Help with British dialect, please?

[SimonDoom]

There are many, many online sources on this subject that one can find with a quick search, btw.

 

[Voboy]

Hmm, Google seems to be on your side with that one. Wonder where that misinformation came from when I moved there? Anyway, the point still stands that the bit around the catherdral is slightly nicer.

Most of the Cathedral walls still stand, as does the old bell-tower. The roof was destroyed and not rebuilt. The new [ugly and contemporary] cathedral was built right next door. So if you go visit today, you can see the new cathedral, then wander through the "footprint" of the bombed one.

That might have been the source of your confusion: the old cathedral was "destroyed," and yet the ruins are still there. If you Google Streetview Coventry Cathedral, it gives an excellent impression of what it's like.

 

[Limnophile]

Thanks again for all the info and suggestions. At this point I'm about to decide, "Screw it, the family is from Catalonia. Catalonia isn't an independent country anymore and most people will buy it if I use a few Spanish words here and there." -pulls hair in frustration-

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Thanks again for all the info and suggestions. At this point I'm about to decide, "Screw it, the family is from Catalonia. Catalonia isn't an independent country anymore and most people will buy it if I use a few Spanish words here and there." -pulls hair in frustration-

Nice try. They speak Catalan there and your characters will interject that rather than Castilian Spanish which they may have learned in school...
(I hear American Spanishes are different again, not to mention different from each other...)

There is no escape from research. May be easiest for Dad to just keep his mouth shut most of the time!

 

[SamScribble]

A further thought: If the father was typically British of the time. he probably didn't attend church except for on ceremonial occasions: hatches, matches, and despatches. This business of the whole family traipsing off to church at every opportunity is an American thing. Neither of my grandfathers attended church as a matter of course - although both of my grandmothers did.

As an aside, apparently one of my grandmothers took me off to the village church when I was four years old. According to family lore, I sat there, next to my grandmother, for about 20 minutes before getting to my feet and, in a clear voice, announcing 'No! I don't think so.' And then I walked out.

 

[Limnophile]

-Gives a large sigh and moves 50K words to 'inactive' archive-
Maybe I'll pick up the idea again in a few years. Sci-fi is more fun, and stroke and poke is so much easier!
Thanks, though.

 

[drobert44]

They cant help it, dont speak English......

 

[PennameWombat]

-Gives a large sigh and moves 50K words to 'inactive' archive-
Maybe I'll pick up the idea again in a few years. Sci-fi is more fun, and stroke and poke is so much easier!
Thanks, though.

Ach, mate. Don’t get discouraged. Couple a’tweaks and it’ll be right. We’re all writers here, and we tend to overthink everything. The readers do much less of that.

 

[Handley_Page]

I have several chapters of a story complete and edited. I just need a couple of paragraphs re-written to sound authentically British. Any region / locality is fine. Would anyone across the pond be kind enough to assist a bit?
-
A British father in the USA discourages his American son from joining the Army during the Second World War. -

One Sunday our family arrived early for church. My mother and sisters went inside and my father had a serious talk with me.

“Bruce, I know you fancy joining the fight. Think long and hard. Some might come back with medals but others won’t come back at all. I…”

He choked up a moment, then rested a hand on my shoulder and looked at me intently. I didn’t see any tears, but he rubbed the corner of his eye. “I would hate to see your mother cry for you.”

It was the most emotional I’d ever seen him, and the closest he’d ever come to saying he cared about me. He was ‘Bloody Well British’ and a ‘Man’s Man’, a 20 stone blacksmith at that.

“If you still want to go to war, I’ll sign for you on your birthday in two months. Adventure and glory can be appealing, but there are other things to consider.” He nodded toward Elaine, a busty brunette around 30. “Her husband passed away three weeks ago and she needs a man to help run her farm. A lad who could win her heart would have a home, a sixty-acre farm, and forty acres of forest.

Plus, the soldiers can’t win a war with empty bellies. The government are paying well for any food they can package and ship overseas. Please think about it, for your mother’s sake.” The church bell rang and we walked inside.

 

[PennameWombat]

Nice try. They speak Catalan there and your characters will interject that rather than Castilian Spanish which they may have learned in school...
(I hear American Spanishes are different again, not to mention different from each other...)

There is no escape from research. May be easiest for Dad to just keep his mouth shut most of the time!

