I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
look surprising from a 21st-century writer.

Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
Except that it doesn't.

The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.

Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Le 07/08/2023 à 04:53, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>
> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>
> Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
> native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
> read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
> about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
> Except that it doesn't.
>
> The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
> communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.
>
> Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
> saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
> those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
> but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.

Interesting. I think there may be other factors. In Chaucer's time, the
language was in a state of flux. The dust was still choosing where to
settle after the big collision between Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. In
Wells's time the printed word had stabilised, not least because it was
controlled by an educated élite, and later this was true also of the
broadcast word. Then, with the talkies, came leakage across the
Atlantic. More recently, with the arrival of the Internet, the word has
started to be controlled by the masses, many of whom do not have English
as a first language. These are people who are likely not to have
mastered the apostrophe, who may well confuse faze with phase, tocsin
with toxin, impracticable with unpractical.

I suspect we have entered a new age of instability.

There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to mind
is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little, because he strove
to express himself simply and exactly¹. Writers who use fashionable
expressions, on the other hand, will date quickly.

¹As the man himself said: « Quelle que soit la chose qu'on veut dire, il
n'y a qu'un mot pour l'exprimer, qu'un verbe pour l'animer et qu'un
adjectif pour la qualifier. Il faut donc chercher, jusqu'à ce qu'on les
ait découverts, ce mot, ce verbe et cet adjectif, et ne jamais se
contenter de l'à-peu-près, ne jamais avoir recours à des supercheries,
mêmes heureuses, à des clowneries de langage pour éviter la difficulté »
- 'Le roman' : <http://maupassant.free.fr/chroniques/roman.html>

Hibou wrote:

> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to mind
> is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,

So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?

--
Bertel, Denmark

Le 07/08/2023 à 10:01, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>  Hibou wrote:
>>
>> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to
>> mind is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,
>
> So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?

I'm afraid I don't follow you.

On 2023-08-07 03:53:39 +0000, Peter Moylan said:

> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>
> Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
> native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
> read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
> about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
> Except that it doesn't.

Two points. First, Jane Austen, writing several decades before Wells,
wrote in a recognizably modern way. Her characters, environments and
stories are not modern, but there isn't much in her language to
indicate that she was writing two centuries ago. Second, one cannot
expect a language to change at a constant rate. English changed out of
all recognition between 1066 and the late 14th century, but has changed
much less since. With a bit of effort a literate person can read the
Canterbury Tales, but may be able to make no sense at all of Beowulf.
Once I get beyond Hwæt! I am lost.
>
> The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
> communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.
>
> Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
> saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
> those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
> but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On 07 Aug 2023, Hibou wrote

> Le 07/08/2023 à 10:01, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>>  Hibou wrote:
>>>
>>> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes
>>> to mind is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,
>>
>> So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?
>
> I'm afraid I don't follow you.

If he had few dates ("dated little"), he might have had to live out his
fantasies in his writing, rather than engaging with real-life "dates".

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 3:20:20 AM UTC-6, Hibou wrote:
> Le 07/08/2023 à 10:01, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
> > Hibou wrote:
> >>
> >> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to
> >> mind is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,
> >
> > So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?

> I'm afraid I don't follow you.

Bertel pretended to understand "dated" as "went on dates with".

--
Jerry Friedman

Le 07/08/2023 à 12:33, Jerry Friedman a écrit :
> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 3:20:20 AM UTC-6, Hibou wrote:
>> Le 07/08/2023 à 10:01, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>>> Hibou wrote:
>>>>
>>>> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to
>>>> mind is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,
>>>
>>> So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?
>
>> I'm afraid I don't follow you.
>
> Bertel pretended to understand "dated" as "went on dates with".

OK, thanks, both, and my apologies to Bertel.

In fact, he seems to have dated too much, since syphilis sent him mad
and then killed him.

On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 9:53:47 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
....

I think they would, and many current college students would find them
archaic and difficult.

