use historically accurate terms?

If I am reading and I see the occasion wrong term for some old article of clothing I will just say to myself. "oh, the reader did not know the olde tyme name for that". But read the wrong name 2-3 times for other items and I just stop reading. It just no longer becomes a fun read.

But I write a lot of historical stories and love the research that it takes to be accurate, and what you suggest goes against every grain of my being. So I struggle with understanding why a writer of historical time periods would purposefully write inaccurately.

Ok...It makes sense. I've already decided to take you guys' advice and get rid of anachronisms.