Fun with Language: the Power of Connotation

The English language is filled with words that have double and triple and quadruple meanings, words that change meanings within a generation, and words that alter connotations within a few years.

For instance, in the fifth installment of Mr. B Speaks! Mr. B describes lurking in a closet to spy on Pamela. This closet would not be the type of closet we have in our houses today--complete with shelves and clothes on hangers. Rather, as Leslie Quinn will tell the judge later, "A closet was a small room like a breakfast nook. With a door. It often contained books and a desk."

An 18th century prostitute:

what "sauciness" led to in the 18th century.

Another word that reoccurs over and over again in Richardson's Pamela is the word saucy or sauciness--to describe Pamela. In modern parlance, the word means nearly the same thing it did in the 1700s: cheeky, pert, flippant, bold, impudent.

What has changed is the word's connotations--the emotions and images associated with the word. The connotations for saucy in the 18th century were far more negative than they are now.

Changing connotations is an unique, lingual phenomenon that has occurred--in the modern world--with words like handicapped. The word's meaning hasn't changed in the last twenty years; rather, the word has accumulated negative feelings; in an effort to dump the negative feelings, handicapped became special (very briefly) which then became disabled. The problem, of course, is that being handicapped/disabled (and even, frankly, "special") kind of stinks, so the replacement words will continue to accumulate negative meaning, no matter how often they are changed (however, this is less true than it is used to be since there are fewer social stigmas associated with being disabled than there used to be).

Likewise, racism unfortunately exists whether someone is referred to as Negro, black, or African-American. A change in terminology cannot single-handedly effect a change in attitude. 

The introduction of new terms to counteract negative connotations often leads to confusion over the current courteous and/or politically-correct term. As P.J. O'Rourke writes in All the Trouble in the World, regarding a discussion of Huckleberry Finn in a college classroom:

There was a great deal of fumbling with racial terms, among white and nonwhite students both. No one seemed exactly sure whether or when to say "black" or "African-American." How much better if we just called each other by our names.

An interesting example of reverse negative association is "Indian." I was taught in school to say Native American rather than Indian. Now the terms are used interchangeably by Native Americans and non-Native Americans alike. (It does get confusing when one is actually talking about inhabitants of India.)

My own practice is to be polite and call people what they want to be called. (I have black friends who don't like "African-American." After all, I don't refer to myself as "Anglo-Celt-American.") And also to give people a  break when they get confused.

* * *

To return to Pamela: by describing Pamela as saucy, a somewhat loaded adjective, Richardson opened up the door for portrayals of Pamela as a seductive harlot out for all she could get.

Now-a-days, of course, the term has a far more positive, and youthful, connotation: "The little girl was saucy to her mother."

When it came time for me to describe Pamela, I relied on Pamela's explanation of her behavior from Pamela II. In answer to a letter from her sister-in-law, Pamela describes her faults, including her sauciness:

I am naturally of a saucy temper: and with all my appearance of meekness and humility, can resent, and sting too, when I think myself provoked.

What would you expect, she goes on to write, from someone like me who has to defend herself against so many detractors? (Richardson wrote Pamela II partly in response to criticism and partly to defend himself against plagiarists who were capitalizing on the first novel's popularity by printing "false" sequels: copyright laws were close to non-existent in Richardson's day).

In other words, Pamela gets provoked and lashes out with witty barbs before she remembers herself/her station and retreats. This is the characterization I utilized, making Pamela neither as flirtatious nor as manipulative as detractors often paint her to be.

I should note that despite (or because of) the word's negative associations in the 1700s, Mr. B enjoys Pamela's sauciness, even when he is exasperated. Whatever society's views, a writer--in this case, Richardson--can make the language work for him: at least, within the confines of the text.

Where are All the Cars? Not Getting Around in the 1700s

A common argument against Pamela's innocence is "If she really is so upset about Mr. B's advances, why doesn't she just leave?"

