Favorite Saying and Cliche's we Avoid - Blogjackked

Just a quick note to explain why I've "borrowed" this wonderful post.  I'm leaving for a prolonged trip and don't know when I'll return, so to play it safe, I'm posting this on September 24th so I won't miss my next appointed date.  I know you'll enjoy Victoria's research experience...I know I feel the same way.  I knew most of these from my own "digging in the past," but I'd never heard of Pay On The Nail

Where Did That Come From? by Victoria Chatham

One of the joys of writing for me is doing research..  I know some others hate it and others view it as a form of procrastination but I love delving into history.  Apart from the facts I do want to confirm. I frequently come up with oddities that just fascinate me.  Some may be questionable, other folks may have a different versions of where or why a saying evolved.  The following list mostly derives from English history and the terms and sayings have been transported around the world as Britain expanded her trade and borders.

Bringing home the bacon. Having a pig to raise, or the man of the family bringing home some pork, was a sign of wealth. The pork was usually hung in the rafters of the home, close to the chimney, so it was handy for the housewife to cut slices from and to show off to visitors.

Chewing the fat. A term we think of today as people gathering around to have a pleasant conversation and that’s not far from the possible origin of this term. With visitors admiring the ‘flitch’ or uncut side of bacon hanging in the rafters, the householder would cut off a little of the fat to offer his guests so they would sit around and ‘chew the fat’. In addition, a flitch of bacon could be awarded to married couples who could swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day. This old tradition purportedly still survives in some pockets in England.

Dirt poor. While wealthy people may have had slate or stone floors, poor people didn’t. Mostly the floors of their homes consisted of leveled dirt which gives us the saying ‘dirt poor’ to denote someone who really does not have very much of anything.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Do we really appreciate the luxury of the baths and showers we have today? Imagine living in a household where having a bath consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water could be so dirty you might lose someone in it. Hence the saying, ‘Don't throw the baby out with the bath water’ meaning not to lose something of value.

Four poster bed.  With only a thick straw thatch above you, there was nothing to stop bugs and other droppings falling into the house and messing up a nice clean bed. So beds with a post at each corner and a sheet hung over the top offered some protection. Over time the sheets became more elaborate canopies, including curtains surrounding the bed which could be closed to keep out drafts and afford privacy.

June Bride. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May so still smelt pretty good in June. But, because many were already beginning to smell again, brides starting carrying bouquets of sweet smelling flowers to hide their body odor.

Pay on the nail. Outside the Corn Exchange in Bristol, England, are four brass tables or ‘nails’. They have flat tops with raised edges to stop coins rolling off. The four nails were made at different times, probably modeled after the portable tables used in fairs and markets, but the oldest nail dates from the Elizabethan period.  So, if you ‘pay on the nail’, you pay in cash and on time.

Peas porridge. You may be familiar with the old rhyme ‘peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old’. This refers to a time when everything was cooked in the same pot over the fire. What wasn’t eaten would be left to get cold. Meat was not readily available to the average family, so when the fire was lit on the following day it was mostly vegetables that were added to the pot.

Piss Poor. To dispose of the overnight waste from chamber pots, many families sold this commodity to collectors who took it the local tannery or woolen mill. The ammonia in stale urine was used to tan animal skins and to set dye in cloth. If you had to do this to survive you were ‘piss poor’, but the really poor people couldn’t even afford to buy a chamber pot so didn’t 'have a pot to piss in’.

Raining cats and dogs.  In an era when houses had thick, straw thatched roofs with no wood underneath, it was often the only place that animals could get warm. Cats, mice, bugs, all lived in the roof, but when it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof, so if it was raining really hard, it might be ‘raining cats and dogs’.

Upper crust.  Picture a beautiful, aromatic loaf of bread fresh from the oven. Guests would get the top, or upper crust, the family would get the middle section and servants and workers would get the sometimes burnt bottom of the loaf. Therefore, someone who is ‘upper crust’, would be considered special or of having some elevated social status.

