I just checked the dictionary and found out that "wow" dates back to the early 1500s. That said, a number of people have read "wow" in my fantasy stories and told me that the slang took them out and was too modern. I'm not discounting their feelings, and in retrospect I'm not sure if I've seen that word in fantasy or historical. How do you feel about it? Does it sound modern to you? Even if it is from the 1500s, in this case is truth stranger than fiction?
In those early centuries, it was primarily Scottish. It wasn't used in the English lexicon until the late 1800s. Edit: I knew I could find it. Here's exactly what you're looking for. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/09/wow.html Oxford says the first printed English usage was in 1892. Don't know when that lands in your novel though. Hopefully you're in the clear.
"Wow" certainly sound modern and I for one wouldn't have thought that it dated back to before the 1960s. Thanks for the information.
So which dictionary is John using, and why should I trust it more than the OED? Of course, if it's borrowed from another language like Scottish, it might not have been considered old by the OED, but then again, unless you're setting your story in pre-modern Scotland, it would certainly be out of place.
"Wow" 1513 - Used to express strong feelings such as pleasure or surprise. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate 11th Edition
Unfortunately, it does sound modern. How were you using "wow"? As an interjection? That would fit the time period so long as the story took place in Scotland. If used as a verb though, that didn't happen until 1926. One of my favorite sources is Etymonline. Although this doesn't help with things that merely sound modern but aren't necessarily so. Interjections seem to be really problematic for historical fiction if it's something that's commonly used today.
I consider myself a history buff, and this is new to me. Interesting. I certainly would have read 'wow' as an anachronism if I ran across it in a piece of historical fiction. And yet, apparently, it's not. Hmmm. I wonder if you could find an instance of it being used in writing from, say 4-500 years ago? It might help put it in context. I'll keep my eye out for such an instance. In fact, I have a cunning plan....
That Tiffany thread is the most fun I've had on 'the internet' in a long long time. For once, the comments that follow are well worth reading. They cover lots of topics ...some not entirely related to the original concept—such as the randomness of the iPod shuffle—but fun....
Yeah, don't care how far back wow goes. It still sounds modern and out of place in historical fiction. Part of the fun of writing historical fiction is finding those odd words and phrases that just feel right. In my WIP I recently replaced the word crazy with batty for just that reason. Some months back I was looking for a religious exclamation, something authentic and unexpected for one of my characters to say after surviving an encounter with a ghost. I found it in a poem by William Blake... If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus, He'd have done anything to please us: Gone sneaking into synagogues And not us’d the Elders and Priests like dogs But humble as a lamb or ass Obey’d Himself to Caiaphas.
I've heard this expression used by Irish poets and writers and speakers. Good to know where it came from.
I dealt with the same conundrum with contractions. Yeah they used them but it seemed so out of place. The misses brought up a show she watches Queen Mary and listening to their dialog convinced me to reduce some of the contractions. It could be right and still so wrong.
Fantasy novel—doesn’t matter. It can certainly be consistent in the fantasy world. For historical fiction I think many readers would feel it is out of place, whether it is or not.
