A friend once told me that she cannot, cannot, read anything written by a British author. Trying to follow along slows her down, because she’s distracted by trying to hear the accent. This surprised me, mainly because I love so many things British. (Don’t get me started on Downton Abby!)
I suppose the way we use the English language is more than a little different, depending on where we’re born. When I read something written by an author I know to use British English, I often hear a different rhythm than I do from my fellow American authors. The accent comes naturally, and I don’t have trouble hearing it in my head as I read along.
If I’m creating a character from Britain or Ireland, it’s important to hear the voice in my head first if I have any hope of capturing the sound on paper. It’s often useful to add odd spelling or unusual words, but it can be every bit as effective to be careful about word placement. Someone from Ireland, for example, might use the phrase: “It wasn’t I who wanted you to go after that rainbow, now was it?” And a Brit might say, “Shall I remind you it wasn’t I who asked you to go after that rainbow?” But an American might just say: “I didn’t ask you to go after that rainbow.”
I guess I can see why my friend thinks American authors are easier to read. At least we don’t use a lot of “shalls.” My husband and I were in Belgium a few years ago and we had a wonderful discussion with two men from England. One of them, however, had a heavier accent and when he spoke fast it has hard to keep up with what he was saying. He might have had the same trouble with us. At one point he told us about a pub he liked in his English neighborhood that had a sign reading: English spoken here. American understood.
In my newest Gilded Age novel, All In Good Time, which by the way is just starting to ship from my publisher’s warehouses, I introduce an Irish “bouncer” — a man who worked in various brothels in the roughest Denver neighborhoods. Below, I’m pasting in a brief scene where I hoped to make his language different from my American heroine.
Set up: My heroine has recently moved into the toughest neighborhood in 1887 Denver, where she hopes to offer shelter or at least a choice to women in the desperate circumstance of prostitution. She’s awakened in the middle of the night by a drunken visitor looking for shelter—only it’s not a woman:
Grabbing her robe, Dessa donned it while opening the door and rushing to the top of the stairs. There, she stopped once again just to be sure she heard only the one voice, then crept down to assess the best plan to send away whoever had come calling.
The stairway was hidden in a hall of its own, set to the back of the parlor so the wall space was not shorted. She peered around the edge of the staircase hall, noticing first that the chair donated only yesterday was toppled over. Beside it, flat on his back, was a shadow that did not belong—somewhat reminiscent of the smooth, rounded tops of the foothills. His hat had come askew and covered all but his mouth, from which he picked up the tune of Molly Malone with a thick Irish brogue.
With a glance around the rest of the parlor to be sure he’d arrived alone, Dessa stepped into the room. The parlor floor was every bit as cool to her feet as the stairs and bedroom floor, despite what had been a warm July day. Less frightened now than annoyed, she was prompted by the feel beneath her bare feet to think about garnering some rugs before winter.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You mustn’t sleep here!”
“What’s that?” The man struggled to sit up, slipping from the wobbly support of his elbow and back to the floor, inspiring Dessa to help him to his feet. Between his size and unsteadiness the task was no less challenging than moving the heaviest of deliveries, but she wrestled him to the settee nonetheless. Thankfully it accepted both his weight and her own when she fell beside him.
“Many thanks, young Molly Malone,” said the man, the unpleasant scent of strong drink on his breath.
Dessa popped back to her feet, clutching together her robe. “I’m afraid you have me confused, sir. This is Pierson House, and there is no Molly Malone here.”
He laughed, loud and hearty. “To be sure, little lady, that I know. Molly Malone is long dead, if ‘twere true she ever lived a’tall.”
She extended a palm toward the door behind them. “Then can I help you out?”
He made a move to stand but fell back on the settee, which creaked to accept him yet again. “Ah, now, miss, I heard a rumor this is just the place for someone in need.”
“But only for women, sir! You must go now.”
He fought for his footing once more, stumbling back, sighing, stumbling again with a laugh until Dessa grabbed his arm to hold him steady.
“Are ye sure ye can’t allow me the night? What’s left o’ it, at any rate?”
“Now, sir, what would the neighbors say if I permitted gentlemen where only ladies are allowed?”
He issued another hearty laugh. “Around here they’d say only ‘welcome to the neighborhood!’”
“Yes, but I wish to live in this world yet not be part of it,” she told him, throwing his arm around her shoulder to haul him closer to the door. He wasn’t so rotund as she’d first imagined, his jacket and vest having been rumpled. Yet he was sturdy nonetheless, square of build like a tugboat. It was no easy chore to move him, even with his tottering help.
“Perhaps I might find a place on the porch . . . out of the rain?”
“It isn’t raining,” she said, glancing outside through the open curtains of the parlor window.
“Ah, but it was and will again!”
“Not tonight,” she said with a grunt to keep him moving when he stopped altogether.
Then, as if she were no more than a child, he brushed her hands away and turned back. Though he nearly toppled with his first step in the opposite direction, he righted himself and continued on through the parlor, past the stairway and into the kitchen.
“I came round the back first,” he told her. “That porch overlookin’ the yard . . . it suits me.”
He grabbed the edge of a kitchen chair as if the floor had lurched beneath him. But then he continued on his route.
The house had a covered porch though it offered no amenities. Dessa imagined working out there in the warm afternoons, taking in the fresh air. Perhaps canning out there in the fall. Never once had she imagined it as this man obviously did, as a sanctuary for drunken slumber.
She’d left a pile of rags and blankets, ones that had been used to cover the wood flooring while she and volunteers had painted the inside walls. It was to that pile this man headed.
“This will do, ah yes, just fine for me.” He fell to the floorboards with a thud, softened only by the discarded materials.
“But you can’t stay here!” Dessa told him. “You must go home . . . or wherever you spent last night.”
Her only answer was a deep sigh, followed shortly by a snore.
She bent over him, lifting one of his solid arms. “Oh no you don’t!” She tugged on him despite knowing she would have no success without his help. “You must wake up!”
To that he pulled his arm free, rolled away, and placed his hands beneath his face, eyes still closed, obviously content to stay where he was.
She shook his shoulder, demanded yet again that he go, grabbed the only arm she could reach but all to no avail. Looking around, Dessa wondered if she had anything she could use to lift him . . . on a dolly, the way she’d seen one rather small man lift the heavy new stove that had been delivered earlier in the week?
But there was nothing to be done. With a moan of frustration, she returned to the kitchen. At least he wasn’t inside the house. She shut the door, locked it, and for good measure dragged one of the kitchen chairs over and tilted it under the knob. Afterward she went to the front door and did the same, this time using one of the chairs from the dining room.
There would be no more surprises tonight.
And there you have it! I hope you were able to read with an accent . . .
Check back in April for a chance to win not only a free copy of All In Good Time, but a gift basket including my other Gilded Age novel, Bees In The Butterfly Garden, along with fun items I’m collecting right now! Details to follow!
Join Me!