Western speech - stereotyped?

I've read some old Civil War letters that mixed austere formality with straight up vulgarity to hilarious effect. I think people could do both and in a country where the rigid Victorian social order was still inchoate, I think you had to do both. You had to speak formally in business and at church and you had to talk like a working man among working men.

I need to re-read Roughing It. Mark Twain had a wonderful ear for dialect and conveyed how the mixed up state of gold rush society was reflected in everyday speech.

Chimming in, Puma.


First off, I've read your post for Septemper. Very good. I have yet to do a formal critque on it yet.

Anyway, I would like to direct everyone's attention to a movie that I found to be a good example of how I think people in the old west would have really talked. The Coen brothers version of TRUE GRIT. Another, I feel, is OWEN WISTER'S THE VIRGINIAN. THE Virginian is much closer, as it was written in almost the exact time period.

Now, as far as words such as dag-nabit and such, no one talks like that anywhere. It is offensive to think that westerns said things like that. I've never heard anyone say those things outside of the corny TV westerns.

Interesting questions, Puma.

I'm responding to this this as an English type fellow who has seen a few Western films and TV shows; read a handful of Western novels; studied (though not too hard as my future mistakes will no doubt reveal) American history; read a few of the first piece's of American literature and lived in the States (north east US) for a year. I say this to give an overview of my dilettante engagement with the subject, that is to say, I know a bit, but really I am an amateur with a bit of an opinion who wants to learn more.

I think one answer to the initial question posed in this thread depends on the type of piece being written, the characters involved and a certain amount of poetic licence. For instance, Puma's piece in SYW was only the worst offender with stereotypical language because it was the most comedic; and, because of that, the use of slang can easily be considered the best due to the tone of the piece.

The characters involved in a story are important, too. Perhaps they are Okies and then should sound like them. Or, perhaps they are North Easterners and should, therefore, sound like North Easterners. The interesting point this raises is how did they sound? How far does an author go in getting it spot-on-historically correct?

Dave Hardy and CDaniels's posts are most helpful in answer to this.

It's clear from DH's post that language was wide and varied and people were aware of the acceptable types of language to be used in different circumstances. I think when we write we can take a lesson from this. Just as a contemporary person will use different language around his friends, workmates, family; so will someone from the past. The question is, how far did they go? If you want authenticity (or as close as you can get to it) a good way to find out what they'd actually say is to look at the sources DH lists.

CD gives a good example, too. I'm loosely aware the language used in the remake of True Grit was pretty faithful to the source novel and I think (iirc) the source novel is meant to be a pretty well done version of 'how people talked at the time' and it's all the better for it. There is something wonderfully amusing, scary and 'authentic' about the matter of fact way the characters talk in that adaptation. This odd style of no frills, non-contracted speech, would also be a good way to go to avoid the stereotypical and mine the 'real'.

Finally -- if i may jump the gun and respond to your question about swearing in the west and westerns before CDaniel -- I would say that when a cowboy fell from his horse in 1870 he would probably say the same as a cowboy who fell from his horse in 1990.

With that said, what he/she says is also dependent on a few factors ...

* What type of person the cowboy is. He may have religion. He may be a drunkard. He maybe an American Okie or a European immigrant. These factors (and a not exhaustive list of others) will affect the curse -- if indeed he does curse rather than laugh or cry -- he emits when bucked.

* What type of piece is being written. Classical Western in the film or novel form. Revisionist Western. Modern western. Sci-fi western. Comedy Western and so on and so forth.

* The perspective and intent of the writer and his/her audience. I think this and the previous point are suggesting that whilst 'authenticity' is important and difficult to achieve, it's totally fine to write something within the genre rules that you feel happiest within.

It would be most interesting to explore this in a future prompt. For example, write a Western piece in the classical style or write a revisionist western etc.

All in all this is a fascinating thing to think about, especially for me who is learning the ropes of genre -- not only from film, novels and books, but also from what people write in SYW and real Western type people, too.

Oh, I should add as a post script that I am liquored up so I hope this long post made sense and wasn't too hard to get through.

Just giving my one-half cent worth of thoughts. I would imagine that cowboys would have cursed out loud if they were bucked by a bronco. Of course, as was mentioned, many factors would have a say in what was said. I could see the cowboy even accidentally cursing with a lady around because of the situation but being ashamed of it. I do not think that the cursing would be as gratuitious as some would like to portray it.

Onto the dummy talk. I have no idea. All I know about is how people talked in the past, and how they talk now in Kentucky. It is very uneducated, especially where I live. While true, this type of talk can be stereotypical. I would think old west folks might be the same way. I'm not liquored up, but I still hope that made sense.

Puma said:

Thanks, Dan. But another question: the "classic Westerns" avoided profanity. I have trouble visualizing a cowboy getting bucked off a bronc and saying nothing stronger than "shucky-durn". What's your feeling on that? Especially as regards our hopes to revive some interest in Westerns? Puma

Click to expand...

I've read a few Zane Grey's along with Louis L'Amour and have found the words HELL and Damn. Son-of-a-&%#$ was used in THE VIRGINIAN. These are fine for a classical western. I personally believe that the F word, though used in real life when being bucked off (personal experiance), used in writing can be a bit over kill.

