Variations on the word "worry"
Dec. 23rd, 2020 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzula1) I had meant to go to my parents today after a week of quarantining as best one can in an apartment with other people, but I feel a very slight tickle in my throat, which could be my imagination, but it makes me worried. Better wait a day and see. /o\
2) Occasionally I realize I've been using a word that is not allowable in 1750 and have to go back and edit it out of all my Flight of the Heron fic. Today's word is "worry" in the sense of "feeling anxious or troubled". Sigh, that word was a transitive verb meaning "to annoy or vex someone" back then (from an earlier stronger meaning of "to slay, kill or injure by biting and shaking the throat"), and I have now replaced it with variations of concern/trouble/fret/fear, which are all fine. I make copious use of the Online Etymology Dictionary. I mean, it's not that I imagine myself to actually be writing as they did in 1750, nor is that necessarily my goal, but at least I can try to avoid anachronisms.
And indeed, there is not a single use of "worry" in canon! Yeah, Broster did her research. But hey, she was born in 1877, and the intransitive use of "worry" to mean "feeling anxious or troubled" is actually only attested from 1860, though the use "to cause mental distress or trouble" is attested from 1822.
Another error I've recently discovered is that Anglicans/Episcopalians do not pray for the souls of the dead! This is/was a Catholic thing to do. Ugh, I have a character do this at least at one point, I suppose I should fix it. I should thank Naomi Mitchison for this discovery.
2) Occasionally I realize I've been using a word that is not allowable in 1750 and have to go back and edit it out of all my Flight of the Heron fic. Today's word is "worry" in the sense of "feeling anxious or troubled". Sigh, that word was a transitive verb meaning "to annoy or vex someone" back then (from an earlier stronger meaning of "to slay, kill or injure by biting and shaking the throat"), and I have now replaced it with variations of concern/trouble/fret/fear, which are all fine. I make copious use of the Online Etymology Dictionary. I mean, it's not that I imagine myself to actually be writing as they did in 1750, nor is that necessarily my goal, but at least I can try to avoid anachronisms.
And indeed, there is not a single use of "worry" in canon! Yeah, Broster did her research. But hey, she was born in 1877, and the intransitive use of "worry" to mean "feeling anxious or troubled" is actually only attested from 1860, though the use "to cause mental distress or trouble" is attested from 1822.
Another error I've recently discovered is that Anglicans/Episcopalians do not pray for the souls of the dead! This is/was a Catholic thing to do. Ugh, I have a character do this at least at one point, I suppose I should fix it. I should thank Naomi Mitchison for this discovery.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-23 03:35 pm (UTC)I had no idea about "worry". Your 1750s English is better than mine, of course :)
Maybe Anglicans don't *officially* pray for the souls of the dead as such, but unofficially you kind of do every time you say "God rest them", "God keep them" etc? As long as you're not implying that that would cause any intervention in a literal Catholic-style way, because God forbid anyone do anything Catholic (!) But there's definitely a difference between the rules and what people do. (Speaking as an atheist dragged through a semi-Anglican upbringing.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-23 06:00 pm (UTC)I had no idea about "worry". Your 1750s English is better than mine, of course :)
I'm learning so much! Little of which will be useful outside of fandom, of course, but at least I'm having fun.
Hee, I think being concerned about seeming too Catholic was more relevant in the 18th century. That's useful about actual practice, though--I guess people's need to remember and care about their dead can trump what doctrine says.