--
Jerry Friedman

On 07/08/23 22:40, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 9:53:47 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
>> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
>> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
>> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
>> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
> ...
>
> I think they would, and many current college students would find them
> archaic and difficult.

I'm interested in hearing more about that. Do you have examples?

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 11:53:47 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.

I have the same impression vis-a-vis Washington Irving -- especially
as compared with his younger contemporary James Fenimore Cooper
and the next generation's Edgar Allan Poe. Could you look at (not one of
the familiar ghost stories, where he may have been using -- or satirizing
-- the conventions of the gothic novel, but) *Knickerbocker's History of
New York* (which is purely fictional and hilarious)? (I haven't tried his
later travel and "history" writing, such as the 1842 book about Columbus
[350th anniversary] in which he invented the "falling off the edge of the
earth" myth.)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13042/13042-h/13042-h.htm

> Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
> native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
> read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
> about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
> Except that it doesn't.

After maybe a dozen pages, I hardly needed to glance across the page
at the translation (Penguin Classics). Maybe that was just me. But David
Kleinecke insisted that *Sir Gawain* is no more difficult.

Uh-oh, we haven't heard from him in a while. Hmm. A regular contributor
to Quora, his latest one is from May.

> The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
> communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.

Labov insists that English is changing faster _now_ than ever in history.
I don't know whether/where he's published that assertion, or perhaps has
modified it.

> Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
> saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
> those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
> but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.

I've noted before that language only needs to be intelligible for two
generations up and two generations down. (You talk with your grandparents
and grandchildren and notice syntactic differences [e.g. "like" as discourse
particle; "double 'is'" ("What I think is, is that T**** will carry the republican
Party to oblivion in 2024"); the first "is" carries the tense and mood markers
if any are needed] but they don't interfere with comprehension.)

Now with longevity that may extend to great-grands, but it may be that four
generations are likely to squeeze into as many years as three used to.

This week I've been reading Edith Wharton -- fiction from the early 1920s
-- and while they're real page-turners, with quite a few laugh-out-loud
sentences, there's no hint she'd heard of Hemingway or Fitzgerald. She
may be emulating her old friend Henry James.

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 5:37:45 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2023-08-07 03:53:39 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
> > I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> > modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> > was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> > so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> > look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
> >
> > Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
> > native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
> > read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
> > about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
> > Except that it doesn't.
>
> Two points. First, Jane Austen, writing several decades before Wells,
> wrote in a recognizably modern way. Her characters, environments and
> stories are not modern, but there isn't much in her language to
> indicate that she was writing two centuries ago. Second, one cannot

Of course there is. Dialect grammars of Nineteenth-Century Standard English
draw heavily on her works, because her dialogue was realistic. Thee are
several constructions that she did not use -- such as compound auxiliaries
-- and several that are no longer used, such as the "a-" forms of verbs.

https://www.amazon.com/Nineteenth-Century-English-Richard-W-Bailey/dp/0472085409

("Jane Austen's English is far different from Virginia Woolf's, but historians
of the English language have given scant attention to the ways in which
English changed over the course of the nineteenth century. In *Nineteenth-
Century English*, Richard W. Bailey treads new ground by showing the
extent to which the language changed as cultural and economic transformations
brought us into the modern world. ...")

> expect a language to change at a constant rate. English changed out of
> all recognition between 1066 and the late 14th century, but has changed
> much less since. With a bit of effort a literate person can read the
> Canterbury Tales, but may be able to make no sense at all of Beowulf.
> Once I get beyond Hwæt! I am lost.
>
> > The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
> > communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.
> >
> > Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
> > saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
> > those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
> > but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.

In article <7d5629dd-4b06-4ad4-a978-
a02eb7a7623en@googlegroups.com>, grammatim@verizon.net
says...
> This week I've been reading Edith Wharton -- fiction from the early 1920s
> -- and while they're real page-turners, with quite a few laugh-out-loud
> sentences, there's no hint she'd heard of Hemingway or Fitzgerald.