In the fourth installment of Mr. B Speaks! Mr. B defends Pamela's failure to act by explaining that Pamela didn't have access to transportation. How was she supposed to get home?

Gentleman with His Horse

This is another difference between us and the world of the pre/early-Industrial Revolution, one so blatant yet so easily by-passed, it rather staggers the mind. So many moderns are hung up on the idea that (1) life in the historical past used to be simpler; (2) the separation between rich and poor just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

While it is true that the rich now-a-days are richer than the rich of the past, simpler is not automatically better--or fairer. The level of poverty experienced by every-day, supposedly well-off people in the 1700s is incomprehensible to just about everybody in the modern, Westernized world (and yes, I am including people who depend on soup kitchens).

There was no RTP. No buses. No bikes. Pamela couldn't climb on her moped. She couldn't call a taxi. She couldn't get a lift from a friend (not if that friend answered to someone who didn't want her to leave).

And she couldn't just go get herself a horse.

Because horses are unmechanized and bucolic and cute, many moderns (and unfortunately too many historical writers) assume that horses are also easy and cheap to care for.

Not at all.

Horses, then and now, are expensive. Remember poor Jane, sent on a soggy horse ride to visit Bingley's sisters? How her father wasn't sure if the horses were available to take her in the family carriage?

Mr. B and Pamela later go for a
ride in a carriage like this one.

The horses wouldn't be available because letting even one horse sit around in a stable, doing nothing, was something only an exceptionally wealthy man could afford. Darcy can afford to keep extra horses in his stables at Pemberley, but note that Darcy doesn't bring his carriage and horses to Netherfield. He brings his horse, nothing else. Gallivanting around in a carriage is something Darcy keeps for special occasions and emergencies, not for visiting a friend.

Pamela's best hope is to get a ride with a servant--performing an errand for Mr. B on one of Mr. B's horses--or with a farmer. And neither of those options are readily available, partly because of Mr. B's influence and partly because farmers work. In fact, a truly stunning portion of the book is spent trying to figure out HOW to get hold of transportation (and then pay for it).

Compare that to the 21st century kid who works at McDonald's to pay his car insurance--because he's got to have a car. Not that I have a problem with this, any more than Eugene--cheap, easy transportation that allows one to MOVE, rather than tying one to a parcel of land, is the true democracy.

Pamela could, naturally, walk home, but circa 1740, Romantic imagery promoting the supposedly untouched, peaceful countryside was a few decades in the future. London may have been more dangerous; that didn't make the countryside safe.

Pamela has principles, but she doesn't actually want to end up raped by a highwayman. Much better to  hold off her master with her wits.

Recent Publications: Fantasy, Romance, History (Sometimes Altogether!)

Check out these publications!

*Just Published* "Grave Bride," a short story by Katherine Woodbury about Vikings in Northern England. These particular Vikings still practice ancient rites, such as sending a chieftain to the after-life with a bride still living.

Barely.

The magazine is Cicada, part of the Cricket Magazine Group.

*Just Released in Print* A Man of Few Words by Katherine Woodbury--my retelling of Pride & Prejudice from the perspective of the hero, Darcy.

*Recently Released*  Serpent of Time by Eugene Woodbury--a fantasy novel set in authentic medieval Japan, starring a princess heroine who goes head to head with an otherworldly controller of time.

*Recently Released* Monsters & Mormons, including the short story "First Estate," a science-fiction retelling of the Book of Ruth, by Katherine Woodbury, replete with winged civilians and human aliens. This anthology is also available in print.

*More Eighteenth Century Fun* 
Mr. B Speaks! by Katherine Woodbury--my satire of academe/retelling of Pamela by Samuel Richardson, told mostly from the perspective of the rogue hero, Pamela's stalker/boyfriend/fiancé/husband, Mr. B. I am currently posting chapters of this novella through Votaries of Horror with weekly historical notes.


