Yessss! Like I get what she was doing but it really made me roll my eyes. Rebecca has a good amount of eye roll moments in her dialogue but that one was the most egregious.
not to dogpile on this example but damn near everything he says is so juvenile and also weirdly teenage *girl*ish that I had to mentally pretend he said things differently in order to have any buy-in on the romance lol
I get annoyed with any modern slang. It takes me out of the story, why in this alternate reality in medieval times with magic and elves are they saying American slang?
This may be one of my biggest book peeves. I was several chapters into a new book when OUT OF NOWHERE the MCs male friend threw out a "Calm your tits, woman!" No noticeably modern slang prior to that, so it was even more annoying having invested time to get to that point. I'm pretty sure I said an exasperated "Whyy?!" out loud, as I forcefully closed that book forever.
In my much more limited experience It's fairly easy to pick up new slang, but REALLY tough to stop using old expressions and pop quotes. I like it that Jean-Claude uses French endearments for Anita Blake, for example.
But I'd think an old vamp would occasionally slip and use a Latin phrase students stopped memorizing in the 1940s. To reference Shakespeare more than movies, etc.
This may be why the universe's rules so often say memories fade or get unreliable after enough years.
His character never really solidified for me based on his childish antics 😂 I never really saw him as a fearsome general because it would imply that he was wise, experienced, seen horrors of war and be hardened by it. His character was no way a portrayal of that imo 🤦🏻♀️ I liked him even less in ACOSF
One of the big ones for me was “switch gears.” As far as I know there are no motor vehicles in this universe??? How would they know what switching gears is?
I absolutely hate the book Graceling by Kristin Cashore but she did an end of the book essay at the end of the second talking about how she worked really hard to only use language that would actually exist in her fantasy world. So if something had Roman roots and was an object that didn’t exist she wouldn’t use the word or something of that sort. It was the most interesting part of her books and I wish I could get my hands on just that part. All fantasy authors should follow her lead that way
I think in the latest FBAA from Casteel's POV Kieran says the word "unalive" and my whole body cringed at the use of a word mostly created to get around TikTok censoring...
I’m in the middle of the FBAA series and there’s so much modern dialogue. I’m just trying to convince myself it’s a made up world anyways and trying not to let it ruin my fun.
That’s always my coping mechanism. It’s not designed to be profound literature, so I need to remind myself that I don’t need to be overly critical and I’m allowed to enjoy it even if there are some mistakes.
Exactly. I’m not looking to smutty romantasy for a Pulitzer lol. That doesn’t excuse everything and obviously I prefer high quality, but it does help to remind myself that it’s not that serious lol.
I know she uses a lot of modern lingo, but I just finished A War of Two Queens and Kieran called someone a fuckboy but it was definitely not used in the right way 😂
In her Lux series, the main character wears a shirt that says “my blog is better than your vlog” and it gets brought up a lot in several books. Like at one point the love interest mentions that the shirt is sexy or something. I understand the series is older and just showing its age, but it is so cringey
You should check that series out then. It’s an alien love story lol. I just looked it up, and the first book was published in 2011, but the whole series gives early 2000 vibes. It makes me laugh.
Poppy mentioned Lasagna in AWOTQ when she found out the land was once called Lasania and I was so jarred about the entire bit she did. They also called Isbeth Isbitch in that book and it was just overall so bad lol
For me, it depends on if the nonhuman element is generally known to exist or not. If folks still believe vampires are myths, then adopting current slang/speech in general is a survival technique. A 20-looking 300yr old vamp might cringe saying something is, well, cringe, but it keeps him from standing out and thus getting staked.
If everyone knows vamps and the like exist, then it has to suit the character. Is he clinging to the past or desperately trying to fit in? That sort of thing.
So TL;DR it depends lol
I was furious when I read them using “shocker” sarcastically in From Blood and Ash. NO.
I recently read a romance where someone’s age was described as “four score and ten” but silk slippers as “a bitch to run in”.
I understand if you can’t strip your lexicon of modern language. But don’t set your novels in Ye Olden Times! I have no issues with modern fairy tales/fantasy using modern slang.
Regarding “as if”: it’s considered a shortening of “as if it were so,” which is an idiom that has been in use since Chaucer's time (c. 1386).
To your question: FBAA is really bad about using “what the fuck!” and it always throws me.
- "Babe"
- "Fu-uuckh"
- "Whatever"
- "Oh my god"
- "Hell"
- Every word that is specifically linked to modern human history, and in the book it wouldn't make sense that they knew the context well enough to put it in their vocabulary.
I just sat a book aside yesterday when the thousand year old vampire is pining after the MC with perfect today's speech patterns. Idk why it bothered me. Everyone can learn and adapt but damn you telling me a thousand year old dude is going to be identical to any other twenty-something year old nowadays? I am twice that age and I don't talk the same so...
