lexiconographer

[fogbank]

Here's an idea I've been batting around internally for a while: a story (probably quite long, and more of a novella format than a serial format), about a lexiconographer in 18th century england (based very loosely on Francis Grose). This would be someone of upper class who's passion is for researching and documenting lower-class language. One week, he's in bars filled with thieves and prostitutes, trying to fit and and find out what their creative phrases mean. No doubt, he'll end up in bed with various women in this role. Then the next week, he'll be back in his london social circles, hobnobbing and telling people about his research, probably encountering some socialites who are turned on by his exceptional knowledge of dirty language.

I think this is all a good vehicle for a story, except that I'm still struggling over what I want the story to really be about on a thematic level. Maybe it's a story about loss (loss of language, paired with loss of individuality in an increasingly modern, industrialized world); for example, a acknowledgement by the lexiconographer that his class is really destroying these little pockets of archaic language by drawing these people away from their villages and into the cities, where language becomes homogonized, and compare this with the relationship that a small town prostitute has with her client with the sort of relationship a city prosititute has. Likely if I was to go this way, it would involve some sort of love story between the lexiconographer and the prostitute.

That's what I'm working with, but I'm not sure I like it. Anyone want to give some thoughts? I'm looking more for thematic ideas than erotic scenarios right now.

 

[snooper]

Sounds interesting, but in the scenario you cite it would be very important to get all the words right, as such a person would be pedantic in the extreme. For example - the word "lexicographer".

 

[fogbank]

Quite the opposite: he's much more interested in how people use words and how words evolve, as opposed to making anybody follow the strict dictionary definition and usage of a word. He'd probably be the type who would never actually correct anybody's usage, but instead make a mental note of each different usage or different form that he hears.

 

[snooper]

Quite the opposite: he's much more interested in how people use words and how words evolve, as opposed to making anybody follow the strict dictionary definition and usage of a word. He'd probably be the type who would never actually correct anybody's usage, but instead make a mental note of each different usage or different form that he hears.

Oh, I don't disagree with you about his attitude to other people. He, himself, however is meticulous about his own usage of words.

 

[JRaven]

Oh, I don't disagree with you about his attitude to other people. He, himself, however is meticulous about his own usage of words.

Thereby making him one of the aristocrats that he himself realizes is destroying the languange usage of the rural commoners.

Actually, I see him using/dropping some of the idioms that he hears in his travels when he's in the aristocratic circles. He does it to amuse himself at the perplexed looks of the nobles. Maybe a few of them he likes a lot and uses regularly, making them a common part of his own language usage.

A possible side story. A noble gets in trouble in the country. Maybe something as mundane as his horse threw a shoe. In the small town, he remembers what the lexiconographer had mentioned once. "Ma horse has kicked the smithy's work." It endears the noble to the townsfolk, realizing (incorrectly of course) that he's a regular bloke like the rest of them. [enter waif near end of story hoping to become the noble's wife]

In many ways, I see this story a parallel between the Eubonics vs English debate. I think that could very well be your "theme". What direction it takes from there depends on what side of the debate you're on.

Jenny