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Writing AH: Anachronisms

The Frankenstein one is sneaky because you might think "ah, he read the recently out book" and this is a 19th century example of when period films have people watching the very well known famous films of that year.

His smartphone. Another obvious (hopefully) anachronism.
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This Easter, we all had to clarify for the niece and nephew that some of the anecdotes are from a time before mobile phones.

Only because mobiles have supplanted landlines, what people actually said was "before phones".
 
Charles EP M. said:
The Frankenstein one is sneaky because you might think "ah, he read the recently out book" and this is a 19th century example of when period films have people watching the very well known famous films of that year.



This Easter, we all had to clarify for the niece and nephew that some of the anecdotes are from a time before mobile phones.

Only because mobiles have supplanted landlines, what people actually said was "before phones".
Click to expand...
This is another good example of how language can change based on a later technology evolution becoming the only well-known one, and then previous versions being misunderstood.

The word 'car' is ancient, but today we associate it only with internal combustion engine cars because nobody feels the need to specify 'motor-car' anymore. Even I, who knew that, was surprised to find 'lorry' being used to mean horse-drawn cargo waggons in old books. Maybe the same will happen again with electric cars becoming ubiquitous.

Or computers - to us that only means an electronic programmable device, but to people in the 19th century 'computer' was an occupation for men with pencils doing maths. People back then would be very confused if a time traveller said to them 'in the future, just wait till you see computers for the first time' etc.

This is giving me ideas for another article...
 
Thande said:
Or computers - to us that only means an electronic programmable device, but to people in the 19th century 'computer' was an occupation for men with pencils doing maths. People back then would be very confused if a time traveller said to them 'in the future, just wait till you see computers for the first time' etc.
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Or even worse, when the time traveler starts explaining that in the future many people own multiple computers, including ones they take with them everywhere they go.

"I don't think we should trust him, Charles. He said they abolished slavery when I asked him, but then started talking about how everyone in the future has multiple Japanese slaves and makes them do office work and carry the mail. He's either a liar or the future is worse than we thought."
 
Thande said:
This is another good example of how language can change based on a later technology evolution becoming the only well-known one, and then previous versions being misunderstood.

The word 'car' is ancient, but today we associate it only with internal combustion engine cars because nobody feels the need to specify 'motor-car' anymore. Even I, who knew that, was surprised to find 'lorry' being used to mean horse-drawn cargo waggons in old books. Maybe the same will happen again with electric cars becoming ubiquitous.
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I remember doing a double take reading The Lays of Ancient Rome because Lars Porsena's war chariot is referred to as his car.
(Which has also reminded me that Homer uses - IIRC- harmo to mean chariot, but in Linear B it turns out to mean wheel. Which Ventris and Chadwick compared to referring to someone's motor-car as their "wheels" - slang which itself seems to have mostly fallen out of use)
Or computers - to us that only means an electronic programmable device, but to people in the 19th century 'computer' was an occupation for men with pencils doing maths. People back then would be very confused if a time traveller said to them 'in the future, just wait till you see computers for the first time' etc.

This is giving me ideas for another article...
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And in the late 19th early 20th century computer became a job more associated with young women (at least in some instances) so that could end up sounding a bit, um, Fedora wearer-y....
EDIT: Even more so with @Von Callay's point
 
First, this was a  lot of fun, i couldnt stop laughing, even at the Die Hard, which was, agh you trixie....

More importantly though, it shows the importance of knowing what you're doing when you're researching, especially technology: yes, such a gadget came out the year before your scene. But would it have reached this corner of that country your scene is in? And even then would your character likely have access? Very nice.

Charles EP M. said:
This Easter, we all had to clarify for the niece and nephew that some of the anecdotes are from a time before mobile phones.
Click to expand...

When I was in the Netherlands every week in the final year of my doctorate, and Mrs Warthog and eldest were in Watford, I'd video call every evening on Skype*, and our eldest got so used to it that when we called home to Zimbabwe on a normal line she got very confused that there was no picture.

*you remember Skype, this Voice over internet thing from before WhatsApp, before Facetime, actually before Smartphones? And there's another potential confusion that can come: we were doing video calls (by computer), and getting emails on a phone before cellphones
 
Warthog said:
More importantly though, it shows the importance of knowing what you're doing when you're researching, especially technology: yes, such a gadget came out the year before your scene. But would it have reached this corner of that country your scene is in? And even then would your character likely have access? Very nice.
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Which offers an interesting counterpoint to Thande's research suggestions because my sister has commented on Korean dramas where the Samsung sponsorship means very poor people have unrealistically cutting edge phones- as in 'this will be the next model in the shops' at times.
 
