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Originally Posted by hildea
So, each word and expression is probably authentic, but often used in ways that are inauthentic? That makes sense, her dialogue is extremely heavy with slang at times.
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Maybe true. I've read real books of the period and she certainly isn't imitating 18th C writers. Real Regency era books have much less of the Regency Cant/slang but are far harder to read.
It reads like modern but set in the period, like books written today set in Jacobean or Elizabethan era England, Scotland or Ireland are basically modern English with some period phrases, like Heyer, often over done. Shakespeare nor King James Bible aren't actually contemporary Jacobean prose. The current King James isn't even original. The later Douay–Rheims Bible is closer to Jacobean and the original of it is hard to read (most of the available versions are much later revisions).
It's actually very difficult to authentically write even in 1920s style, harder to do authentic Victorian, harder still Regency, Georgian, Jacobean/Elizabethan and it gets harder to read it. Irish is worse. Most English speakers can't read Chaucer, or even Robbie Burns. Probably more people can read 1st C. Latin* than Native Irish speakers can read 12th C. Irish. The Normans "reformed" spelling of a lot of Anglo-Saxon words that are still in use.
*Though most people's pronunciation of Latin is totally wrong. Julius Caesar. That "j" is an initial "i" and real Latin C is just like in Irish, always a "k" sound.