Salute.  Who is not familiar with this sign of respect used by the military and most uniformed organizations? Especially poignant is the iconic photograph of a young John Kennedy saluting his father’s flag draped casket as it was carried from St Matthew’s Cathedral. The salute evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.

Saved by the bell.  Today we use this term to indicate a situation being saved or solved at the very last moment, but it has a rather gruesome origin. Being a small country, when English parishioners began to run out of space for burials, they would open graves and coffins to reuse them. It was found that 1 out of every 25 coffins opened had fingernail scratch marks on the inside of the lid, and it was realized that people had been buried alive. A string was then tied around the corpse’s wrist and fed through a hole in the coffin lid, up through the ground and tied to a bell. Someone sat by the grave (hence the term graveyard shift for a night worker) so that if the bell was rung the coffin would be immediately opened to save whoever was inside it.

Threshold.  Wealthy people had slate or stone floors in their homes that, when wet and especially during the winter, could get very slippery. To avoid this they spread straw, called thresh, on the floor to keep their footing. Throughout the winter more thresh was added until, when you opened the door, it started to slip outside or was carried out on peoples’ feet. A thick piece of wood was placed across the door way to keep the thresh inside and became known as a ‘thresh hold’.

Wake.  Our ancestors’ table ware was often hazardous to their health. Plates were made of pewter and any food with a high acid content could cause lead to leach into the food causing death by lead poisoning. Tomatoes have a high acid content, so for 400 years or so tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Ale and whisky were served in lead cups and the combination often knocked the imbibers out for days. Anyone walking along a road could take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. This was the origin of bringing food and drink for guests to partake of after a funeral.

So now you know. Do you have  any explanations for sayings in common use today? 

You can find Victoria on:

www.bookswelove.com/chatham.php

and on her blog at http://www.victoriachatham.webs.com

Blog Jack From Pat Holt via Jen Black 2009 - #writingtips

For you readers out there...how many of these "faux pas" do you notice in the books you buy?

A fellow author and friend from my historical critique group, Jen Black, posted a very informative blog, making reference to another site where she found the original post. It'd point you to Pat Holt's blog, but I'm not even sure of the date since I'm re-sharing this from my own personal blog in 2009. I'm camping, so I've scheduled this in advance.

Now available as Sarah's Heart and Passion

 The content here still applies and makes for informative reading.  In fact, I've re-released many of my books and in redoing them, strive to avoid the pitfalls I didn't know the first time around.  I've learned so much from my crit group and highly recommend them up into the point where you've been writing long enough to stand on your own. What I'm trying to say is you don't want to be in a group with people who are just starting their writing career.  You've already been there, done that  *smile*

I've borrowed Ms. Holt's "headers" and used ones I can apply to myself. I invite you to do the same if you're an author:

1. Repeats:
We all have favorite phrases we use in our writing, the secret is to avoid over-using them. Word echoes, especially when you use the same word within one paragraph warn of redundancy and are best avoided. Here's a silly example: John placed his glass on the table and gazed at Vanessa. Tipping her glass, Vanessa smiled over the rim and sipped her drink. When finished, she lifted her glass in a toast. John hoisted his glass into the air.
 Are we sick of 'glass?' I think this is one habit I've learned, but still slip into occasionally. Luckily, I have my critique group to help. Ask them and they'll tell you that I drive them crazy in my critiques of their work with highlighting echoes.  It's a pet peeve when I read, but that doesn't mean I don't do it when I write.  

2. Flat Writing:
I'm not so sure I've fallen into this habit, but Ms. Holt warns "it's a sign you've lost interest." I've seen this in books I've read, and often wonder the purpose of phrases that do nothing to propel the story and really add nothing to the plot. I suspect they may not really indicate a lost interest, rather are the author's attempt to reach a mandadated word count.  *smile*  My problem is not losing interest, it's losing the voices in my head who tell me what to write.  When my characters fall silent, my fingers won't work.  

