The old book in the attic ploy

• By Nadine Kampen
• On October 14, 2021
• 2 Comments.

To help create the comfy feeling that you mysteriously stumbled upon The Brantford Wagers in your attic, and that it just so happens to be a novel from the British Regency period, I have used English-UK in the approximate styling of the British mid-Georgian and Regency periods. My intention has been to build text that has a somewhat authentic feel in terms of the time period and the setting.

In writing The Brantford Wagers, I aimed to reflect English-UK language customs, historical and modern, or what we in North America refer to as “the Queen’s English.” In Canada, we use a hybrid mix of spelling and grammar choices. Those who live in the United States or countries using English-US will quickly pick up on differences in spelling and grammar.

A Few Favourite Things

One fun spelling twist involves the use of the letter u. The words colour, favourite, and neighbourhood in English-UK-CA-AU-et cetera take the u, whereas the u disappears in a less colorful fashion in neighborhoods using your favorite English-US spellings.

One of the noticeable spelling variations between English-UK (and English in various countries) and English-US is the doubling of a final consonant (sometimes, but not always) before adding the verb ending ed or ing. Someone in the UK may have travelled many miles; not so in the United States, where someone would have traveled that same distance.

The words recognise and familiarise in the UK differ from the English-US spellings of recognize and familiarize. Canadians are probably evenly split in which pattern they prefer. I personally use the zed in words like advertize and organize, as do our American neighbours, although they pronounce the letter as zee.

Practise is used with English-UK distinctions upheld, as in, ‘It is common practice (noun) to practise (verb) the pianoforte.’

Perhaps in your own reading you have noticed the use of the ‘single quotation’ in written dialogue in English-UK writing, making use of the “double quotation” for interior or fragmented quotes. In contrast, Canadians and Americans use the double quotations for the full sentence quote and single quotations within. Another quirky variance introduced across the great pond (that is to say, the Atlantic Ocean) is the absence of periods in Mr and Mrs in English-UK, whereas the periods are used for folks who are a Mr. or a Mrs. in North America. Oddly, North Americans like to put a period after Ms., too, although Ms is not a contraction. But I digress.

Attic Styling

Some of the grammar choices in the novel reflect actual English grammar as used in the Regency period. The Brantford Wagers opens in England in 1813 and runs through to 1814. As fans of Regency historical novels will likely know, the Regency is the period when Prince George (IV) governed as the United Kingdom’s Prince Regent, from 1811 to 1820; hence, the Regency period has been inserted neatly into the Georgian era, which is named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III, and George IV. The Georgian era extends from 1714 through to 1837. The late Georgian period refers to the period after the Regency, from 1820 when the Prince Regent became King George IV lasting until the death of George III’s son (King George IV’s brother), King William IV, in 1837.

What, then, are a few of “the tricks” used to execute an “old book in the attic” ploy? Period language used in The Brantford Wagers to add colour and interest includes avoiding the use of contractions. Does not that amuse you? Another practice, still common in today’s writing but perhaps starting to wane, is to distinguish words of non-English origin, like sorbet and rendez-vous, using italics.

I also sprinkled in a few instances of ‘would that I could,’ and ‘I would as lief’ to entertain myself. Not everyone will be familiar with these expressions. You will likely recognise this type of sentence construction from other novels from the period: ‘Had not you been there, I would have been distraught.’  

Another Georgian construction is seen in the phrase, ‘I am come to enquire after my friend.’  You will come across the use of ‘I am come to’ (wherever, to do whatever) in Jane Austen’s writing.

Words such as drawing room are shown in the novel in the hyphenated form, drawing-room, sitting-room, etc. Some words that appear highly modern, like broadcast, are in fact old words already in use in the Regency period.  Verb past tenses such as spelt and spoilt are seen regularly in English-UK but less so in North America, where US speakers prefer spelled and spoiled and Canadians use whichever form they like.

‘Shewing you to your room’ would have been common in the Georgian period. I opted for modern spelling for words of this type. I have, however, inserted ‘fortnight’ and ‘the age of one-and-twenty,’ much the way one would use a dash of salt or pepper for extra flavour.

Once your ebook or printed copy arrives and you settle in to read The Brantford Wagers, I hope you enjoy uncovering a variety of these subtle language differences, both the modern English variations based on geography and the historical patterns from the period.

Please do share your thoughts below. I’d love to hear from you.