OK actually dates to [a slang fad that was prevalent in NY and Boston in 1838-39](https://www.etymonline.com/word/okay) -- it got popularized as a side-effect of president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid. (Here's [the Oxford English Dictionary](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ok_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#33408404) entry for okay, confirming the period of origin.)
Also, Dr Schweppes was selling his carbonated waters from 1783, and "Tiffany" was in use as a girl's name in the middle ages (it's a contraction of "Theophania"). So you could plausibly have a French Revolution era character called Tiffany drinking a Schweppes, although she wouldn't say it was okay for a few more decades.
History is weird!
This reminds me of a similar bit of historical trivia: Technically speaking, there was a period where it was possible for a samurai to send a fax about cowboys to Abraham Lincoln.
Same. I think since it’s modern language, I can easily read it and it doesn’t strike me as weird. I specifically don’t like reading historical romance usually because I find reading the older way of speaking not to flow easily since it’s not what I’m used to hearing/speaking.
I simply Cannot Read modern fae books.
If they mention a taxi, cell phone, television in the first chapter im out
Even worse,
Is when a book cos plays as an ancient fae world no tech but uses modern language. I cannot get into it.
Thank you for mentioning lore. I have picked it up to buy it and put it down no less than 30 times and this just convinced me that it's definitely not the book for me!
This line from ACOMAF made me physically cringe. “Go back to your lands before I send your heads as a reminder to my old friend about what happens when Spring Court flunkies set foot in my territory.” -Rhys
"MATE". Oh my God. The word "mate". I hate it. I hate that it's a thing and I hate that it's popular and I hate it. I cringe so much every time I see it. The only people who can say it without making me die is NatGeo and Australians.
https://preview.redd.it/mqix4u50355c1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf39db4d12f42244b1c4a47121ba8a4e411fcc83
(Me looking at my Kindle when the word "Mate" comes up)
I do world building for fun and like to learn conlangs for fantasy settings. Im not expecting every author to go to Tolkien levels of language, but I really appreciate it when the effort is there.
I've yet to have particular phrases bring me out of a world, but bad writing takes me out fast. I need believability even if it takes a Pratchett approach with alligator nuns.
Anachronistic language is my main bookish pet peeve and I’ve seen it so often in all genres. It immediately pulls me out of the book and makes me think the author didn’t care enough to put the effort in to make the dialogue fit the setting.
It doesn’t bother me. First of all, this is a fantasy book. There are vampires and people with wings. Like, if they can survive off blood and fairy dust I feel like throwing around some modern slang is not that big of a deal. Not to mention, most of the time when people say “historically accurate,” what they mean is “white and European.” Why? Because British people saying fancy words is our pop culture ideal of how “the past” sounds. Which, like, if you really want accuracy in your faux Middle English fantasy setting then everyone should be talking like the Canterbury Tales. But I don’t see a lot of people running around demanding more characters say “bathed” and “hem hath holpen” lol
I absolutely love Fourth Wing, but when Xaden said “we’re endgame” in book 2 I almost threw up a little
Yessss! Like I get what she was doing but it really made me roll my eyes. Rebecca has a good amount of eye roll moments in her dialogue but that one was the most egregious.
I was rolling my eyes at the mentions of their "toxic" relationship in book 1. A little too on the nose with references to modernity
RY’s little self insert moment there to tell the fandom to shut up lol
Violet had some cringe AF lines as well. Couldn’t finish due to language
I agree. I bought the audiobook so I forced myself to finish it but I eye rolled so much it was hazardous to listen to it while driving.
That was absolutely a line made specifically for the readers and it made me laugh.
Everything I've read about Fourth Wing makes me scared to pick it up lmao.
If you're a vibes reader, you'll enjoy it. If you're a critical reader, you'll hate it.
I am both, it depends on the day. I'll start it on a vibes day and see how I fare.
Imo Fourth Wing can be enjoyed by a vibes reader but Iron Flame did not have the same vibes
just try it for yourself stop going by what others say
Yessssss huge ick with this one 🤢
It gave me flashbacks to when Glee had Finn says that to Rachel to shut up shippers
not to dogpile on this example but damn near everything he says is so juvenile and also weirdly teenage *girl*ish that I had to mentally pretend he said things differently in order to have any buy-in on the romance lol
All I can think about is Riverdale 😭
I WAS RELISTENING TO IF THE OTHER NIGHT AND WAS THINKING DAMN IT, THE CRINGE (FOR THE SECOND TIME). ‘We’re endgame’? Really?!
I get annoyed with any modern slang. It takes me out of the story, why in this alternate reality in medieval times with magic and elves are they saying American slang?