3.. Empty Adverbs:
Boy, I'm trying to break this habit, and it isn't easy. Examples: actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, literally, really..) The list goes on and on, and for story telling, they seem appropriate, but replacing 'ly' words with stronger verbs is the answer in fiction writing. Of course, 'ly' words have a place. If you eliminate all, your writing will become too stiff. There's a secret here and I'm trying to uncover it. I think I've made progress.

4. Phony Dialogue: 
What I gleaned from Ms. Holt is the need to make your characters unique. We all have distinct voices and habits, so try to convey those to the reader rather than have everyone sound alike. Speak with a unique voice for each character by not using the same phrasing, and make the dialogue realistic. Stop and think....would my character really say that? 

5. Suffixes:
As with 'ly' and 'ing' words, some 'ness' words sprinkled into the story have a place, but adding so many that a reader has to stop and absorb them or re-read is not a good sign. Examples: mindlessness, courageousness. Another habit we slip into is often adding 'ly' to 'ing' words in our descriptive tags...often described as "Tom Swiftees.: Poor example, but the best I can come up with: "That was a refreshing dip," the boy said, swimingly. If I do this, I'm certainly not aware of it. 

6. To Be Words:
This has been a toughie for me but a common practice for English authors.  In my opinion,'to be' words slow the pace of your writing and often move your tense to passive rather than unveiling the story in the present. 'Was, were, be, being, been...' are common examples of passive, but of course cannot all be eliminated. The secret is finding a happy medium.For me it doesn't make sense to indicate something  might happen as opposed to showing the reader something as it happens. I.e., He moved to open the window.  He opened the window. Of course I've sure you recognize, the window had been opened, as being passive.

7. Lists:
I don't believe I fall into his habit anymore, but I sure have read the work of several authors, especially newbies who have. An example would be trying to 'list' everything on a buffet table. Before you name everything, the reader is yawning and may have tossed the book aside. "Cecile's stomach rumbled as she gazed at the eggs, potatoes, hot rolls, oatmeal, toast, jelly, butter, bananas, apples, pears,plums, and pots of hot coffee and tea on the table." Listing a little to give the reader is a much better idea...maybe her mouth watered at the hot baked bread, and then let the reader smell it by describing the smell of yeast. 


8. Show Don't Tell:
Oh, Lord, have I come a long way on this one. I actually 'get' the concept. When I completed and submitted my first manuscript, my editor said, "You've written a beautiful story. Now we have to make it into a novel." I wondered at her meaning, but until you weave in the smells, emotions, actions by drawing the reader in and allowing them the experience, you really have only TOLD a story. The secret is SHOWING so when your heroine cries, so does the reader. Let the wind caress the reader's face, let them smell the flowers, feel the slap. If you aren't there yet, believe me, some editor will help you along. *big grin*

9. Awkward Phrasing:

I think the best rule of thumb is KISS (keep it simple, stupid.) If you are writing a sentence so long and so strangely worded that it requires more than one reading, you've failed this test. I believe I used to do this, but now I've learned from many editorial whippings to shorten sentences for emphasis and ease of comprehension. No reader likes to get to the end of a long drawn out sentence and scratch their head. Unless of course they have dandruff. *lol*

10. Commas:
Speaking of scratching one's head... this one has me stumped. Just when I think I understand and follow the written rules of good punctuation, a publishing house decides to try to eliminate commas. I guess you have to follow your publishing guidelines, but my belief is: If you have two sentences joined together with 'and or but' you need a comma, and if there is a natural pause, a comma is called for. Commas also clarify things for the reader when one word follows another and doesn't make sense if read together without a pause. My mind is too numb from all these rules to give you an example, but I think you understand.

So...I encourage you to go back to the link and read Ms. Holt's full post, and Jen's too. The examples are all helpful and encourage continued learning. I know I benefited from reading them and I'm happy to pass along the wisdom.