Also check out Eugene's translation of Demon City Shinguku: The Complete Edition (Publisher: Digital Manga)!

Illegitimacy 18th Century and Now

In the third installment of Mr. B Speaks!, Mr. B gets annoyed when the issue of his natural daughter's illegitimacy is openly discussed.

This reaction is almost incomprehensible to members of the modern Westernized world. So much so that within the past few years, several books have been published about how awful it was that women in the 50s were forced, by mean-spirited prejudice, to give up their children for adoption.

I can't speak for children adopted during the 50s, but I can say that from Mr. B's perspective, his refusal to openly acknowledge his out-of-wedlock daughter as his daughter-by-blood is an attempt to protect--not punish--her.

The issue in the eighteenth century was not illegitimacy per se. It was status. The illegitimate sons and daughters of kings often rose to prominence and married quite well. And nobody much cared about the illegitimate sons and daughters of peasants, who were held to a far less rigorous set of social standards by their "betters" (this wasn't out of any belief in the intrinsic merit of sexual freedom, by the way: the upper-classes overlooked peasants having illegitimate children because they thought the peasants weren't human enough to know better; one of the biggest criticisms of Pamela at the time of its publication was that Richardson would actually, gasp gasp, give a servant girl such high-falutin' ideas as wanting to wait until after the wedding--for religious and pragmatic reasons--to have sex).

However, the known illegitimate sons and daughters of the merchant, gentry, and independent farming classes of this time period had a terrible time marrying respectably (the measure of social acceptance).

Mr. Knightley chewing out Emma.

Consider, for example, Jane Austen's Emma in which Emma is convinced that Harriet is the bastard daughter of a noble person (giving Harriet the right to marry "up") when it is far more likely that Harriet is the bastard daughter of someone far lower on the social scale. When Mr. Knightley tells Emma that Harriet would be lucky to marry a prosperous farmer like Mr. Robert Martin, he isn't being cruel; he is being honest about the world he, Emma, and Harriet live in.

American society was more relaxed on this topic almost from its inception, partly because American society was composed of the merchant, gentry, farming classes (their children didn't need to marry "up") and partly because the Protestantism of early America almost immediately produced a belief in innocent childhood (in both the moral and legal sense).

English society, however, was far less kind for far longer.

Consequently, one of the nicer things about Richardson's Mr. B is the lengths he goes to to protect his natural daughter: first, he keeps her rather than sending her off with her mother to a distant country: she is given into the guardianship of his sister whom she believes to be her aunt; later, she is placed in a decent boarding-house. Her mother, who has moved to Jamaica, marries there, allowing the fiction of legitimacy to continue. In time, Pamela adopts Mr. B's natural daughter (in a non-literal sense). The girl, Sally, does eventually marry well. Does she ever guess who her father really is? Probably. But so long as the fiction of her birth is maintained, she will succeed in the social milieu her father wants for her (which milieu was substantially better than the milieu she might have ended up in otherwise).

Speaking as a modern, human product of the Westernized world, I proclaim it a very good thing that parents and children no longer feel the need to go to such lengths to avoid Mr. B's fears. Speaking as a history buff, I believe historical personages (and characters) should be judged by the difficulties of their time rather than the relaxed understanding of our time. Consequently, I've never really "bought" regency romances in which the mother reveals the truth of her natural-born child's birth to that child "out of love." My guess is the writers don't understand the internal and external burdens the natural-born child would then operate under within that society and time frame. For good and for ill, the social pressures of society--even when accompanied by absolutely no legal ramifications--are tremendously powerful.

Having written the above, I think that social pressures are accepted without constraint or feelings of betrayal when they are consistent between generations. It never occurs to Richardson (or Mr. B) to "fight the system." The issue with 50s babies is that the social pressures changed so rapidly--from less pressure to more pressure to considerably less pressure--within a single generation. The social pressures were never completely assimilated and therefore became objectionable in a way that much earlier generations would never have felt.