Anachronism is actually a useful tool in writing. 🙄

I know this won't be the popular opinion here, mind you, but authenticity in all historical aspects takes away from a work, and can't meaningfully build it up. We shouldn't write stories that require encyclopedias to decipher.
 
This is a good illustration of how, if one really wants to have a clear understanding of how technology was seen, or the influence of media, at a particular time, the best way is to look up material produced at the time. Are people in a sitcom made in this year still using landlines?
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I'd put an asterisk by this example, because so much of 1990s television was full of "this plot could've been resolved in five minutes with a cell phone". While some this could be argued as making sense from an in-universe perspective (e.g. Buffy's Scooby Gang were all broke high schoolers, so you could handwave that none them could afford a new phone), the issue seemed more to be that many 90s writers had honed their craft in the pre-cell era, so it took popular television some time to catch up.
 
I thought this one started great with the exciting scene of Wellington in battle then it took an awful turn as this chap in a YTV budget suit stepped onto the scene to explain how what was being said was nonsense.

Appreciate the shout out for the horror article, though I would be remiss to not mention that Victor Frankenstein does not obtain a doctorate (or inherit a barony) during the original story.

Re: the German government. It's the same as when people refer to an English government at any time since 1707.
 
Fleetlord said:
I'd put an asterisk by this example, because so much of 1990s television was full of "this plot could've been resolved in five minutes with a cell phone". While some this could be argued as making sense from an in-universe perspective (e.g. Buffy's Scooby Gang were all broke high schoolers, so you could handwave that none them could afford a new phone), the issue seemed more to be that many 90s writers had honed their craft in the pre-cell era, so it took popular television some time to catch up.
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I don't necessarily think this disagrees with your quote of @Warthog. Its about time, place and other contexts. In the mid 90s, I probably knew one, maybe two, people with mobile phones. I knew they were a thing, of course, but even the one uncle who loved his tech didn't get a mobile phone until the late 90s. Your experience is obviously different, but for me, seeing one in media would have signalled "posh" in a UK context, or "north America is the future" per @Thande's passim if it was a Canadian or US show.
 
OwenM said:
I remember doing a double take reading The Lays of Ancient Rome because Lars Porsena's war chariot is referred to as his car.
(Which has also reminded me that Homer uses - IIRC- harmo to mean chariot, but in Linear B it turns out to mean wheel. Which Ventris and Chadwick compared to referring to someone's motor-car as their "wheels" - slang which itself seems to have mostly fallen out of use)
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I had a similar reaction to seeing Tolkien talk about "Ulmo's magic car" in The Book of Lost Tales.
Fleetlord said:
I'd put an asterisk by this example, because so much of 1990s television was full of "this plot could've been resolved in five minutes with a cell phone". While some this could be argued as making sense from an in-universe perspective (e.g. Buffy's Scooby Gang were all broke high schoolers, so you could handwave that none them could afford a new phone), the issue seemed more to be that many 90s writers had honed their craft in the pre-cell era, so it took popular television some time to catch up.
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Good point.

My grumbling old smartphone-sceptic joke is that this plot objection from the late 90s was more than answered when everyone decided to switch to phones that can run out of power or get smashed into uselessness at the drop of a hat.
 
Thande said:
My grumbling old smartphone-sceptic joke is that this plot objection from the late 90s was more than answered when everyone decided to switch to phones that can run out of power or get smashed into uselessness at the drop of a hat.
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It's just dawned on me that serious preppers will have a burner 3310. You could run away for a week, playing Snake II all the while, brain the serial killer or zombie, wipe the blood off, and all have enough battery left to phone the police.
 
Thande said:
My grumbling old smartphone-sceptic joke is that this plot objection from the late 90s was more than answered when everyone decided to switch to phones that can run out of power or get smashed into uselessness at the drop of a hat.
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Ken Follett did one book set in current times, Whiteout, and he spends dozens of pages making very sure everyone's cellphones run out of juice, are out of range or so on, because all his plots that work great in Cold War settings are fried the minute someone can call the cops.
 
Thande said:
My grumbling old smartphone-sceptic joke is that this plot objection from the late 90s was more than answered when everyone decided to switch to phones that can run out of power or get smashed into uselessness at the drop of a hat.
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Every Horror Story: "OUR SIGNAL IS GONE" (Rather like how old films went "THE PHONES ARE DOWN")

Iain M. Banks did a beat about this in The Player of Games, where because everyone in the Culture has fancy portable machines that can stop you being killed in accidents, their stories always have a moment where it's explained why they don't have it with them.
 
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