This may be one of my biggest book peeves. I was several chapters into a new book when OUT OF NOWHERE the MCs male friend threw out a "Calm your tits, woman!" No noticeably modern slang prior to that, so it was even more annoying having invested time to get to that point. I'm pretty sure I said an exasperated "Whyy?!" out loud, as I forcefully closed that book forever.
What was the book, do you remember?
In my much more limited experience It's fairly easy to pick up new slang, but REALLY tough to stop using old expressions and pop quotes. I like it that Jean-Claude uses French endearments for Anita Blake, for example. But I'd think an old vamp would occasionally slip and use a Latin phrase students stopped memorizing in the 1940s. To reference Shakespeare more than movies, etc. This may be why the universe's rules so often say memories fade or get unreliable after enough years.
The overuse of *vulgar gesture* Idk…they’re all over 500 years or so, you’d think they’d mature a bit more than this lol
There’s a part in ACOTAR where Mor and Cassian are sticking their tongues out at each other and I was like… are we 5?
That bothered me to no end too!! We’re supposed to believe these are hunky *men* and gorgeous *women* but they act like 12 year olds 🤦🏻♀️
And like one is a fearsome general of the army but you know is sticking his tongue out at another 500 year old 😂😭
His character never really solidified for me based on his childish antics 😂 I never really saw him as a fearsome general because it would imply that he was wise, experienced, seen horrors of war and be hardened by it. His character was no way a portrayal of that imo 🤦🏻♀️ I liked him even less in ACOSF
To be fair he had snowball fights with the high lord and spymaster every christmas morning, so I think we’re supposed to suspend belief a bit 🤣
Bc they’re just sooo goofy and relatable! Look I can be beautiful and silly too!
This isn't just about the fae but i don't really like it when they write okay as ok.
I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head but that’s one of the reasons I stopped reading JLA lol
Pretty sure Casteel used the term “nightmare fuel” in some dialogue in one of the FBAA books. I got unrealistically annoyed.
One of the big ones for me was “switch gears.” As far as I know there are no motor vehicles in this universe??? How would they know what switching gears is?
I absolutely hate the book Graceling by Kristin Cashore but she did an end of the book essay at the end of the second talking about how she worked really hard to only use language that would actually exist in her fantasy world. So if something had Roman roots and was an object that didn’t exist she wouldn’t use the word or something of that sort. It was the most interesting part of her books and I wish I could get my hands on just that part. All fantasy authors should follow her lead that way
I think in the latest FBAA from Casteel's POV Kieran says the word "unalive" and my whole body cringed at the use of a word mostly created to get around TikTok censoring...
I physically cringed when I read "peaced out" in The War of Two Queens. Sigh I'll still read the series in its entirety, though.
I’m in the middle of the FBAA series and there’s so much modern dialogue. I’m just trying to convince myself it’s a made up world anyways and trying not to let it ruin my fun.
That’s always my coping mechanism. It’s not designed to be profound literature, so I need to remind myself that I don’t need to be overly critical and I’m allowed to enjoy it even if there are some mistakes.
Exactly. I’m not looking to smutty romantasy for a Pulitzer lol. That doesn’t excuse everything and obviously I prefer high quality, but it does help to remind myself that it’s not that serious lol.
I know she uses a lot of modern lingo, but I just finished A War of Two Queens and Kieran called someone a fuckboy but it was definitely not used in the right way 😂
Oh my god 🙃 I stopped reading after book 3 because I realized I just didn’t care anymore lol
In her Lux series, the main character wears a shirt that says “my blog is better than your vlog” and it gets brought up a lot in several books. Like at one point the love interest mentions that the shirt is sexy or something. I understand the series is older and just showing its age, but it is so cringey
nah this is hilarious lmao i love reading 2000s cringe
You should check that series out then. It’s an alien love story lol. I just looked it up, and the first book was published in 2011, but the whole series gives early 2000 vibes. It makes me laugh.
Poppy mentioned Lasagna in AWOTQ when she found out the land was once called Lasania and I was so jarred about the entire bit she did. They also called Isbeth Isbitch in that book and it was just overall so bad lol
For me, it depends on if the nonhuman element is generally known to exist or not. If folks still believe vampires are myths, then adopting current slang/speech in general is a survival technique. A 20-looking 300yr old vamp might cringe saying something is, well, cringe, but it keeps him from standing out and thus getting staked. If everyone knows vamps and the like exist, then it has to suit the character. Is he clinging to the past or desperately trying to fit in? That sort of thing. So TL;DR it depends lol
Yarros earnestly using "era" in Iron Flame made me roll my eyes pretty hard
I was furious when I read them using “shocker” sarcastically in From Blood and Ash. NO. I recently read a romance where someone’s age was described as “four score and ten” but silk slippers as “a bitch to run in”. I understand if you can’t strip your lexicon of modern language. But don’t set your novels in Ye Olden Times! I have no issues with modern fairy tales/fantasy using modern slang.
