What are some common Newer Than They Think things to avoid in 19th century historical fiction?

Specifically, the story is set in New England during the American Civil War. I'm mostly looking for Newer Than They Think words and phrases to avoid in dialogue, and things we take for granted today that were actually very rare or nonexistent back then (other than the obvious stuff like smartphones, heh). Anything, no matter how small, is welcome. My audience is much more familiar with the era than me, and just one out-of-place term could break their immersion.

I'm interested in the topic, as well, though for slightly different reasons.

this might help with the tech (Shaving, AC and below were 1900s only, and thus too recent if I'm reading your title right. The Civil War ended in 1865, so Barbed Wire to Submarines are also out for that period)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 7th 2023 at 3:59:02 AM

Germ theory is one that springs to mind—we didn't have the greatest understanding of diseases and infections until really late into the 19th century. Antibiotics came even later.

Edited by Chortleous on Oct 7th 2023 at 6:04:48 AM

I recently read a historical novel in which a character, speaking around the time of the Great Disappointment of 1844, used the word "fundamentalist," which most sources say was coined in 1920. Also, check the history of any infrastructure your characters may use. For instance, people relied on ferries in many places where people nowadays would take a bridge or tunnel for granted.

Was the word used in the same sense? (As opposed to some other coinage—perhaps literally meaning "someone who sticks to the fundamentals".)

(See by comparison the term "undead", which Stoker seems to have coined in its currently meaning, but which previously could be used to simply mean "not dead", e.g. "alive".)

You should also make research on things that might be Older Than They Think. For example, there were vending machines in the late 1800s (at least in London).

That is interesting to know!

Indeed, you prompted me to look it up—and it seems that such devices actually existed far earlier still! (If, I imagine, with rather more limited distribution.)

Specifically, Wikipedia mentions coin-operated tobacco-dispensing machines in 1615, and a machine that dispensed wine or holy water in first-century Roman Egypt! ^_^

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Oct 14th 2023 at 3:18:39 PM

Also iirc air conditioning was already a thing in ancient middle east, and they had some kind of "fridge rooms" where ice didn't melt despite them living in desert areas, and running water^note  (by quick googling water pipes seem to go back to the Indus Valley civilization, though they're a pretty new thing in Europe. Completely unrelated to the subject because wrong century, but i've heard the natives in the Americas had apartment-like buildings in their cities before colonization and also had running water. My point being a shit load of "modern" stuff is actually ''ancient'', and just taking for granted that something didn't exist yet would be a bad idea no matter if it feels "unrealistic"). I think clockwork robots were also an entire thing, mostly fancy curiosities.

Edited by Nukeli on Nov 5th 2023 at 3:41:32 PM

pretty sure the running water thing was what facilitated lead poisoning in ancient rome.

I'm certain burger joints were not a thing in there unless you take the "long 19th interpretation" interpretation like me and expand it to the 1930s. (White Castle was a thing around then), though the individual foodstuffs might've been realized concepts in the 19th.

It did, but it was still a thing already.

This post goes into a bit more detail, but basically using the word "issue" as a synonym for "problem" (ex. "What's the issue?") wasn't a thing until the late 1970s to mid-1990s.

I think if you want to mimic 19th century speech then you would be best off reading a book written around then.

But is period literature really a trustworthy reflection of the language? They had those ideas about propriety and all that, so the characters usually didn't swear etc.

Not to mention that English was more chaotic and inconsistent at the time with symbols that would be incomprehensible to modern readers (of which I think þ is the most easy to grasp as it is used for /th/ and didn't have wonky rules like long ss, and is distinct enough in modern print) and inconsistent spellings and trends (including the decision to sub y for þ, which is how we got one prominent aspect of Ye Olde Butchered English. It was supposed to be read as "the" like normal but the loss of the symbol meant that people now take it at face value and read it as "ye")

That is another thing to consider. Older forms of English had its own quirks that should be considered if your attempting for accuracy there and people have their own assumptions about these quirks that are themselves anachronisms (again the "ye" thing is an example). It would be better off to just use modern English (and the þ symbols for /th/ :þ) than to attempt to learn which conflicting version of old and middle English to use for the story.

Exactly. Forcing old language in a modern-day story could make it incomprehensible to normal people.

Were talking about 1800s not 800s. That is Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Dickens etc. those are all readable to a modern reader.

As far as the difference between real dialogue and dialogue in literature, literature is the best source we have. Private letters might also be found online.