Phrases Can't Time Travel

            Writers love to weave a spell.  We want our audience to be swept away in our story, almost unaware of anything but the tale we’re telling.  And nothing jolts our readers out of that spell faster than when they come across a phrase that doesn’t match the time period we’ve chosen.

            Except for actual time travel stories, such as “Back to the Future,” in which the injection of skateboards and music from another era provided intentional humor, we have to make sure our characters don’t say “far out” in the 1990s, or “swell” in the 1850s.  You don’t want them using plastic in 1920, or celebrating Mother’s Day in 1890, long before it became an official holiday.

            Fortunately, it’s easy to catch mistakes of this size.  But where too many writers trip up is when they use modern catch phrases in stories set before those phrases caught on.  It’s  grating, it’s sloppy, and it shows zero attention to detail.

In the movie, The Young Victoria, Emily Blunt has a speech in which she speaks of the fact that she will never forget her mother’s betrayal, and says if the mother thinks she will, “You are dreaming.”  It’s simply not an expression used that way then, and wouldn’t be for another hundred years.   

I’ve heard some fiction writers say they’re relieved not to have to do the sort of research required for nonfiction, but all writers have to research the current phrases of their chosen era.  Did they honestly not realize that writing would require actual work?

Even if all your settings are in modern times, you need to be aware of when phrases came into use, and then fell away.  Many popular phrases, like fads, are overused and annoying—but sometimes that’s the point: Maybe you have a character who relies on clichés.

Think how many times you’ve heard someone describe a problem as “a train wreck,” or say someone has been “thrown under the bus.”  But when did those phrases come into popular usage?  Not prior to 2000.  “My bad,” “Make sure we’re on the same page,” and “24/7” are also recent—and badly worn— slang phrases.  I’m not saying not to use them, but use them sparingly and in the appropriate decades.  A slang dictionary can be an invaluable aid.

In the 1980s we got “that sucks,” and teenagers started saying, “She’s like” and “He’s all” in conversations.  It’s also the time period when young adults began making statements that ended with an upswing in their voice, as if asking a question.  You still hear it today.   “My name is Amy?  And I’m selling Girl Scout Cookies?”  It makes you want to ask, “Aren’t you sure?” but the speaker doesn’t even hear that she’s doing it.

New synonyms for “very” and “definitely” pop up all the time, as well.  In the 90s we heard “I am SO not going to class,” “I am SO buying that dress,” and the hideous “hecka” as in, “That was hecka fun.” 

“Seriously?” gave way to “Really?” and it’s anyone’s guess what the next gasp of disbelief will be.  I know, right?

I think my least favorite cliché at the moment (though a new one is always waiting in the wings) is “he has my back.”  How much peril do you actually live in?  Are you really under siege and need someone to fire at the enemy while you run for cover in your day-to-day life?  Maybe you live in a sketchy area.  I’m just saying.