Quite likely she hadnt, in the early 1920's. She was born
a generation earlier; when she rose to fame, H and F were
youths, still in school or military service.

Janet

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:19:47 AM UTC-4, Janet wrote:
> In article <7d5629dd-4b06-4ad4-a978-
> a02eb7...@googlegroups.com>, gram...@verizon.net
> says...

> > This week I've been reading Edith Wharton -- fiction from the early 1920s
> > -- and while they're real page-turners, with quite a few laugh-out-loud
> > sentences, there's no hint she'd heard of Hemingway or Fitzgerald.
> Quite likely she hadnt, in the early 1920's. She was born
> a generation earlier; when she rose to fame, H and F were
> youths, still in school or military service.

According to a fragmentary memoir of her childhood, she would
read _everything_ she came across.

Maybe it was different in England, but American writers were eager
to know what their younger contemporaries were up to.

Fitzgerald pubished four of his five novels and six volumes of
stories in the 1920s; Hemingway, two of his celebrated novels.

They were of course not the only Americans writing in a new style,
merely the ones with the most lasting renown.

You're really turning into Antonia C**p*r -- trying to pick, pick, pick
at everything I write to find _something_ to be disagreeable about.

I don't suppose you'd deign to offer _your_ opinion on the modernity
of H. G. Wells, Washington Irving, or Jane Austen.

On Mon, 7 Aug 2023 12:15:42 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:19:47?AM UTC-4, Janet wrote:
>> In article <7d5629dd-4b06-4ad4-a978-
>> a02eb7...@googlegroups.com>, gram...@verizon.net
>> says...
>
>> > This week I've been reading Edith Wharton -- fiction from the early 1920s
>> > -- and while they're real page-turners, with quite a few laugh-out-loud
>> > sentences, there's no hint she'd heard of Hemingway or Fitzgerald.
>> Quite likely she hadnt, in the early 1920's. She was born
>> a generation earlier; when she rose to fame, H and F were
>> youths, still in school or military service.
>
>According to a fragmentary memoir of her childhood, she would
>read _everything_ she came across.
>
>Maybe it was different in England, but American writers were eager
>to know what their younger contemporaries were up to.
>
>Fitzgerald pubished four of his five novels and six volumes of
>stories in the 1920s; Hemingway, two of his celebrated novels.
>
>They were of course not the only Americans writing in a new style,
>merely the ones with the most lasting renown.
>
>You're really turning into Antonia C**p*r -- trying to pick, pick, pick
>at everything I write to find _something_ to be disagreeable about.

Low-hanging fruit is an easy target.

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando,Florida

On 07-Aug-23 4:53, Peter Moylan wrote:
> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>
> Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
> native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
> read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
> about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
> Except that it doesn't.
>
> The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
> communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.
>
> Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
> saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
> those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
> but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in progress.
>

WIWAL, H G Wells and other early authors were commonly read. I assume
people writing in the post-Wells period would be (could be) influenced
by those works.

I have the impression that modern readers (wild generalisation here) are
more inclined to read more modern works, and to links to the past are
weakening.

--
Sam Plusnet

On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 7:21:42 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 07/08/23 22:40, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 9:53:47 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
> >> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
> >> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
> >> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
> >> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
> > ...
> >
> > I think they would, and many current college students would find them
> > archaic and difficult.

> I'm interested in hearing more about that. Do you have examples?

Nope. It's hard to find information about the people who write on-line reviews,
so here's part of a review from someone who I know nothing about.

"While there's a lot of fun timey-wimey stuff going on, Wells' prose isn't easy to
digest. Part of it is the writing style of the time and another part is that science
fiction was still in diapers at the time this was written.

