Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Warren_Paul]

Originally Posted by crystal haven

After having another cup of coffee and waking up properly, I realised 'Mother' wouldn't have worked. Silly me.

Coffee works miracles.

[crystal haven]

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

Coffee works miracles.

It does. But I need very strong coffee!

[Gumboot]

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

Sorry, Aber, edited post.

No, there are 8 PoV characters. At other places I use her mother's actual name.

It's just confusing for scenes where there are multiple mothers involved

I just can't have Kateryn referring to her mother as "Helena" or "The Duchess" or "my lady" "milady" (as the common folk would) because none of those would be something she'd use. Which leaves me with "Her mother" or "Mother"

Minor nitpick, but the correct mode of address for a Duchess is "Your Grace" not "My Lady".

[Mouse]

Originally Posted by David Evil Overlord

Try Google Street View for an idea of the area, Mouse. It won't substitute for local knowledge, but it might help.

Mm. That's what I was doing all afternoon yesterday. Was hoping some real-life Londoners'd stop by to help.

[Arthur_Connelly]

The word "lunch" feels out of place even though its first use is more or less around the same time my story takes place. Am I better off calling it dinner - since that's what people used to call it and still call it in the place where I'm from? Or am I better off calling it luncheon. I've been consistent at least in referring to to modern Western concept of dinner as supper so maybe it won't confuse anyone.

[Venusian Broon]

Originally Posted by Mouse

Mm. That's what I was doing all afternoon yesterday. Was hoping some real-life Londoners'd stop by to help.

Hey Mouse, didn't see your question yesterday! So probably too late.

Not my neck of the woods, but I can compare with journeys I do on foot around London with the distance on the map.

I'd say if you knew where you were going and were walking fast then it's about 30-40 minutes from Saint John's Wood tube station to Arlington road in Camden. By car 6 minutes...depends on traffic...late at night (post midnight) you can really race around London, so 6 minutes would be slow-ish. But if it was mid-morning to Early Evening, you'd probably be lucky to achieve 6.

[Mouse]

Breakfast. Dinner. Tea. Lunch is what you have when you're at work.

Awesome, VB, thanks loads!

[The Judge]

Ah, the lunch/dinner/tea/supper social minefield...

Arthur, is it their main meal of the day or just a light snack? What social class do they belong to? Are children present for the meal if they are of upper middle/upper class? What era are we talking here?

Luncheon developed from nuncheon in the 1570s ish. Per an etymology site "lunch" was first recorded in its short form in 1786 but

But as late as 1817 the only definition of lunch in Webster's is "a large piece of food." OED says in 1829s the word "was regarded either as a vulgarism, or as a fashionable affectation.

And well into the 1920s and later, I think "luncheon" would still be the preferred use for the upper classes.

[Arthur_Connelly]

Judge, the time-period is roughly equivalent to the 1810's - although not on our Earth. The current viewpoint character is a young courier. For her this is just a light meal since she's running around and can't really sit still until the end of the day so "supper" is her main meal.

My other three POV's are upper class although one is more or less new money and hasn't given up his country habits so I can see him calling it "dinner" instead of "luncheon".

What about "tiffin"?

[Abernovo]

I believe tiffin tends to be afternoon tea (as in the drink, with a slice of cake, of course). It can also be luncheon, though.

However, I have a couple of caveats. I'm not sure when tiffin came into common usage. It may be after 1810.

The other thing is that, in the past, the evening meal was not always the big meal of the day, as it tends to be today. In fact, the afternoon meal could often be large, especially in higher class families. This may be the reason there's confusion over the word dinner, as it referred to the main meal of the day, rather than a set time to eat it.

[The Judge]

Tiffin is early 19th century acording to my dictionary, and it can mean a light meal but although it might be of English origin, it's so bound up with the British Raj and India (and teatime) I think it might give a colour to the meal which you don't want.

I agree with Abernovo, the main meal of the day is dinner, and I think they'd call it that in c1810, not supper, which is a lesser meal. The courier is presumably of a lower class, so how about using a semi-dialect word like snap or bite for a meal on the run? The upper class lot would call their mid-day light meal luncheon, but the nouveau riche chap might call it lunch to try and use a new racy term that's just been coined to try and integrate himself (unsuccessfully).

[Arthur_Connelly]

Thanks.

[David Evil Overlord]

Originally Posted by Warren_Paul

Sorry, Aber, edited post.

No, there are 8 PoV characters. At other places I use her mother's actual name.

It's just confusing for scenes where there are multiple mothers involved

I just can't have Kateryn referring to her mother as "Helena" or "The Duchess" or "my lady" "milady" (as the common folk would) because none of those would be something she'd use. Which leaves me with "Her mother" or "Mother"

You think you've got problems? I have one old story (in desperate need of a rewrite) with a man married to three Alternate Universe versions of the same woman. So each version has exactly the same name, same face, etc.

All three of the women are telepaths, and so are their offspring. So within the family there is no confusion over who is who. But the father (and various other people who have married into the family) are not telepaths. Neither are most readers.

So how do you tell these women apart when you need to?

The POV character, Jasmine, is the eldest daughter of wife number two. The women are referred to as "Samarra's Mother", "Jasmine's Mother" or "Simone's Mother" (there are more children, but each of these is the eldest child of each woman).

Or, as the children impolitely refer to them, "Mother Tech", "Mother Art" and "Mother Cop", after their chosen professions.

After I've rambled my way through all that, does it help? I think what I'm trying to say is you will find a way to differentiate between people with similar names/faces/job descriptions (yes, "Mother" is a job description).

[springs]

If you had a special power that was carried in the genes and you have a baby born from one with powers and one without, is it likely that the baby's powers will be lesser than the parent, the same, or more?

I thought lesser, but now I'm not sure.

[fishii]

Lunch as far as I know is just the meal that you eat midday, for me on a school day it starts at 12:25pm and ends when I finish eating usually about ten or fifteen minutes later (though the school says it ends at 12:55), on any other day I don't normally eat lunch cause I tend to sleep past lunch time. Dinner/Supper is the end of the day and Breakfast is usually a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from the school cafeteria at about 7:30am. Dinner, my mom calls it supper but she's like 52, is the only meal I always eat, because for me it's whenever I decide to make something to eat, such as a Ramen noodles or store brand Mac' and Cheese, it's hardly ever anything fancy because we just don't have the money for nice things if we want to pay the bills.

did this help at all with the lunch dilemma? or was that already solved?



What would be a good title for a book that contains the retelling of a couple Roman myths? (The myths are: Prometheus and Pandora, The Rape of Proserpina, Romulus and Remus, The great bear, Hercules and maybe some others if I have time.)