A name for another world Sherlock.

[AnyaKimlin]

I want to use the saying ''No kidding, Sherlock.'' but I am on another planet. I've no problem slipping in the reading of a detective novel somewhere, but for some reason none of my names are working as well.

Naming conventions are pretty simple I made a legend so that the world was begun by settlers from earth. I have just used the likes Angus, Lorenzo, Socrates, Jack, Tom, Alexander, Frank etc. One culture uses names like Kazuto, Sakura, Izanami and Shun. There was a period when virtue names were used (I have been desperate to give Fly Fornication a story since reading about him/her). One culture does use Khmer and Arabic names so there is Tola and Pich. Only the fire people stand out as they use names like Magma, Ember, Flare, Flame, Fyren and Blayze.

Any suggestions just to jog an idea are welcome.

 

[HareBrain]

If the planet has been settled from Earth, why do you need a new name? Is Sherlock Holmes less well-known now than a hundred years ago? Everyone knows who Romeo and Juliet are more than four-hundred years after they were written. I think the saying, especially its more earthy alliterative version, will be around a long time, even if the people who use it know nothing about its source.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

This is around two thousand years on from that hundred years, but you might be right.

 

[Abernovo]

To add my own thoughts to HB's comment, I think great names from literature might survive through the ages, especially with digital storage, but they might get corrupted in the imagination of all but a few dedicated scholars.

Your general population might have a myth of a real life super detective that existed just before the exodus from Earth. One whose legend might have been exaggerated beyond the original stories - Sherlock Holmes. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files has a character, a senior Wizard Council member, called The Merlin. Sherlock could have taken on similar mythic proportions.

 

[Ursa major]

I think Sherlock Holmes is one of those characters that has become not only the archetype of consulting detectives (notwithstanding the popularity of, say, Hercule Poirot), but also a sort of justification of all those unpaid detectives who know they can solve a crime when, in the manner of Inspector Lestrade, the police can't.

Given that no age lacks its fictional detectives, and that many of them pay homage to Holmes (sometimes even bringing his shade into the plot, e.g. that CSI episode when a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast is killed), I find it hard to believe that his is a name that will easily fade from history.

 

[Boneman]

No Sh*t, billy...

 

[Colbey Frost]

Plus copyright falls off, so people will use the greats over and over again. That will go some way to keeping it going I would have thought.

 

[skynes]

You could always do a lost in translation, have him say "No kidding, Watson", in a world where people think Watson was the great detective and Sherlock was the assistant.

 

[Ursa major]

While Without a Clue is a very enjoyable film, it seems highly unlikely that out of all the versions of Holmes, it (or its premise) would alone survive the centuries.


(But if it - or the phrase derived from it - had done so, I suspect that alliteration would still be required, and an approriate word beginning w doesn't immediately spring to mind.)

 

[mygoditsraining]

Just to throw this out there, does it absolutely have to be that phrase? You could run a whole spectrum of alternatives from a simple "really?" or "no kidding?" to the more overt "thanks, detective" to the outright sarcastic "You don't say? Hold on while I make some notes for my journal".*

If you're hell-bent on using it, just use it. If it comes up as a problem later, you can always change it.


*"Intresseklubben antecknar!" is one of my favourite phrases.

 

[JoanDrake]

If there's been an absolutely straight run over 2000 years it's not inconceivable they'd still use the phrase but even so I think it would be hard for readers to accept and might bring them out of the story

After 2000 years what is supposed to happen is that first they all run together into one word, nashithsher and then follow Grimm's Law, (and if you can figure out what that will make it you're a better Whovian than I,) though I THINK 't' is a fricative so it would soften and the word would become nashisher, or maybe just nasher...If you remember the Dr Who episode I'm getting this all from; the main enemy, the Technicians, had become just the Tesh, while Leela's tribe, the Survey Team had become the Suvatim

If you do use it that way most all your readers will just see it as a nonsense word, so you'll have to make sure the meaning is clear from the context. A very few might figure it out and either think themselves very clever or you just impossibly "cute", so it seems much ado IMO. Is it absolutely necessary they use that phrase at all?

I once read a post apolcalyptic story in which it was somehow an important plot point that one of the holiest words, used only by women with "both feet apart and one hand extended up in the air as if holding something" was "Salibiddy" and this was based on the remnants of one of the sacred 'Old Gods' left offshore. Go ahead, strike the pose, you'll figure it out eventually

 

[Ursa major]

Plenty of Latin phrases have persisted, although some of them have specialist uses and so have been preserved in a way that less protected phrases can only dream about. Even so, many such less formal utterances have come to us from centuries past and have managed to maintain their integrity through the intervening years.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks - my character reads a lot. Sherlock Holmes would be a contraband book in the story so I may just have my character buy it under the counter or he could've been reading it like porn and been caught by his dad. It works well thanks I knew you lot would shake something loose - it'll allow a bit of a discussion and bring in the Earth connection earlier than I planned.

Just to throw this out there, does it absolutely have to be that phrase? You could run a whole spectrum of alternatives from a simple "really?" or "no kidding?" to the more overt "thanks, detective" to the outright sarcastic "You don't say? Hold on while I make some notes for my journal".*
.

This is the exchange it is between two brothers and has been edited slightly for language.


‘She lied to me. She’s some sort of Abbess and is the daughter of the Abbot. It was like snogging a stranger but even freakier because the stranger had Bea’s face. I'm not sure I can marry her anymore.’ I lean closer and whisper, ‘I think there might be something going on between Uncle Tom and the Abbot. I caught them kissing the other day.’

‘No kidding, (Sherlock.)’

‘You knew? You’ve known the Abbot all this time and didn’t tell me?’ I raise myself up and look straight at the git. ‘How long’ve you been in this Universal Father forsaken place, before you came to see me?’

 

[Abernovo]

Looking at the excerpt, I'd say, 'No kidding' on its own would work. You might be forcing it by putting Sherlock in, considering the time frame and that it's a forbidden book.

Plus, there's the consideration that he might reveal himself as the reader of a forbidden book by saying it. Which might work as well, on the other hand. Hmm, where's that fence? I'm off to sit on it.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

His situation has changed between reading the book and this moment. He's now king - an absolute monarch so his head is no longer on the block. The character speaking to him is his brother so no problems there, they are discussing the other things their grandfather had banned. He is referring to his lack of deductive powers so it does work.

I may of course delete it later lol

 

[Glitch]

I would put it in and see if any of your alpha/beta readers flag it

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I have - I've also worked a copy of Sherlock Holmes into the first chapter now. It has actually given me the opportunity to introduce the idea of a connection with Earth very early on. And a fun scene I may or may not keep later on where his best friend is bemoaning the fact that Sherlock just isn't the same now he can read it without fear.

 

[Steve Jordan]

If your concern is that, 2000 years from now, the name Sherlock Holmes won't have the same name recognition as it does today, try a name that has lasted the millennia and still universally marks a man as clever. I'd suggest Solomon, Archimedes or Plato.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

You know, thinking about this, if you're really going for "No kidding" and not "No s***", I think I would have more confidence in Sherlock surviving that long than in "no kidding" surviving that long. The other, no problem -- those words are universal and forever.

Personally, I've never heard it with "no kidding" -- even from my mother, who didn't generally say those other things.

 

[Glitch]

Without the Sherlock the "No kidding" doesn't convey the same sarcastic tone as "No s***".