"Wells' depiction of future Earth was a very memorable one, one that influenced
countless authors that came after. Adjusting for the time period, The Time Machine
is a fun yet somewhat difficult read. Four out of five Sonic Screwdrivers."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25299349-the-time-machine

(If you want to see the whole review, go to that page and search for "wolfed".)

For an opposite view on the same page,

"The Time Machine is one of my favorite books. It’s a great story, and very
well-written. It has the first use of time travel as plot device, used to tell a
thought-provoking critique of modern society. It is one of the foundational stories
of science fiction, but completely readable today. A must-read if you never have."

--
Jerry Friedman

On 7/08/2023 9:37 p.m., Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2023-08-07 03:53:39 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
>> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
>> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time Machine"
>> was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th century, and
>> so does the science. The language and writing style, however, would not
>> look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>>
>> Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" are a bit over 600 years old, and most
>> native English speakers of today consider them to be too difficult to
>> read. The language has changed too much. Surely, then, a story published
>> about 130 years ago should show about 20% as much language change.
>> Except that it doesn't.
>
> Two points. First, Jane Austen, writing several decades before Wells,
> wrote in a recognizably modern way. Her characters, environments and
> stories are not modern, but there isn't much in her language to indicate
> that she was writing two centuries ago.

You could push that back another century. _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719) is a
plain tale in a plain English which is very easy for a modern reader.
It's "Modern English" as far as linguistic historians of English are
concerned. But another century or so to Shakespeare and you find
pervasive features that mark the language as old: thou/thee in the
pronouns, the -eth form for third person singular, unexpected uses of
"do", different question syntax (How came you here?) etc. Not "Old
English", but "Early Modern".

Second, one cannot expect a
> language to change at a constant rate. English changed out of all
> recognition between 1066 and the late 14th century, but has changed much
> less since. With a bit of effort a literate person can read the
> Canterbury Tales, but may be able to make no sense at all of Beowulf.
> Once I get beyond Hwæt! I am lost.
>>
>> The reason, I presume, is that widespread literacy and long-distance
>> communication have acted as forces to stop the language from changing.
>>
>> Here in AUE we're sensitive to small changes. We notice young people
>> saying things that weren't said that way 50 years ago. Mostly, though,
>> those changes are small and ephemeral. It's too soon to tell, of course,
>> but I don't believe a significant long-term language change is in
>> progress.
>
>

On 08/08/23 06:13, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 7:21:42 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 07/08/23 22:40, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 9:53:47 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan
>>> wrote:
>>>> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck
>>>> by how modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and
>>>> "The Time Machine" was published in 1895. The social setting
>>>> looks very 19th century, and so does the science. The language
>>>> and writing style, however, would not look surprising from a
>>>> 21st-century writer.
>>> ...
>>>
>>> I think they would, and many current college students would find
>>> them archaic and difficult.
>
>> I'm interested in hearing more about that. Do you have examples?
>
> Nope. It's hard to find information about the people who write
> on-line reviews, so here's part of a review from someone who I know
> nothing about.
>
> "While there's a lot of fun timey-wimey stuff going on, Wells' prose
> isn't easy to digest. Part of it is the writing style of the time
> and another part is that science fiction was still in diapers at the
> time this was written.
>
> "Wells' depiction of future Earth was a very memorable one, one that
> influenced countless authors that came after. Adjusting for the time
> period, The Time Machine is a fun yet somewhat difficult read. Four
> out of five Sonic Screwdrivers."
>
> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25299349-the-time-machine
>
> (If you want to see the whole review, go to that page and search for
> "wolfed".)

Thanks. Thought-provoking, but I'd like to know more about who the
reviewer was, and examples of passages that were a difficult read. I
can't help thinking that this looks like a school assignment, from
someone who was reluctant to read the assigned text. The second
paragraph reminds me of "Columbus Day was a very great man", from a
school essay by Charlie Brown's sister.

"Science fiction was still in diapers". Why is this relevant? It's true
that a lot of early science fiction was written by crap writers, but
apart from that the concepts in early SF are probably a lot easier to
understand than the concepts in recent SF.

