Boomer-speak in Historical Fiction

OK, this one's a bit of rant, a bit of humor, and a call for your own comments in the same vein.

I just read a book set in Ancient Ireland with the following line in it:

She worked with the Dagda to save her people from cultural annihilation.

"Cultural annihilation"???  Could the author not have used a simple lesss anaachronistic lline like:

She worked with the Dagda to save her people's very existence.

Or just leave off the "'s very existence."  Think of the ink it would have saved, along with the people.
So as soon as I told my husband about this one he piped up with something like, "I suppose you could put Earl Sagar (a rather dour fellow from my Anglo Saxon novel, An Involuntary King) standing in a sield wall wondering, 'Am I still relevant?  Or should I reinvent myself' and wondering which of the King's companions would be a good life coach for him."

I suppose it would not be beyond imagining that Sir Francis Walsingham might "take a meeting" and present h is "agenda"  though his attempts to reach consensus would be precluded not b language but by personality.

Did Mary Boleyn complain of sexual harrassment?  Well, maybe not complain...

It certainly would not be out of the question that Julius Caesar would worry about imperialism...

I knwo Robin Hood was definitely trying to live green.

As you see, I am a bit out of touch concerning Boomerspeak.. so I shall rely on you for deliverables like that.

Foxe Tail, by Haley Walsh, a Skyler Foxe Mystery

Foxe Tail

Haley Walsh

Yeah, I know, it's not historical... but I'm multidimensional, like most everyone else.  Well, three dimensional.. I like historical novels, end of the world novels, and M/M novels.  This fits one of those dimensions, OK?

Skyler Fox is a new English teacher at James Polk High in a small town way out off LA.  He went to that school too, so it means all the more to him to be part of the faculty.  He fears being outed as a gay man mainly because he wants to keep his job, and though legally they couldn't fire him for that, they certainly could lay him off.  So when a gorgeous new biology teacher starts at Polk, he has to struggle to hide his attraction.  Things heat up in other ways, however, and rather than proving to be a distraction, Skyler starts wondering if there are connections between the biology teacher and the dastardly goings-on.

The mystery starts with the murder of the principal's son behind a gay dance club.  Skyler and his police detective friend Sydney think the club must be mixed up somehow with the murder, so they pursue that angle of investigation.  Sydney is annoyed at Sky for getting too involved with the case, bur it seems boys will be boys and in spite of threats on his life, Sky persists.  He becomes invollved with helping a student get onto the football team, hoping it will help his behavior problems.  It is then that Skyler begins to suspect the football faculty of being up to no good and possibly even connected to the murder.

Skyler is quite likable, has the sort of bachelor life we most of us envy but know better than to think really exists, but sometimes you just want to slap him.  He can be obtuse about dangers at times, and makes some questionable judgment calls, like taking his former Latin lover with him to the princiipal's house.  Other characters fill out the cast, Skyler's detective and other friends, the other teachers, and a few peripheral characters, including a big handsome guy with piercings "down there" that Sky brings home for the books only actual sex scene.

The initial mystery  did not catch this reader's imagination, but when the jocks at Polk High bring in their own sinister subplot, I got really into it.  The book is what the author called "a story arc" so I was caught unawares when the initial mystery was solved but much was left dangling.  Interesting literary idea, but I tend to think it risks someone losing interest before the next part of the arc is published.  Fortunately for me it's coming out next month.

One aspect of this novel that struck me was how difficult it is for Skyler to have to listen to anti-gay comments from fellow teachers.  he wants to argue but he is too caught up in hiding his own lifestyle.  that is just one of the injustices someone like Skyler must cope with, having to accept behavior that hurts but nonetheless having his very fears proved by the behavior.  I know from experience if he does come out, with something sort of similar being a person with a disability, that the situation would shift from "we get to say who we hate" to "we have to walk on egg shells around him".  Walsh brings all this out clearly and sensitively.

Novels Set NOW Can Be Fun Too!

It's only $3.99 and worth a lot more just with what fun it is.  Laaksonen is a  natural, a clever and witty storyteller, great sex scenes, playful, characters you will fall in love with, and a dog who gets a second chance.  It's a quick read too.  No complaining you don't have time, OK?  And even if you are not into vampires, this is a book that will make you laugh.

Molly and the Vampire: A Sensible Woman Learns about Love, Lust and Things That Go Bump in the NightLinda Laaksonen
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/76717

It will be out in print.. but why wait?

Keeping Tabs On.. The Gambling lexicon

Planning a novvel that will feature a riverboat gambler from the mid 19th century, I started looking into what card games were commonly employed by gamblers.  One of the most popular was a game called faro.  In it players place bets on which of a full set of a particular suit of cards will be drawn from the card box or "faro bank".  Two cards are placed on either side of the bank, one called the banker's card and the other the player's card.  If a player matches the banker's card, he loses.  If he matches the player's card, he wins.

