Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
I don't mind fantasy series where they use more modern language (unless it is an alternate history or something). Even 'quixotic' would be okay for me in a fantasy novel. I mean, it is an imaginary world.
What does pull me out is the use of slang that will be dated in a couple of years.
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I'm inclined to agree, especially if you consider just how much of our language is derived from historical context ... which would be everything.
Here's a list of
Words That Shakespeare Invented, and
Eight Words Invented by Charles Dickens (And One That Wasn’t) The heritage of some of these might be arguable, but you get the point, I hope: anyone that does not share our history will not share our language, but I'm not about to learn a whole new language every time I pick up a new fantasy.
But I do think there will be a point where most readers are likely to find too-modern language use jarring - unless the author is doing it for deliberate effect. And much of this is down to reader expectation: an other-world fantasy with knights and swords seems unlikely to have those knights getting down and hanging with their mates, even though there is no reason why they shouldn't.
Obviously, different readers have different expectations. For example: I find
quixotic is sufficiently divorced from its origins to be acceptable as just part of our language, whereas
nerd might give me pause if it appeared in an other-world fantasy. The origins are like 150 years apart, so I presume that somewhere in there is the fuzzy line describing what to me is part of English versus what constitutes modern home-planet vernacular.
Adrenalin is a curious example. Even in modern Earth-bound fiction I often find its use as a synonym for getting excited to be troubling. In historical fiction with a first person perspective it would definitely feel wrong, but with an omniscient perspective probably not any worse that its use in a contemporary setting. (It's not like adrenalin only came into existence with the word.)