Sliders v. Stargate: Why Stargate is Better, Part II

As stated in my previous post, I will be comparing a Sliders episode to a Stargate episode:

Sliders: "Prince of Wails"--the gang shows up on a world where the British won the Revolutionary War, and the Sheriff of San Francisco is trying to overtake the throne (think Robin Hood). The gang stops him, helped by American Revolutionaries and a repentant prince.

Stargate: "Beneath the Surface"--the gang is trapped in a world where they have been brainwashed to believe they are part of a society recovering from an extreme Ice Age when actually they are slave-workers.

(a) The Slider world entails a greater suspension of disbelief .

From the descriptions above, this doesn't seem likely. But it is. Even if the Brits won the Revolutionary War, British society was already moving towards a constitutional democracy in the 18th century. A British America would be more like, well, Canada, than some medieval throw-back.

Now, I will grant that the "underground workers" motif is also rather overdone and slightly ridiculous. Where the Stargate writers come out ahead of the Sliders writers here is that they give their bad guy reasons that are entirely sensible within the bad guy's narrow worldview. He doesn't want to create problems with Earth; he also doesn't want to change his society's structure. After all, what would his society do with all those workers if they were let out?

(b)  The gang convinces the terrorist rebels in Sliders to follow Quinn. 

How many terrorist organizations do you know simply accept a new bunch of people with no prior credentials or previous terrorist behavior and put them in charge?

Yes, the answer is zero.

Any closed, paranoid system is riddled with rivalries, inside politics, and ladder-climbing. New people--including in the U.S. Senate--rarely walk in and just start running things.

In Stargate, SG-1 are the rebels. They don't convince anyone to follow them; they just convince each other.

(c) The rebellion in Sliders is enthused by Quinn's idealism: rob the rich to give to the poor. 

In Stargate, on the other hand, the other workers don't want to rebel, and they treat SG-1 like undependable mavericks. When the SG-1 members do rebel, they don't rebel in terrorist ways. Their goal, for most of the episode, is to keep the underground society working: survival is more important than idealism.

SG-1's dissatisfaction with the system begins when brainwashed Samantha Carter suggests to the higher-ups a way to make the equipment run more efficiently. After she is turned down for, unbeknownst to her, political reasons on the surface, she becomes suspicious. Her suspicions fuel the other SG-1 members' questions and their eventual rebellion.

In other words, if this really was an underground society recovering from an extreme Ice Age, SG-1 would eventually take over anyway, just because they are the most competent people in the society.

(d) All tension in the Sliders episode is due to the team needing to save the rebels before they slide. It is entirely external.

In contrast, the Stargate tension is caused by the behavior/interactions of SG-1.

If the SG-1 members just accepted their brainwashing and went on working, there would be no main plot. There is a respectable subplot in which General Hammond becomes more and more suspicious about the disappearance of his team, and, perhaps, eventually, SG-1 would have been found. But the actual episode is less about the imposition of an external problem (evil bad guys) and more about the team members dealing with an internal problem (who are we? why is this society so badly run? are we actually meant for something better?).

In other words, the friendship of SG-1 is the main material of the episode, not rallying the troops to fight back! Working through the problem matters more than confronting the bad guy who isn't confronted until the very end in an extremely short scene.

To summarize, in general, Stargate episodes are more about the problem and less about the chase. And that I like. 

Here are some not bad Sliders episodes--although the concepts behind some of these are extremely silly, the episodes focus on the problem (mostly), not the chase:

"Eggheads" (1.6)
"The Weaker Sex" (1.7)
"The King is Back" (1.8)
"Luck of the Draw" (1.9)
"Love Gods" (2.2)

You may note the episodes are all from Seasons 1 and 2 when John Rhys-Davies was still a powerhouse on the show. He is one of the most excellent aspects of Sliders!