I still need to learn how to play this game, how one wins and how one cheats.  But one thing I learned from a video on YouTube about faro is that players would often keep track of what cards were played on small pieces of paper.  These pieces of paper were called "tabs"  As they were used to keep the banker honest, to "keep tabs on someone" came to mean keeping track of their actions or assertions.

Wanna play?

History of Riverboat Wagering

Enjoy this article, obviously creatively translated into English from some other language, extolling the history of gamblling on Mississippi riverboats.  I found this as part of the research for my next novel...

The US is very well known for having several worlds’ major and most sumptuous casinos. However, the US also differentiates its wagering presence from other realms in another way i.e. riverboat wagering. In fact, the US has a profound history of riverboat wagering that extents roughly two centuries! If you are a aficionado of gambling world, then you’ll certainly enjoy this look back on the past of riverboat wagering.

Mississippi River: an attraction for the Professional Gamblers
The most prehistoric days of the riverboat gaming date back to the early on in the 19th century when the Mississippi River was packed with dealers. Since water haulage was huge in the US deal scene during this era, many rich dealers pursue the map and down the Mississippi River. Moreover, considering as how it is an extensive journey from one end to the other, wagering became a trendy way to overtake the time.

It was not long before when the proficient gamblers found their mode to the riverboats at Mississippi. Soon the riverboat gaming was flourishing as the card games and the other games of likelihood were ordinary among the traders and the pro-gamblers.
However, many of the rich dealers began to grasp onto the card cheats, and it was not long before people in progress taking the matters into their own hands. In the year 1835, five gamblers were hanged for being deceitful in a card game; other experts observe this message and the riverboat wagering began fading down. Surely, there was still riverboat wagering, but not in the equal capability that it had been ever before.

In 1861, the Civil War bust out in America and the riverboats were not able to do much itinerant on the Mississippi River – or any other rivers for that stuff. In the outcome of the war, riverboat wagering pretty much vanished except for hardly any remote card games now and there.

The Birth of the Riverboat Casinos
The US is not a very open-minded country when it comes to the matter of wagering. Most of their land-based wagering is done in the Las Vegas, Atlantic City, a few top quality cities, and the Indian qualms. Therefore, when small state of Iowa was appearing for a way to proffer officially permitted wagering as a means of accumulating the tax revenue, the state of affairs looked bleak. That is pending they discovered riverboat gambling.

Iowa officials found that if their casinos were dwelling on the riverboats, they could lawfully function as long as the cruisers sailed out into the river so often. This dodge enabled Iowa to proffer the United States’ the first riverboat casino. It was not long before the supplementary states such as Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi and Michigan had riverboat casinos of their own.

Modern Day Riverboat Gambling
The commandments surrounding the riverboat wagering have loosened significantly over the last two decades. Now the riverboats do not even have to leave the wharf, and they can be kept on the stilts while keeping hold of the legality. The sloppy laws involving the riverboat wagering has given mount to lots of sail ships wagering too.

Today, many of the riverboats and the sail ships proffer full-service casinos along with the slots, blackjack, poker, roulette and the other games. Moreover, what is grand about the riverboat casinos is that they allow the gamblers from all the states to take pleasure in the nearby wagering; in the past, populace had to tour to the Las Vegas or Atlantic City just to wager.
Ofcourse, with the mount in the online casinos, citizens do not even have to depart from their dwelling to wager!

Stolen wholecloth from http://www.superonlinecasino.com/casino-articles/general/history-of-riverboat-wagering.

Expressions and Where They Really Came From: "Deadd Ringer"

Nope, not this.

The other day at a pizza restaurant our waiter, who said his name was "Awesome" and who kept feeding us trivia questions hit on a wrong answer I had heard before.  He told us the expression "dead ringer" came from a period when premature burials were creeping everyone out so they started putting bells on caskets.  I knew that could not be right if only because the expression "dead ringer" means a perfect imitation.  How would that follow from tinntinnabulating coffins?

It doesn't.  The actual origin of the term comes from another meaning of both "ringer" and "dead".

You will be familiar with the term "ringer" meaning someone who steps in to take another person's place, the implication always being that the replacement is a much better performer than the original.  Sometimes a ball team puts in a ringer to throw off the strategy and expectations of the opposite team.  This comes from horse racing originally.  A "ringer" was a horse that looked just like one with a poor record of performance and therefore higher odds against winning.  The "ringer" will be mistaken for the less able nag, so when it wins, being a better racer, the trickster will win big.

"Dead" also means more than just deceased.  It also means precise or exact.  Like "She hit it dead on."

So a "dead ringer" is someone or something that is absolutely identical to something else.  You say "The actor who played him was a dead ringer for Thomas Cranmer."

In general, if an expression's claimed origin does not reflect it's current meaning in some way, it's wrong.