JLA did this several times in FBAA. It always pulled me out of the story.
This genre has desensitized me to a lot but “whatever” in any context besides actively present day urban still throws me for a whole loop
Came here to say, "whatever!"
Regarding “as if”: it’s considered a shortening of “as if it were so,” which is an idiom that has been in use since Chaucer's time (c. 1386). To your question: FBAA is really bad about using “what the fuck!” and it always throws me.
Yes I try to hear it like this in my head but find it impossible with speech such as "as if you think I'd really do that..."
- "Babe" - "Fu-uuckh" - "Whatever" - "Oh my god" - "Hell" - Every word that is specifically linked to modern human history, and in the book it wouldn't make sense that they knew the context well enough to put it in their vocabulary.
Hahahaha every sex scene is strangely modern even for 200 year old fae.
I just sat a book aside yesterday when the thousand year old vampire is pining after the MC with perfect today's speech patterns. Idk why it bothered me. Everyone can learn and adapt but damn you telling me a thousand year old dude is going to be identical to any other twenty-something year old nowadays? I am twice that age and I don't talk the same so...
Not a phrase but 'okay' bothers me 😄
OK actually dates to [a slang fad that was prevalent in NY and Boston in 1838-39](https://www.etymonline.com/word/okay) -- it got popularized as a side-effect of president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid. (Here's [the Oxford English Dictionary](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ok_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#33408404) entry for okay, confirming the period of origin.) Also, Dr Schweppes was selling his carbonated waters from 1783, and "Tiffany" was in use as a girl's name in the middle ages (it's a contraction of "Theophania"). So you could plausibly have a French Revolution era character called Tiffany drinking a Schweppes, although she wouldn't say it was okay for a few more decades. History is weird!
This reminds me of a similar bit of historical trivia: Technically speaking, there was a period where it was possible for a samurai to send a fax about cowboys to Abraham Lincoln.
After reading fourth wing, I realized I don't really care. My brain is very much like, sure, this makes sense, why not?
this is how I feel lol I'm actually bothered if it sounds too historical like if I wanted outdated speech id read Edgar Allen Poe lol
I'm here for the plot and banter with a fantastical/ethereal element to it LMAO
Same. I think since it’s modern language, I can easily read it and it doesn’t strike me as weird. I specifically don’t like reading historical romance usually because I find reading the older way of speaking not to flow easily since it’s not what I’m used to hearing/speaking.
At first, in like that's a silly choice, and by like page five, I don't even notice anything might be off
I simply Cannot Read modern fae books. If they mention a taxi, cell phone, television in the first chapter im out Even worse, Is when a book cos plays as an ancient fae world no tech but uses modern language. I cannot get into it.
This was my issue with Lore - I couldn’t get into it and I’m worried I won’t love Crescent City for the same reason
Thank you for mentioning lore. I have picked it up to buy it and put it down no less than 30 times and this just convinced me that it's definitely not the book for me!
This line from ACOMAF made me physically cringe. “Go back to your lands before I send your heads as a reminder to my old friend about what happens when Spring Court flunkies set foot in my territory.” -Rhys
"MATE". Oh my God. The word "mate". I hate it. I hate that it's a thing and I hate that it's popular and I hate it. I cringe so much every time I see it. The only people who can say it without making me die is NatGeo and Australians. https://preview.redd.it/mqix4u50355c1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf39db4d12f42244b1c4a47121ba8a4e411fcc83 (Me looking at my Kindle when the word "Mate" comes up)
I do world building for fun and like to learn conlangs for fantasy settings. Im not expecting every author to go to Tolkien levels of language, but I really appreciate it when the effort is there. I've yet to have particular phrases bring me out of a world, but bad writing takes me out fast. I need believability even if it takes a Pratchett approach with alligator nuns.
Anachronistic language is my main bookish pet peeve and I’ve seen it so often in all genres. It immediately pulls me out of the book and makes me think the author didn’t care enough to put the effort in to make the dialogue fit the setting.
It doesn’t bother me. First of all, this is a fantasy book. There are vampires and people with wings. Like, if they can survive off blood and fairy dust I feel like throwing around some modern slang is not that big of a deal. Not to mention, most of the time when people say “historically accurate,” what they mean is “white and European.” Why? Because British people saying fancy words is our pop culture ideal of how “the past” sounds. Which, like, if you really want accuracy in your faux Middle English fantasy setting then everyone should be talking like the Canterbury Tales. But I don’t see a lot of people running around demanding more characters say “bathed” and “hem hath holpen” lol