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Haines is nearly note-perfect most of the way in capturing the home-front mood and lifestyle, but trips up on pronouns that are politically correct by current standards but off-base historically. No proper writer in 1943 would have written "a participant places their ego" rather than "his ego," and I doubt a theatrical woman of the time would have said, "You don't drag an actor through hell without her ass getting singed" (all italics mine).

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It's a matter of concern for me, 'cause the novel I've been working on this last year is ostensibly set in 1947, and my rough draft is just studded with notes-to-myself, about how the characters say, what they do, what sort of stuff is available to them, the usual kind. I've done precious little research, and know I need more when the time comes.

It's all the kind of stuff I've spoken of elsewhere, of running across something in a book, usually a mistake, that stops things dead for me.

Now a question of being true to your setting and lifestyle, that is an issue of pretty great importance. It might be helpful to get a few films that depict that era. They (probably) won't be perfect, but they'll give you a flavor for it. As for the politically-correct nits, I doubt most readers will be put off that your characters are too progressive and politically correct. And maybe a few (without realizing your intentions to be true to the era) will be annoyed that you aren't politically correct enough. And perhaps that second sample is greater than the first, I'm not sure.

One of the big things that trip me up is seeing the pronoun "she" used in non-gender based writing. For example, If I were to read the following in a manual, it would just plain sound wrong to me, but probably not for many younger people:

A driver in the USA should always make sure her car is on the right hand side of the road.

I was taught that the non-gender pronoun in this case would always be "his", and never "her". Always the male pronoun, never the female pronoun. Now they seem interchangable so much that I see authors mixing up the usage even in the same paragraph. That really throws me.

As to what this means for writing, I think you've got a tough choice to make. If you write what is proper usage for today's English, then you will run across reviewers like the above one who say the language is wrong. If you write correct for the acceptable method for the time period of the story, you might find the average reader turned off because of the improper use that, like for me, just sounds wrong.

So basically, you're always going to be wrong according to somebody. If it was me, I think I'd rather just write the story, then ask a representative number of readers after they'd read it, if they found the language appropriate. Then you could always make any necessary adjustments. After all, you're never going to please everybody.

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A driver in the USA should always make sure her car is on the right hand side of the road.

I was taught that the non-gender pronoun in this case would always be "his", and never "her". Always the male pronoun, never the female pronoun. Now they seem interchangable so much that I see authors mixing up the usage even in the same paragraph. That really throws me.

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The fact is that when most people see the pronoun "he" they do not think it is non-gender. Even in describing this practice, you commented: "Always the male pronoun, never the female pronoun."

He is a male pronoun and readers know it. The idea that it was non-gender was always a thinly veiled pretense. When people see the pronoun he, they assume and always did assume that you mean a male. Mixing male and female pronouns is one way, albiet a clumsy one, that people try to get around this fact.

This is true of a lot of nouns too. I ran into a rather odd instance in a novel. I like to use specific nouns as much as possible, so I used the term "longbowmen" about archers who used longbows. Since it was already clearly established that some of the fighters were female, I really thought people would take it as a gender-neutral term. Nope!

Readers immediately said that they were men and asked how the leader could be female! So, much to my annoyance, since archer can mean a wide variety of types of bows, I ended up using the term. (I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry at that point.)

The fact is that in English there are no good - that is to say widely accepted - non-gender specific pronouns. It can be a bit of a pain in the ass for writers.

From your point of view, Robert, I would say it matters more that you are happy with your storytelling, and that your readers understand your story, than that you please some nitpicking critic, at any rate. My own opinion obviously.

Language is more than words, it captures how we are, what we're like, how we think and feel.

Of course there are limits to how far one can take this. I sometimes wondered, reading Martin's books, whether my kids would understand some of the phrases. I could, because my parents had used them, but now they have fallen into disuse. (The words, not my parents. Actually, them too but -- oh, never mind.) For example, we no longer refer to people as 'a good sort.' Nor do we go out for a 'knife and fork dinner.' -- Well we do, but we don't call it that any more.

So I'd say that if you're capable of recreating the language of the time, go for it. It will add depth, as long as it isn't so obscure to get in the way of understanding the story.

Here's an example. A recent biography of Groucho Marx mentions the 1950s quiz show scandals---but gives the wrong name for the quiz show Charles Van Doren was on. {"Twenty One," not "The $64,000 Question.) It seems an easily checked fact, but obviously it wasn't---the edition I have is the paperback.

Here's another. Another recently published bestselling biography of Benjamin Franklin mentions him playing with or doing scientific research with helium. Helium wasn't discovered until about sixty years after Franklin's death.

As for turns of phrase...well, I once watched part of a movie ostensibly set in 1920s or '30s New York. (It was "Harlem Nights," I think, and it's been twenty years, so I don't remember the exact way things fell out.) The actors talked a good bit of 1980s phrasing---I watched a few minutes, then turned it out forever.

Wouldn't it bother you? If not, why not?

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I'm inclined to think it's important to try to get every period-piece detail right.

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Sorry to disagree, but there are things that were said in some earlier eras that simply would not be acceptable now no matter how much you want to "recreate" the era--in my opinion.

Avoiding current phrasing is one thing, but that isn't what he was asking. In fact, the reason for that pronouns became an issue is that of offensive and/or exclusionary speech. As in the example I mentioned above--the is fact that even polite people referred to those of color by phrases that are now considered at the least rude if not outright racist, and the same can be said of other groups such as jews and women. And this was considered perfectly ACCEPTIBLE. It isn't now.

The fact is that times have changed and reader expectations as well as what many readers will accept have changed.