Western hemisphere Spanish dialects can be likened to British/American English. Mutually intelligible but with marked differences. I focused on Mexican Spanish and Mexican-American slang for a story.

In my day at least, American schools focused on Castilian Spanish, which was rough prep for what you’d most likely encounter.

 

[PennameWombat]

If I were trying to write a Scottish character, I might have them say "wee." That would let every American know, "This character is Scottish, not American," because no American says "wee." But there's no way I would try scrupulously to respell each word so it "sounds" like Scottish. I have no doubt it would be a disaster. I would have absolutely no clue how to write a character with a Midlands accent, which I can just barely sound out in my mind.

And “cunt” to indicate a Scotsman. As a term of affection. “Ah, ya wee cunt. C’here.”

Imagine, if you will, a crowded, boisterous American pub, full of folks well into their third or fourth drink and your Glaswegian friend drops “hey, ya cunt” to some big dude to start a conversation…

 

[SimonDoom]

And “cunt” to indicate a Scotsman. As a term of affection. “Ah, ya wee cunt. C’here.”

Imagine, if you will, a crowded, boisterous American pub, full of folks well into their third or fourth drink and your Glaswegian friend drops “hey, ya cunt” to some big dude to start a conversation…

Well, it would be a bar, not a pub, but regardless, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't go well.

 

[MadeleineSinha]

I would use “Do your bit”rather than “fancy joining the fight”
it feeds into the English tendency to understatement and was a common turn of phrase in the war

 

[TheRedChamber]

-Gives a large sigh and moves 50K words to 'inactive' archive-
Maybe I'll pick up the idea again in a few years. Sci-fi is more fun, and stroke and poke is so much easier!
Thanks, though.

Don't worry about it, your original was fine. You asked a bunch of authors with nothing better to do to pick it apart and build it back better and now we're fussing over the exact order. Readers are not going not give a couple of lines of dialogue anything like as much obsessive thought as we're collectively now doing.

A lot of my countrymen only think about religion when they're dying or filling in a census form, but some do go to church religiously and that percentage would be higher seventy-years ago. If you're still worried, just mention they're Methodist and no-one will think to question it twice (if they had even thought one to start with).

But I sympathize. I'm currently writing a novel set in the 1960s and it's easy (and in turns fun and frustratiing) to get bogged down in getting all the details right. I've just had to rewrite dialogue for my characters because it turns out that while the Great Escape had had it's London premier by the date the story is set, it wasn't actually on general release yet (luckily/unluckiy my beta reader is as obsessvie about these things as I am). I'm still trying to work out a price scale for how much it would cost for a suck and fuck with a street-walker around Paddington Station (this will be tastefully done obviously and is integral to the artistry of the piece) and Google has been remarkably unforthcoming on this matter - I am going to eventually have to just write in a number and hope that its not so far off the mark as to ruin an octogenarians wank somewhere.

 

[Limnophile]

I'm still trying to work out a price scale for how much it would cost for a suck and fuck with a street-walker around Paddington Station (this will be tastefully done obviously and is integral to the artistry of the piece) and Google has been remarkably unforthcoming on this matter - I am going to eventually have to just write in a number and hope that its not so far off the mark as to ruin an octogenarians wank somewhere.

I'm no expert at all but generally ladies of the evening set their rates based on demand and what the market will bear. In a very poor area or one that had just been wrecked in a war like Berlin at the end of WW2, figure the price of a meal or two. In a wealthy area like Tokyo or Beverly Hills today, beautiful high class call girls sometimes charge what would be a month's wages for a common laborer. Big factors include how desperate the prostitute is, how attractive, and how well off are potential customers. No matter how attractive a girl, nobody in a third-world slum can afford much.

For your story, I would research typical pay rates at the time. If she needs money urgently she may be willing to do it for a day's pay. If she is beautiful and doing well, figure much more. If the price seems too low, maybe she is an addict desperate for drugs. If it seems too high, maybe she's a beauty with a great body.

