My WIP is set in the present. In it I have a 16-year-old girl refer to someone as "a rube." Is this a term a 16-year-old of today would know? If not, what would be a good alternative?
Checking for Anachronisms
- Thread starter popmuze
- Start date
- Status
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,484
- Reaction score
- 437
- Location
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Website
- donnetowntoday.blogspot.com
When I was 16, I knew a lot of old-fashioned words. If she's at all well-read, she'll know the term. (Is she? It's your character.)
I agree. A person's language is influenced by cultural background and education just as much as age.
It depends on your character's background. I agree that if she's well-read, educated, etc. she would know the word and it wouldn't come off as weird. However, you would have to bet on many of your readers not knowing it, so you'd need to make sure context makes it clear.
She doesn't have to be well read. Maybe she heard the word on a YouTube video, or read it in a blog comment, and liked the word so uses it. I've found a lot of kids do this. Thanks to that big truck known as the internet, there's so much access to, well... everything that kids today know a lot more random things / words / phrases / etc than you can shake a stick at, things you wouldn't expect a kid their age / from their cultural background / whatever to know. It all depends on if it fits your character and story.
It was my favorite phrase as a child , but that wouldn't be typical. Whoever she called a rube (if another teen) would unlikely know the word unless they were also well read.
I... dunno what a rube is, and I'm 23? after a quick poll, friends don't either... but maybe if the character's parents used it a lot or something, she could've picked it up?
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2011
- Messages
- 2,537
- Reaction score
- 217
In the old days, when trouble broke out with townies, carnival and circus roustabouts would call out "Hey, Rube!" which was a distress call to their colleagues. But I think the usage was exclusive to that culture.
Becca C.
Registered
"Rube" was circus lingo for the spectators. They use it in Water for Elephants. That's the only place I've ever heard it, and I'm 19.
I was thinking more along the lines of "doofus." That being used anymore? In other words, a clueless innocent, rather than a carnival geek.
If you have an anachronism, just explain it away as a character quirk. I have a character from 2067 using the phrase "Care Bear stare" because her father collects 20/21st century memorabilia for her at his job (which is salvaging the ruins of Detroit).
Honestly, I would just say "dumbass." Either in an affectionate way or not, it works for both...
- Status