"Two or three" and the strange ____

[Katsunami]

There are two things I've been wondering about for some time.

First: Why do so many authors write "maybe two or three", "maybe five or six", and so on, when talking about a certain number, as if they don't exactly know what that number should be?

"There were five boys, playing a game in the streets."
"There were maybe five or six boys, playing a game in the streets."

What is the reason for introducing such a doubt into the text?

Second: This I often see in old works. A name is replaced with ____. At first I thought this was a mistake in printing, but now that I'm actively reading old(er) works, I encounter it frequently. A sentence often looks like this:

"When Mr. ____ arrived, it was raining in the city of ____. This wasn't very strange: it often rained in these parts. Mr. ____ tied his horse to the fence of a great manor house..."

Is there any reason for that?

[Istvan diVega]

I've never particularly noticed the first, nor can I remember having ever seen the second despite having read a great many old classics.

[susan_cassidy]

In the first, it is just a manner of speaking, when the number is not certain. The person obviously had not counted the boys, so was guessing that there were 5 or 6.

In the second case, that is pretty common when the person is being kept anonymous. I usually don't see it for cities, but it would be the same thing there, where he didn't want the city to be known.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by susan_cassidy

In the first, it is just a manner of speaking, when the number is not certain. The person obviously had not counted the boys, so was guessing that there were 5 or 6.

In the second case, that is pretty common when the person is being kept anonymous. I usually don't see it for cities, but it would be the same thing there, where he didn't want the city to be known.

Is that all it would be; just a way of guessing, as we all do in normal life, and a way of keeping people and places anonymous? Meh. I had hoped there was something more to it. Some sort of reason beyond the obvious.

[susan_cassidy]

Nope, that's all it is.

[BeccaPrice]

I mostly see it in historicals when they're referring to military units: the ____th Foot or something like that.

[DiapDealer]

The first example is quite simple. Don't confuse the character for the author. In your sample dialogue, it's unclear if it's the character that's unsure of the exact number, or maybe a narrator. Which is quite plausible--especially if the character/narrator is recalling something that happened previously. Now if it's a third-person omniscient narrator setting a scene, you might have a case, but even then... it's a common enough manner of speaking that it probably wouldn't jump out at me as odd.

I've never experienced your second example with personal names omitted. I've seen some older texts do that with mild curse words before, though. Especially some stuff first published in various adventure-type fiction periodicals.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I've never experienced your second example with personal names omitted. I've seen some older texts do that with mild curse words before, though. Especially some stuff first published in various adventure-type fiction periodicals.

#%!$... I actually saw it twice again today, while adding PD-books to my library and was quickly skimming through them to see if the chapter layout was correct.

I knew I should have copied those passages before asking this. Now I can't remember where I saw it.

[rkomar]

In terms of ____, I think it is meant to imply that the person is rich and powerful, and that using their real name could be dangerous. You often see this when some piece of reputation-destroying gossip is being delivered. For example, "Lord ___ was seen leaving the bawdy house last night." It protects the author and publisher from a libel suit when the person is real. I think it also has the advantage of aging well over time. If you read a piece from 200 years ago, you get a better sense of what the gossip means for Mr. ___ rather than for some real person who has been largely forgotten.

[Istvan diVega]

It would be interesting to hear which old books exactly have these underscores instead of names. I find it really strange to hear it said it's often seen or often used and yet I've never come across it.

[poohbear_nc]

The _____ convention is used quite frequently in older works for varying reasons: when an author is naming a (then) contemporary figure, especially a political or religious figure, who wouldn't appreciate being in a fictional work; when an author is pretending to disguise the identity of a character, as more contemporary authors would use 'Mr. X'; for place names when the author does not want to specify an exact town or locale [Agatha Christie did the opposite - she made up names for Balkan or Middle European countries] - Dumas & Verne come to mind.

[Istvan diVega]

I've read everything by Dumas* and Verne (every book and short story, that is. Not necessarily letters and such) and again; no, I've never come across it.

Edit:* I assume you mean Dumas pere, not Dumas fils.

[Andrew H.]

It's pretty common in some older literature - look at the "Marquise von O" for a particularly annoying example. It's basically a literary device to make the story seem like it is based on a true story - the Marquise von O..., the city of M...., the Colonel G..., etc. are all supposed to be real people whose names have to be changed. It was supposed to add verisimilitude.

[NightGeometry]

The version of Pride and Prejudice I read used the ____ convention in a number of places, from memory especially when referring to military units.

To add another example to the throng, my edition of Les Misérables uses ______.