Also consider that few men who paid a hooker in the 60's would admit it or remember exactly what they paid, more than half a century later.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I'm no expert at all but generally ladies of the evening set their rates based on demand and what the market will bear. In a very poor area or one that had just been wrecked in a war like Berlin at the end of WW2, figure the price of a meal or two. In a wealthy area like Tokyo or Beverly Hills today, beautiful high class call girls sometimes charge what would be a month's wages for a common laborer. Big factors include how desperate the prostitute is, how attractive, and how well off are potential customers. No matter how attractive a girl, nobody in a third-world slum can afford much.

For your story, I would research typical pay rates at the time. If she needs money urgently she may be willing to do it for a day's pay. If she is beautiful and doing well, figure much more. If the price seems too low, maybe she is an addict desperate for drugs. If it seems too high, maybe she's a beauty with a great body.

Yes, I've worked back from inflation from what it would cost today (ahem, not that I didn't have to Google that as well) and also tied it back to the cost of common goods as well. It's just one of those things which, as you say, is so variable depending on circumstances and my novel is going to include a whole bunch of prices based around the following (not everything is actually happening, but they are discussed)

1) The cost of a session with an actual Playboy featured model.
2) The cost of a session with a virgin.
3) The cost of a session with a 'standard' girl.
4) The cost of a night with basically the cheapest most desperate prositute in London.
5) The cost of a flee-ridden room for the above.
6) The cost of a suck (but not a fuck) in a Soho walk-up.

Factor in the fact that I was born after the 'new' money was introduced and have no feel for how much a shilling actually was worth, then I do a lot of maths, look at the page and think, I have absolutely no idea if any of this is even vaguely ballpark. My first draft went off to my beta reader with a lot of highlighted sentences like "It'll be [amount]"..."We've only got [amount - 2 shillings]".

Also consider that few men who paid a hooker in the 60's would admit it or remember exactly what they paid, more than half a century later.

And yet every single one of those will be hanging around the comments the minute a story is published, becasue people on Lit are weird.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Yes, I've worked back from inflation from what it would cost today (ahem, not that I didn't have to Google that as well) and also tied it back to the cost of common goods as well. It's just one of those things which, as you say, is so variable depending on circumstances and my novel is going to include a whole bunch of prices based around the following (not everything is actually happening, but they are discussed)

1) The cost of a session with an actual Playboy featured model.
2) The cost of a session with a virgin.
3) The cost of a session with a 'standard' girl.
4) The cost of a night with basically the cheapest most desperate prositute in London.
5) The cost of a flee-ridden room for the above.
6) The cost of a suck (but not a fuck) in a Soho walk-up.

Factor in the fact that I was born after the 'new' money was introduced and have no feel for how much a shilling actually was worth, then I do a lot of maths, look at the page and think, I have absolutely no idea if any of this is even vaguely ballpark. My first draft went off to my beta reader with a lot of highlighted sentences like "It'll be [amount]"..."We've only got [amount - 2 shillings]".


And yet every single one of those will be hanging around the comments the minute a story is published, becasue people on Lit are weird.

'She gave a remarkably low price, less than a day's pay.'
'I winced at the price she mentioned, but calculated that I could afford it and beans on toast to keep me going until pay-day.'
'The landlady shook her head when I tried to negotiate a lower price for her weekly rent. "Not unless you pay two months in advance, non-refundable. Thought not." I sighed and handed over more than I'd hope to, but it seemed I had no choice.'

Though given the variation you can probably get away with some prices based on typical wages. Usually when I want to know prices from the 60s in London I just ask my dad, who will remember all of them, but I'm not asking him about prostitutes!

 

[TheRedChamber]

'She gave a remarkably low price, less than a day's pay.'
'I winced at the price she mentioned, but calculated that I could afford it and beans on toast to keep me going until pay-day.'
'The landlady shook her head when I tried to negotiate a lower price for her weekly rent. "Not unless you pay two months in advance, non-refundable. Thought not." I sighed and handed over more than I'd hope to, but it seemed I had no choice.'

Though given the variation you can probably get away with some prices based on typical wages. Usually when I want to know prices from the 60s in London I just ask my dad, who will remember all of them, but I'm not asking him about prostitutes!

Yeah, I can do a certain amount of that. The issue is that the way I've written it, there's a theme of assigning monetary value to women based on attractiveness running through it. That part of the story is based on female character A having insecurities about how much more desirable female character B is and then having those insecurities confirmed when they're in a position to find out an experts opinion of what they'd earn as sex workers (not that they are) - and then later have her demand the higher price when shes over her issues and in a position to do so. And also find someone who's able to charge less than her and that shapes their relationship. It sounds a bit weird, but the prices are kind of central so dancing around about it isn't going to work every single time. I'm just going to have to pick some numbers eventually and hope they're okay.