I'll go as far as admitting that today's young readers might be puzzled
by references to phlogiston and the luminiferous aether, but Wells
didn't write about such stuff.

> For an opposite view on the same page,
>
> "The Time Machine is one of my favorite books. It’s a great story,
> and very well-written. It has the first use of time travel as plot
> device, used to tell a thought-provoking critique of modern society.
> It is one of the foundational stories of science fiction, but
> completely readable today. A must-read if you never have."

This, on the other hand, looks as if it was written by an adult. The
story is not actually a favourite of mine, but that doesn't stop me from
seeing that the review is clearly written.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On 08/08/23 00:16, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 11:53:47 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
>> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time
>> Machine" was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th
>> century, and so does the science. The language and writing style,
>> however, would not look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>
> I have the same impression vis-a-vis Washington Irving -- especially
> as compared with his younger contemporary James Fenimore Cooper and
> the next generation's Edgar Allan Poe. Could you look at (not one of
> the familiar ghost stories, where he may have been using -- or
> satirizing -- the conventions of the gothic novel, but)
> *Knickerbocker's History of New York* (which is purely fictional and
> hilarious)? (I haven't tried his later travel and "history" writing,
> such as the 1842 book about Columbus [350th anniversary] in which he
> invented the "falling off the edge of the earth" myth.)
>
> https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13042/13042-h/13042-h.htm

Not really to my taste, but that's not the point. The question is
whether this looks like more modern writing. To me, it doesn't. I can't
tell from the style whether it's 18th-century or 19th-century writing,
but it certainly isn't 20th-century. It gives me the impression that
it's from an era that is earlier than, say, Jane Austen.

It's a little hard to say why. I didn't notice any hard words or
unfamiliar constructs, but there's something about the style that shows
its age. Perhaps it's just that more recent writing favours shorter
sentences.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Tue, 8 Aug 2023 10:43:15 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 08/08/23 00:16, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 11:53:47?PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>> I'm currently reading some H G Wells stories, and I'm struck by how
>>> modern his writing looks. Wells was born in 1866, and "The Time
>>> Machine" was published in 1895. The social setting looks very 19th
>>> century, and so does the science. The language and writing style,
>>> however, would not look surprising from a 21st-century writer.
>>
>> I have the same impression vis-a-vis Washington Irving -- especially
>> as compared with his younger contemporary James Fenimore Cooper and
>> the next generation's Edgar Allan Poe. Could you look at (not one of
>> the familiar ghost stories, where he may have been using -- or
>> satirizing -- the conventions of the gothic novel, but)
>> *Knickerbocker's History of New York* (which is purely fictional and
>> hilarious)? (I haven't tried his later travel and "history" writing,
>> such as the 1842 book about Columbus [350th anniversary] in which he
>> invented the "falling off the edge of the earth" myth.)
>>
>> https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13042/13042-h/13042-h.htm
>
>Not really to my taste, but that's not the point. The question is
>whether this looks like more modern writing. To me, it doesn't. I can't
>tell from the style whether it's 18th-century or 19th-century writing,
>but it certainly isn't 20th-century. It gives me the impression that
>it's from an era that is earlier than, say, Jane Austen.
>
>It's a little hard to say why. I didn't notice any hard words or
>unfamiliar constructs, but there's something about the style that shows
>its age. Perhaps it's just that more recent writing favours shorter
>sentences.

Wasn't the 19th century an era of oratory? I think of them
savoring long sentences and long words, though my reading
has been heavily modern.

I think that modernity has made more difference in modern
writing in the crime novels, than in the science fiction.

My favorite science fiction authors were retiring and dying off
in the 1990s, and I started reading a lot of crime fiction. At
first, crime fiction seemed un-dateable: The 1930s up to the
present could include airplanes, telephones, fingerprints, alcohol
and drugs and gangs.