Sliders v. Stargate: Why Stargate is Better, Part 1

I recently started watching Sliders again after many years. As with Stargate, I enjoyed Sliders when it first came out, stopped watching (probably because I lost access to a television), forgot about it, then resumed watching over a decade later.

The difference: I'm now a Stargate fan; I re-lost interest in Sliders after a dozen episodes.

On paper, this shouldn't be so. Both shows involve single-stories for most of their initial season episodes (I prefer single stories to ongoing arcs). Both shows have a fairly enjoyable scooby gang. Both shows' devices deliver both fantasy and science-fiction plots.

However, there are differences, and ultimately, those differences account for my lack of interest in Sliders. 

The listed differences below all refer to Sliders:

(1) The overuse of the "save civilization through revolt" premise. 

Every other, if not every, Sliders episode goes something like this: the gang shows up in a world that is corrupt in some way; the gang finds the underlying rebel group, supports it, and somehow leads it to victory.

Now, to be fair, Stargate includes a fair share of these episodes although, in general, the Stargate writers are rather better at implying things aren't that easily fixed; bad guys just don't fold; they do need to be blown up.

Still, SG-1 does spend a tremendous amount of time encouraging people to revolt against the Goa'uld.

The major difference: a Stargate episode concentrates on the discovery of the problem rather than on the revolt. Idealistic people being lead to revolt is, frankly, rather boring. Les Miserables' plot of Jean Valjean and Javert is two billion times more interesting than the leader of the students being stupid and getting everyone shot. (What makes the American Revolution so interesting, in my mind, is how surprisingly hard-headed and pragmatic the "rebels" were. The French Revolution, on the other hand, just makes me tired: idealism, corrupt idealism, more corrupt idealism . . . Napoleon. Okay, can it stop now?)

(2) Wade being in love with Quinn. 

Within about two episodes of Sliders, it becomes clear that the writers didn't really think through the whole Wade-Quinn equation. They actually wanted Quinn to be a kind of love-them-and-leave-them type, and having Wade along for the ride--the girl Quinn continually rejects by pursuing other women--makes Wade look somewhat pathetic and Quinn rather confused (since he is also supposed to also be harboring affection for Wade).

In reality, if Quinn were not a Lothario, he would hook up with Wade simply because there isn't anybody else comparably steady on his horizon. The fact that he doesn't . . . makes no sense.

In comparison, Stargate Samantha Carter's affection for Jack--while steadily maintained through several seasons--never gets in the way of her having a life (I consider Carter one of the most together female characters on all of television; yeah, she even beats out Scully and Bones). Also, the reason for the non-consummated relationship make sense: military rules and, frankly, Jack's incredible detachment. Carter may hold a torch for him, but she isn't an idiot. And she's got plenty of other things to do.

(3) Possibly the biggest problem with Sliders is the underlying plot device of the slide. Every episode is a "got to solve the problem before . . ." plot: every, single one. 

The irony here is that the writers treated the device of location as a deficiency--when it really wasn't--but not the timing device. In Season 3, the writers changed the underlying location rules to include all of California, not just San Francisco; this actually took away some of the show's coolness--the ways in which a single city can be altered by historical events. Without this ongoing issue, the episodes could be set anywhere: different planets, the past, the future, Mars, someone's mind. The idea of parallelism became a non-issue.

Meanwhile, the "have to slide in X hours" device continued to plague the show. Every episode is about corralling the characters, so they can leap. EVERY EPISODE. This results in lots and lots of running around, lots and lots of chase scenes, lots and lots of rescuing people at the last minute . . .

One or two episodes of this type is fine. Stargate (and Star Trek: TNG) did their own share of "got to get away before the sun/planet/starship explodes" plots--just not every single episode. AND both Stargate and Star Trek: TNG used different solutions to get away. With Sliders, sliding is the solution--every time.

(4) The premise of searching for home is weak. 