 

[Voboy]

Yes, I've worked back from inflation from what it would cost today (ahem, not that I didn't have to Google that as well) and also tied it back to the cost of common goods as well. It's just one of those things which, as you say, is so variable depending on circumstances and my novel is going to include a whole bunch of prices based around the following (not everything is actually happening, but they are discussed)

1) The cost of a session with an actual Playboy featured model.
2) The cost of a session with a virgin.
3) The cost of a session with a 'standard' girl.
4) The cost of a night with basically the cheapest most desperate prositute in London.
5) The cost of a flee-ridden room for the above.
6) The cost of a suck (but not a fuck) in a Soho walk-up.

Factor in the fact that I was born after the 'new' money was introduced and have no feel for how much a shilling actually was worth, then I do a lot of maths, look at the page and think, I have absolutely no idea if any of this is even vaguely ballpark. My first draft went off to my beta reader with a lot of highlighted sentences like "It'll be [amount]"..."We've only got [amount - 2 shillings]".


And yet every single one of those will be hanging around the comments the minute a story is published, becasue people on Lit are weird.

I've done precisely this research for a Lit story twice: once for ancient Rome, then again for England circa 1067. Both times, the research was fascinating. In the Roman case, I fortunately had Pompeiian price lists to work from, though my story was set in Rome itself at a different date.

As for pre-decimalization, my impression is that most people then thought of shillings the way pounds are thought of now: shillings were the day-to-day currency of exchange for more-expensive items. Most people (especially working people) didn't handle pounds at all.

 

[Nellymcboatface]

I agree with many of the comments above...
Being a blacksmith weights would have been thought of in `hundred weights' something my dad still uses (ok is not a blacksmith but an engineer) and even square yards (when talking of sand etc..).
Blacksmithing is still around and was very much so in WW2, especially with land girls and beyond.
Best of luck with your story.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

No, Coventry Cathedral was destroyed by the Luftwaffe and then rebuilt - the new cathedral is one of the most famous modern buildings in England. Lovely stained glass.

Nothing else to recommend the town, other than being on good train lines to elsewhere. Quote from Educating Laura: "What's Coventry like, anyway?"
"Boring. Has a stupid ring-road round the middle."

How likely is it that news of the Coventry blitz would reach farming country in America in a hurry, given censorship and interruption to mail?

the remains of the cathedral still exist.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Were blacksmiths still a thing by the second world war?

At the moment the text reads like an upper-class gentleman stiff-upper lipping his way through it. A more (slightly unspecifically) northern and working class approach might be.

"Bruce, come here, son. I know you're up for the fight and I'm proud of you for it. But don't you go rushing in. Some'll come back with medals..aye, some. But there's them as won't come back at all. I...I'd not see your mother cry for you, not if I can help it."

"If your hearts set on it, I'll sign you up on your birthday. I know you want to do your bit, but still, think on, eh"

"Her husband passed not three weeks ago and she'll need a man to help run the farm. You win her heart and you'll have a home, sixty-acres of farm and another forty of forest. No glory, but our lads can't win the war with nowt to eat so you'll be doing your bit and get paid well for it into the bargain. Have a think about it, eh, if only for your mam."

if it's shoeing horses, that's a farrier. a blacksmith works with iron.

 

[SamScribble]

if it's shoeing horses, that's a farrier. a blacksmith works with iron.

In the late 40s, early 50s, the blacksmith in rural parts of UK was often also a farrier and vice versa

 

[domjoe]

In the late 40s, early 50s, the blacksmith in rural parts of UK was often also a farrier and vice versa

In the early to mid 1970's women were farrier too, according my reference on the subject, Playboy,

 

[Handley_Page]

A further thought: If the father was typically British of the time. he probably didn't attend church except for on ceremonial occasions: hatches, matches, and despatches. This business of the whole family traipsing off to church at every opportunity is an American thing. Neither of my grandfathers attended church as a matter of course - although both of my grandmothers did.

My Father did attend church on a very regular basis.
But then, he was a war-time crew survivor. . . .