Vocab again
Aug. 20th, 2010 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceThis one's not a question, more a lament, a thing I want to do and dursen't.
Some years ago, I saw a documentary - about trains, natch - made by John Betjeman 'way back. He was taking dinner in a boarding-house, in his shirtsleeves, gazing around the room at all the other men in jacket & tie; the voiceover said, "I should have worn a coat," and clearly that's what he meant, jacket & tie. I'd never heard it before, that particular code; but I loved it instantly, I've kept it since, and I would like to use it now. We are in that period, amongst that class; certainly my protagonist would be comfortable with that vocabulary.
And I can't use it, because we are seventy years on from there and coat means different things now, certainly doesn't mean the kind of jacket that you put on for a formal dinner. Readers would see an overcoat and be baffled, or else I'd have to find some way to explain and thereby render the whole exercise pointless. Is a shame, but is I think an absolute; it's never about being accurate, it's about being credible, always.
In other news: I am in the Lit & Phil, and I have forgotten my coffee. I am having to drink their coffee. This is ... not optimal. I have Symptoms.
Some years ago, I saw a documentary - about trains, natch - made by John Betjeman 'way back. He was taking dinner in a boarding-house, in his shirtsleeves, gazing around the room at all the other men in jacket & tie; the voiceover said, "I should have worn a coat," and clearly that's what he meant, jacket & tie. I'd never heard it before, that particular code; but I loved it instantly, I've kept it since, and I would like to use it now. We are in that period, amongst that class; certainly my protagonist would be comfortable with that vocabulary.
And I can't use it, because we are seventy years on from there and coat means different things now, certainly doesn't mean the kind of jacket that you put on for a formal dinner. Readers would see an overcoat and be baffled, or else I'd have to find some way to explain and thereby render the whole exercise pointless. Is a shame, but is I think an absolute; it's never about being accurate, it's about being credible, always.
In other news: I am in the Lit & Phil, and I have forgotten my coffee. I am having to drink their coffee. This is ... not optimal. I have Symptoms.