You might want to go ahead and use those, but you will run into objections from a lot of readers and very possibly from editors, so I'd have very serious second thoughts. It's a fine line and one I'd tread (and have at times in my own writing) very carefully.

We're not talking about whether or not to use computer slang here, after all, but a much more serious issue.

Now if we're simply talking about using older forms of pronouns, that's a bit less of an issue (for me anyway). I'd do what you feel comfortable with. The chances that your normal reader will object to what you choose are pretty darn slim if you have a good story.

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And does that include routinely referring to people of color as "darkies" or even what are now considered ruder phrases?

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Absolutely, unless there's a specific reason not to. And if race is important to the story, then it's even more important to be authentic.

The choice of narrator matters quite a bit, of course, and you don't need to make the narrator call a black person a darkie or a nigger. But the narrator could call him a negro or a colored person, even though those are considered offensive now, because they weren't considered offensive back then. Of course, characters should call him by the even more offensive terms if that fits the time and the story.

This isn't a bad thing for blacks. (I'm avoiding "African American" because I dislike the locution and because I'm not just talking about American blacks.) On the contrary, I think we would be doing a disservice to blacks if we avoided representing how they were treated. You make it harder to understand how astonishing the lives of people like Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass were. (Or later blacks, for that matter. Congressman Dyer of St. Louis submitted an anti-lynching bill that was defeated by the threat of filibuster in 1922. At least seventeen black Americans were lynched in 1925. I was shocked to learn how long lynchings went on in America.) Knowing that these great men were called nigger all their lives, and that they weren't bowed by it, makes them that much more impressive to me; thus I think that dealing with the issue directly is beneficial even if the story isn't about race.

You make decisions based on what you're trying to accomplish, of course, and you may decide that you don't want to confront the reader with such things because other aspects of the story are more important. But if you're doing a period piece, authenticity counts.

Robert, to answer your question (and I'm no longer limiting myself to race), I often notice that kind of thing, and when it happens, it bothers me. I accept "actor / her" and "the child will get their cup" for modern writing, but not for period pieces. It breaks the illusion for me; it feels like the author is only letting me pretend I'm in the period, without letting me actually go there. It's worst in dialogue, more forgivable in narration.

As for what to say about black people - "Negro" was the proper term then, although "colored people" was also acceptable in polite society. And if all these details make it too hard to write your story, set it on another planet or in another era to avoid the problem. Just my two knuts worth.

Funny how the past looks better looking back than it does living it.

Edit: As far the topic, I think it is a judgment call on the part of the author. I've used "prejudcied" speech in stories, but it does have to be handled very carefully. The fact that almost everyone was prejudiced and it was so widely accepted makes writing about that period difficult. I don't think it should be white washed but you have to accept that at the same time modern readers may find period attitudes offensive. It's a balancing act.

The past wasn't always all that wonderful. If you present the '40s as a utopia (which you didn't say you were, just a comment in view of the discussion), you're not representing it truthfully.

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I might add that the wonderful future we all dreamed of (meaning today) really sucks.

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I disagree--I'm here, now. Therefore, it is inherently better than in 1947.

Besides, it's not even finished...

*****

Strangely enough, the issue of what to call certain people or groups of people does come up, but so far only in passing. I may take it out, leave it, or even expand it.

But this inadvertently hits another button on my jukebox. I just got this DVD anthology of early Max Fleischer "Popeye" cartoons. There's a disclaimer at the beginning, discussing how certain caracatures of an ethnic type were wrong then and wrong now, but it'd be a disservice to edit them out. (I paraphrase here.)

But it wasn't wrong to express things that way back then---if it had been, surely Fleischer and company wouldn't have done it, and Paramount wouldn't have put the cartoons out back then even if the animators had turned one in with this "let's be nasty" attitude. Seems to me, it's wrong to say otherwise, even if times have changed.

(Still, they're putting them out, at least. A while back, the Cartoon Network ran something advertized as the complete run of all the Warner Bros. cartoons---omitting about a dozen for these dreaded "racial stereotypes" and editing many others. (There were gags in them, some of them really funny, that I didn't find out about until I was an adult---they were always cut.))

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Robert - I think the suggestion to watch movies from that era is your best bet. If I'm reading something set in the 1940's, I expect it to sound like Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn and others of that era. If it doesn't sound like something Bogey would say (if your character's a "tough guy" like those he played so often), it isn't authentic and your readers will notice (especially those of us who are middle-aged). Political correctness can hurt your story because it will through people out of the story who are experienced, well-read enough, or film buffs enough to recognize dialog that doesn't ring true to the era.

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There's a disclaimer at the beginning, discussing how certain caracatures of an ethnic type were wrong then and wrong now, but it'd be a disservice to edit them out. (I paraphrase here.)

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Both choices are probably wrong, truth be told. We probably have something to learn from the racial particularism of our predecessors -- white, black, and otherwise. At the same time, the application of racial consciousness of our predecessors was often flawed, sometimes horrifically so. But we see, say, black solidarity as a good thing (and I think it is at least some of the time), while telling ourselves that comparable white solidarity would be "racist" (which it also is at least some of the time). It seems to me that we must be missing something; the right balance probably continues to elude us.

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It seems to me that we must be missing something; the right balance probably continues to elude us.

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I think that comes in part from situations described in the original post. Sometimes, it seems we have to over-react to racism in order to avoid a lawsuit.

The statement that it is wrong now and back then does that. Saying it is wrong now might be construed, legally, as condoning it back then. The studio adopts a moral absolutism stance: wrong is wrong, regardless of perception, culture or period.