Yes, I know, this is Star Trek: Voyager's premise, but Star Trek: Voyager's premise makes sense because (a) it is actually possible within the confines of the show--since in Star Trek, space operates in a straight line, if the ship just keeps moving in one direction, it will eventually get home; (2) it is actually possible to shorten the trip; (3) the characters are already under the control of a benevolent dictator--that is, they are already part of an organization controlled by a single authority (Captain Janeway), so her insistence that she knows what is best for them makes sense psychologically.

But the first two seasons of Sliders continually underscore the idea that getting home is practically impossible, and the Earths that the characters encounter are increasingly out of sync with their original reality. Why not just stay somewhere? Why continue to follow Quinn who has no authority over the others?

I understand that at the end of Season 3, the Sliders writers inserted a new premise for leaping: the pursuit of the bad guy. However, this makes the show a serial, which I don't care for. (I endure The Mentalist by ignoring the Red John episodes as non-canon.)

Stargate, on the other hand, has the premise of protecting the planet the characters happen to live on plus the premise of FUN. When Daniel gets all archaeological and Jack starts talking about blowing things up, fun is what they are talking about: let's go explore places because it is a HOOT!

As my reviews of Stargate indicate, the show does become more and more serial after Season 4, and I have less interest in the later seasons. Still, the serial nature of SAVE THE EARTH makes substantially more sense than PURSUE THE BAD GUY. The latter becomes wearisome since not catching the bad guy is boring and almost catching the bad guy but continually just missing is aggravating and manipulative. The Earth, on the other hand, can be saved over and over and over.

In Part II, I will compare a Sliders episode to a Stargate episode.

Getting Married in the 18th Century (and Earlier!)

In Installment 2 of Mr. B Speaks! Leslie Quinn--the popular non-fiction writer--comments that 12 was the legal age for marriage in the 18th century.

While this is true--despite the wince it causes--innocent teen girls were not married off to grumpy elderly men (or youthful teen boys to robbing-the-cradle elderly ladies) as often as you might think.

According to G.J. Meyer, writing about the 16th century, during hard agricultural times, merchants and farmers actually married "in their mid-twenties or later." Even amongst the nobility, later marriages were not uncommon. Although Henry VII's mother was married at age 12 and bore Henry VII at age 13, she didn't bear any more children, likely due to complications with Henry VII's birth. Medievals may have been callous (debatable), but they weren't stupid. If you wanted kids, you waited for maturity to hit. (During the divorce between Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine, those against the divorce argued that Catherine's prior marriage to Arthur, Henry VIII's brother, was never consummated. This is not unlikely: Arthur was sickly and may not have undergone puberty despite Catherine and Arthur both being approximately 15 when they married.)

However, while not condoning the marriage of early adolescents (and not all parents at the time did), the denouncement of the act as perverse would have confused anybody up until the 20th century. When middle-age is 35, old-age is 50, and princes are leading armies at 18, getting married at, say, 13 wouldn't seem quite so strange and icky as it does now.

In any case, as suggested above, marriage, at least for the nobility, was as much a political maneuver as a sexual one. Mr. B's sister marries "up" by marrying a lord despite the fact that Mr. B is far wealthier than all the other characters both in Richardson's novel and in my adaptation. For you Pride & Prejudice fans, Darcy is a step up from Bingley--whose father was in trade--but not as far up the scale as someone with a title.

Even without titles, the landed, untitled gentry of the 18th and early 19th centuries considered themselves--justifiably--to be far more powerful and far more respected in their small enclaves than the average aristrocrat. This would change by the mid-19th century after which dozens of wealthy Americans would pursue English marriages on behalf of their daughters for titles rather than for land or money.




These 18th century ladies, Lady Georgiana Cavendish, and Elizabeth Foster Cavendish both married at 17. When Elizabeth--or Bess's--husband died, she moved in with Georgiana and shared her husband whom she married after Lady Georgiana's death.