I'm with Dan on this. I avoid anything too strong. It's not necessary, and mostly would offend too many editors and readers. I stick to profanity, goddam, hell, maybe son of a bitch. My impression is that 19th c Americans were more likely to refer to Biblical expressions, than full-on f-bombs (though I've found some genuine 19th c f-bombs).

A bit of idiom is alright, but I think you want to avoid sounding like Yosemite Sam. I recall the creator of Deadwood saying that was his problem, he wanted authentic dialect, but it sounded corny. So he went with 21st c filth. The problem with that, imo, is that the f-bombs had a tendency to take over the dialog. A little goes a long way.

What do you think of the following:

By jericho, I'm a ring-tailed son-of-a-bitch and I drink rattlesnake pizen and piss gunpowder.

That sock-dologerizin' cow-thief can go to hell.

Burn and destroy, let Northern Virginia know there is a God in Israel!

I'll be goddamed if I let him buffalo me.

I can spend hours making up stuff like that. What do you think? Too corny? Too offensive? Would you use that in your own work?

Stating the obvious, I just try not to go overboard, that's going to work against the story, unless it's a parody.

-Derek

It may be that a lot of "western speech" in novels follows the stereotype, more so than is needed. A lot of people seem to expect that, especially in movies.

But is it really stereotyped? I notice lots of people where I live drop their g's, use ''ain't", and sometimes don't conjugate their verbs correctly. Being from Kansas, I have two college degrees and I still often find myself dropping my g's and saying "gonna" for "going to." So is that stereotypical "dumb western speech?" No, it's simply the way some people talk. If they do it today, you can figure that back in the old west even more people used such speech. The opportunity for advanced education was far more limited back then and it wasn't uncommon for there to be no education after eight grade or earlier. There were however, plenty of better educated individuals as well and one can read old newspapers from the time and see that their English was quite good.

For my own novel, I used a variety of speech patterns, some proper and some with the stereotypical "dumb western speech." A lot of it fell somewhere in between the two extremes. Whatever seemed appropriate for the character and his background dictated the style and use of their language.

Just as important in imparting a western flavor to the story, in my opinion, is the use of the proper colloquialisms within a character's speech. A few good words or phrases such as "chewing gravel" or "lighting a shuck" (remember to drop your g's) can do wonders for adding the "westernism" to a western.

As for profanity, my twelve-year-old came home yesterday and said "Dad, in the book you wrote, how many swear words did you use?" Then he proceeded to tell me about all the cuss words used in the first three chapters of the book he checked out of his middle school library. I told him I used about five instances each of "hell" and "damn", one "son-of-a-bitch", and one "shit." For fun I went back and tracked my use of "hell" and "damn" and was surprised to find I had used each more than twelve times over the course of 90,000 words. But in those instances, it was private conversation between two friends and never in front of women. "Shit" was used by one character when no one else was present. The "son-of-a-bitch" was used by the narrator.

I am sure profanity cropped up, but not with the abandon it does today. And my understanding is that it wasn't used in front of women. The f-bomb was probably used hardly ever. In my own work, I used "blazes," "dang," "dern" and "dad gummit" as substitutes for lots of instances. As for the cowboy getting bucked off his horse, I can imagine he might have a choice word or two to say, but I can just as easily imagine him saying nothing and just getting back up onto his horse. After all, it was an occupational hazard in those times. And back then, I don't think folks were as tightly wound as they are today, being it was a simpler time and way of life. "Range rage" likely wasn't all all that common.

I always say dagnabit, dagnabit! And I ain't never been on no dadgummed corny western.

Since the topic is out here, what about the n-word? Basically, it's become something you aren't supposed to say in public. But, it was part of the American (and British, Canadian, & Australian) vernacular of the 19th-20th century.

Personally I don't use it to avoid alienating editors. But if I want to depict the state of race relations in that era through a character's speech I need to use SOMETHING. Black lacks the force to show the racial division of the era. I have settled on using "darky" where a character would say n****r. I'm working on a piece that will test how acceptable that is.

What are y'all's thoughts?

Dave Hardy said:

Since the topic is out here, what about the n-word? ... What are y'all's thoughts?

Click to expand...

I'm of the no censoring words school of thought so I think its fine and, if you are using it in context, in character and not gratuitously then I should think an agent would think it's fine, too.

However, I am not an agent and I have been known to be wrong before.

It is jmho that an editor would be turned off by using the n-word. It is considered to be one of the most offensive terms in our current language. If people are editing books such as Huck Finn or even banning such books, why would I expect to be published and widely read?

On another note, I don't use foul language in real. In no situation will I say a foul word. As making writing a career is not my goal being realistic isn't my biggest interest. How writers use language does interest me, though.

I just want to point out that a lot of people speak with a country vernacular, just because that's what they're used too, but may have been well educated. Just a thought.

In Texas we still say y'all and ain't and howdy. That doesn't mean that we don't know that those words aren't grammatically correct. We just like those words because we grew up with them; they're part of our culture.

I don't use y'all or howdy in business correspondence, but I do use them in speech & online, as y'all can see!

I wouldn't say they were ungrammatical, just idiomatic.