But the newer fiction in the 1990s started showing computer
records to search and DNA analyses. Then came email and
cell phones and texting and handy cameras.

Of course, those things also affect the science fiction, both
for the ones in the present-time and for the imagined technology
of alien cultures. The present decade might be characterized
in some future by its intensive examination of AI - as social
issues and as characters. Of course, HAL was way back in 1968.
But no one wrote in speculation whether he should be granted
citizenship. Hmm. The last decade has been intense, but there
/have/ been a number of earlier treatments.

--
Rich Ulrich

Hibou submitted this idea :
> Le 07/08/2023 à 12:33, Jerry Friedman a écrit :
>> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 3:20:20 AM UTC-6, Hibou wrote:
>>> Le 07/08/2023 à 10:01, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>>>> Hibou wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> There's also the question of style. The prime example that comes to
>>>>> mind is French. I've read that Maupassant has dated little,
>>>>
>>>> So he had to live out his fantasies in his writings?
>>
>>> I'm afraid I don't follow you.
>>
>> Bertel pretended to understand "dated" as "went on dates with".
>
> OK, thanks, both, and my apologies to Bertel.
>
> In fact, he seems to have dated too much, since syphilis sent him mad and
> then killed him.

A nice example of clear, thoughtful writing. Bertel may be mad, but he
seems to still be alive and kicking.

/dps

--
"Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself
is a good thing to do, You may be a fool but you're the fool in
charge." -- Carl Reiner

Le 08/08/2023 à 01:25, Peter Moylan a écrit :
> On 08/08/23 06:13, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>
>> "While there's a lot of fun timey-wimey stuff going on, Wells' prose
>> isn't easy to digest. Part of it is the writing style of the time
>> and another part is that science fiction was still in diapers at the
>> time this was written.
>>
>> "Wells' depiction of future Earth was a very memorable one, one that
>> influenced countless authors that came after. Adjusting for the time
>> period, The Time Machine is a fun yet somewhat difficult read. Four
>> out of five Sonic Screwdrivers."
>>
>> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25299349-the-time-machine
>>
>> (If you want to see the whole review, go to that page and search for
>> "wolfed".)
>
> Thanks. Thought-provoking, but I'd like to know more about who the
> reviewer was, and examples of passages that were a difficult read. I
> can't help thinking that this looks like a school assignment, from
> someone who was reluctant to read the assigned text. The second
> paragraph reminds me of "Columbus Day was a very great man", from a
> school essay by Charlie Brown's sister.

I suspect reluctance is the key. Wells's English is just another
dialect, and most college students already have to deal with several
dialects - their home one and the one where they are, those of fellow
students from elsewhere, those of lecturers, the broadcast media
including American media (foreign to non-Americans), the argot of the
young.... People are good at understanding different dialects. 'While'
for 'until', 'grockle' for 'tourist', 'bank' for 'hill'.... Then there's
Chinese English, familiar to us all from instruction manuals. "Do not
boiling" it says on our new shower curtain. A moment's pause, and then
we understands. Accents are often harder, but are weaker in print.

> "Science fiction was still in diapers". Why is this relevant? It's true
> that a lot of early science fiction was written by crap writers [...]

Ha! Nappies and c.!

Le 08/08/2023 à 06:26, Hibou a écrit :
>
> A moment's pause, and then we understands.

Yes, we even understand what Gollum says - and understand other
fictional characters with their own ways of speaking.

Le 07/08/2023 à 20:56, Sam Plusnet a écrit :
>
> WIWAL, H G Wells and other early authors were commonly read.  I assume
> people writing in the post-Wells period would be (could be) influenced
> by those works.
>
> I have the impression that modern readers (wild generalisation here) are
> more inclined to read more modern works, and to links to the past are
> weakening.

And yet, any old book that is still in print (or that someone thinks is
worth scanning and publishing) must have some merit, so it's easier to
find good old books. Good new books are hidden in the dross.