colloquialism

avid-dreamer · Dec 18, 2007

ok people! I'm here making my final edits with my agent before my book goes back to the publisher.
I need some help:

My MC is a 500 year old Romania guy. He enters a sewer with a my main female character and he says : "This place reeks."

My agent says that it is an odd colloquialism and I should give him a "more dignified complaint".

HELP. I thought what he said was pretty dignified. :Shrug:

Any suggestions?

JoNightshade · Dec 18, 2007

I think the term "reeks" is a modern one, although the word itself has been around for a long time. We now use the phrase "this reeks" as a kind of slang term to mean "smells bad." In the original sense, reeks just means to smell strongly, not necessarily bad. I think perhaps what might make this feel more age appropriate is to add something on the end. "This place reeks of ___."

Simple Living · Dec 18, 2007

avid-dreamer said:
ok people! I'm here making my final edits with my agent before my book goes back to the publisher.
I need some help:

My MC is a 500 year old Romania guy. He enters a sewer with a my main female character and he says : "This place reeks."

My agent says that it is an odd colloquialism and I should give him a "more dignified complaint".

HELP. I thought what he said was pretty dignified. Any suggestions?

I agree with your agent. Reading that, I would think, A 500 year old Romanian would say 'reeks?'

Not knowing anything about your character, or your story, and not having done my research on Romanian speech 500 years ago, my suggestions may not be right for you. I'm happy to offer them though. How about wretched? Foul?

NeuroFizz · Dec 18, 2007

Might it smell like a bog?

Shadow_Ferret · Dec 18, 2007

I like "This place smells most foul."

But I'm not 500 years old and I'm not from Romania.

HeronW · Dec 18, 2007

How about, "I've smelled less foul midden heaps."

Prawn · Dec 18, 2007

How about, "This place smells like home"?

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

III · Dec 18, 2007

HeronW said:
How about, "I've smelled less foul midden heaps."

Maybe something simpler like "it smells like a midden heap."

avid-dreamer · Dec 18, 2007

yOU GUYS ARE TOO FUNNY! Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to smush them together and see what I come up with.

Straka · Dec 18, 2007

Just because he's old doesn't mean he has to be proper. Maybe he would say, "Oh, yuk."

Or "This reminds me of the time when I was changing the shorts of my Great-Great-Great-Grandson MaCarther the IV. You see I was just back from the war..." - sorry I couldn't help myself.

jst5150 · Dec 18, 2007

Maybe something in Transylvanian, with a a lot of "blah blah blah" at the end.

In doing the research, a source says it is a Middle English word (reken, which was the opening band for Dokken for years. I kid.). So, chances are in the 1500s, it would not have crept over to Romania then.

donroc · Dec 18, 2007

One might wonder what odors really nauseated Europeans 500 years ago considering most lived in hovels with animals sans deodorants, room sprays, toothpaste, perfumes, and rotting corpses from plague and war.

:Shrug:

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DeadlyAccurate · Dec 18, 2007

Brainstorming:

This place reeks of offal.
The emanations of a gangrenous demon could be no more foul than this sewer.
This place smells as if Satan himself graced it.
The stink of this place permeates my very soul.

OK, that's all I got.

nevada · Dec 18, 2007

According to Miriam-Webster the word "reek" was in use in the 12th century so I don't see a problem. And besides, in 500 yrs he's bound to pick up some slang.

mikeland · Dec 18, 2007

"Do NOT go in there."

What? 500-year-old Romanians can't be Ace Ventura fans?

TrickyFiction · Dec 18, 2007

Or, he could say nothing and just gag.

a_sharp · Dec 18, 2007

avid_dreamer, look what you started. You ought to know better than pose a question like that to a bunch of writers!

I like DeadlyAccurate's #2 best.

Danger Jane · Dec 18, 2007

500 year old guy? As in, living now and being 500 years old?

If it matches the rest of his dialogue, sure, say reeks. If not...there have been a lot of suggestions.

You might not need a piece of dialogue at all. Maybe he can react to the stench and you can describe that. I think upon walking into a sewer, my first reaction would be something instinctive--we avoid rotting stenches because of the association with disease, after all--and physical, like pulling away from the source or wrinkling my face or covering my nose.

David I · Dec 18, 2007

I could only answer this if I saw how the rest of his dialogue looked.

But I don't think that a good guide is how people spoke in Romania 490 years ago. I used to know plenty of people who grew up in the 1920s, and never heard any of them assert something was the "bee's knees" or the "cat's pajamas".

I would think that a 500-year old Romanian might have had some time to adapt his speech patterns. And how long has he been speaking English?

(PS I don't think "reeks" is terribly colloquial.)

a_sharp · Dec 18, 2007

What David said.

There's been a lot of discussion of this sort over in the History forum where the writers are really severe about historical accuracy of terminology, speech, setting, politics, everything. Particularly as regards 16th Century England and Europe.

Maybe your editor's concern over "reeks" is an isolated case and the rest of your story works without attention to historical perfection? If that's the case, take one of the suggestions here or one of your own and be done.

Ziljon · Dec 18, 2007

Try using mephitic somehow:

mephitic |məˈfitik| adjective (esp. of a gas or vapor) foul-smelling; noxious. ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from late Latin mephiticus, from mephitis ‘noxious exhalation.’

pdr · Dec 18, 2007

Actually...

reek is OE and meant the strong smell of smoke. The meaning of a strong smell rising to meet your nose came in the mid 1600s.

Your editor needs the O.E.D.

Stench is OE, you could use that.

KTC · Dec 18, 2007

I don't know Romanian, so I couldn't wager a guess.

I suppose they are speaking English, though...

This place exudes foulness.

This is most odiferous.

virtue_summer · Dec 18, 2007

donroc said:
One might wonder what odors really nauseated Europeans 500 years ago considering most lived in hovels with animals sans deodorants, room sprays, toothpaste, perfumes, and rotting corpses from plague and war.

Yeah, those poor people living without deodorant and rotting corpses. I can't imagine what life would be like without my deodorant or the rotting corpse in my living room. Just Joking. Anyway. . .

Avid-dreamer,

I think "reeks" does sound odd in general for a 500 year old Romanian unless he's been shown to be someone eager to fit in and learn about modern life. If he doesn't want people to know he's 500 years old then he might adopt modern slang to cover up that fact. If that's the case, of course.

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