A Lesson in Vocabulary

Victorians are known for many things. Much of those things are covered in lace, highly decorative, and very elaborate. Their language was no different.

I have found a decent resource for Victorian Vocabulary.

I will share a few words with you. Some words you may have heard before. Others you may not have.

acquiesce (verb) – to consent or comply passively or without protest

assuage (verb) – to satisfy or appease

besotted (verb) – to muddle or stupefy

discomfiture (noun) – frustration or disappointment

ignominious (adj.) – marked by shame or disgrace

lacerate (verb) – to rip, cut, or tear

remonstrance (noun) – an act of protest, complaint, or reproof, especially a formal statement of grievances

turbid (adj.) – heavy, dark, or dense, as smoke or fog

Victoria Reigns!

Or at least her style does.

I've decided that my little ladies, Franny and Roxie, will be from the Victorian era. Late 1890's, early 1900's. One of them will be spending the summer at a health resort for some incredulous disease. The other will be amidst the murder and rely on her companion to help her solve it.

I've discovered some very helpful links. The next few posts will be going over these links more in depth.

I'll start with this link though. I found it to be quite interesting. Despite the interesting cryptogram letters, which I won't be using, I was struck by the use of ribbon in the paper itself. Its something to consider when I start working on the form.

The Critique

After much deliberation and anticipation, the results are in!!

I need to do more work.

But I knew that. The good news is that I'm heading in the right direction. I need to flesh out the characters more. The plot is there, but needs a little more elaboration.

The bad news? Now I have a whole bunch more to think about. Its not really bad, its just more. Now I have to think about how I'm going to present the final. How I'm going to format the letter. So much to think about.

I think my next step is to start researching Victorian letter writing.

An Observation

I've been doing a little thinking about the many forms that modern letters come in. Traditional letters have sort of transformed into emails, and old school notes have turned into text messages. But what gets lost electronically? Yes, emails can have fancy "stationary" that creates a background for the content, and you can pick the font that you type it up in, but you can't really put your signature on it (unless you create a jpeg of your signature and paste it into the bottom of every email). The handwritten quality gets lost. Notes, simple notes that you pass to each other in class lose the fun of folding it up into a paper football or a paper samurai hat. You can't fold a text message into a samurai hat. Chatspeak, or txtsk, is a whole other element to texting. It's not even like its consistent either.

Two different translations of the same sentence are seen here: The first translation- n my opiniN, txt spk cn gt vry confusn, seriSly. I mean hu cn undRst& ll dis? dats w@ QWERTY keyboards wr inventd 4!

And the Second- n my opinion, txt spk cn git v confusing, CreslE. I mean hu cn undRstNd aL this? datz wot QWERTY keyboards wer invented for!

And that's not even how I would text it- IMO, txt spk can get vry confusing, srsly. I mean, who can understand all this? Thats what QWERTY keybrds were invented 4!

Not to mention whole lists of acronyms and short hands! This is just one of many.
Oh, modern technology...

Some Formal Requirements

After a little bit of poking around in the giant vat of the internet, I found a few pages on the formal layout of a letter. This guide shows you everything from business letters to love letters, and every thing in between. I'm a little concerned if you need help writing a love letter, but hey, what do I know? I think for my own personal use, I'll be using a friendly letter format. Friendly letters do have a specified format. There will be further research on this. Must. Read. More. Letters.

Ooh! Look! A Book!

In my attempts to find proper letter formats, I came across a book of letters. In this book, entitled "More Letters to Rollins", is an entire collection of fan mail. Yes, this is a sequel. But before we get too wrapped up in that fact, lets quickly move on to the form.

Each letter in the book is typed in a font that best represents its original form. From some of the research I've done it's hard to discern whether or not these letters are really real, but for sake of this explanation, let's say they are. Some fonts are repeated, others are not. There are also pictures included with some of the letters and one particularly adorable hand written letter by a young girl named Ashley. Some of them are formal, with headers and addresses, others appear to be emails. Others still seem like notes, scrawled on paper, typed up before printing. Some of the letters have actual signatures, others just typed names. Now, onto the content.

Each of these letters reflects a new side to the multi-faceted Henry Rollins. Some are continued conversations, in which we the readers only see their half of the conversation. None of the letters have a response from Henry. Some of the letters to correlate to other letters within the book. In this way, through connected letters and multiple correspondences, characters are created. None of them are very deeply developed, but you do know quite a bit about them through the way they write and what they say.

In general it's a very interesting perspective. This book is a great example of what is acceptable for modern letters.

Letters: a Correspondence

Letters, as in the alphabet, are the basis for which writing is based in most languages. But letters are also pieces of paper passed back and forth from people to people to transfer information. These letters were, and still are, the predecessors of email. This system was also known as correspondence. Dictionary.com has aided me by giving me the definition for letters as well as the definition for correspondence.

I have a very distinct memory of learning how to properly write a letter in first grade. I'm sure that this has changed over the years, and perhaps my research shall lead me to discover its many forms.