Unintentional references to real world entities...

[Darth Angelus]

I have come to notice one problem when it comes to describing entirely fictional settings with our language, and that is that our language is tied to Earth, which can make certain things seem odd.
I am not referring to the fact that they speak the germanic language English from Earth in galaxies far, far away (that should have had no opportunity to learn this language). I can suspend disbelief that far, and it would be inconvenient (for both writer and reader or watcher) to invent entire new language, even for the main characters (in LotR, what is written as English can just be imagined as really being the common language, whereas the brief segments in Elvish and Orcish have been created by the).
No. It is just that certain word are direct references to real locations or entities on our Earth. I remember reading in a Star Wars novel that something had the colour burgundy. Well, that colour name will have come from the wine from the region in France by the same name. Well, I suppose you could fix this little oddity of that by replacing the word by "deep red" or something like that, so no big deal.
There are situations where this could become more problematic for a writer, I think.
Let us say you wanted to include some kind of political spectrum in your fictional setting. The traditional left-right scale comes from the placement of people in legislative bodies in France after the revolution (the second reference to France in this post ). Anyway, if you wanted a political scale in your world (although I think it would probably sort of boring, as you generally read the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres to get something a bit more different from our world than that), should you then have to come up with some fictional equivalent of the legislative bodies after the French revolution, just for justification of the naming of the directions on that scale.
Also, consider the philosophical and ethical line of thinking that we call humanism. Then place the word in a setting where you have humans live side by side with other sapient species (like Star Wars). Then "humanism" could become very out of place, because it could imply discriminatory policies, where other sapient beings are treated like lower class citizens, which is pretty much the opposite of the nature of what WE know as humanism.
Finally, we have words for specific systems of ideas originating from the names of real people who have lived our world, such as (social) darwinism. Yes, ideas that are some extreme version of social darwinism (in all but name) have been used in speculative fiction, particularly amongst villains.

I think I have mentioned enough examples now. The point is that even in speculative fiction, elements (even if it is just ideas) come in from the real world, and they have no real names because the words normally used to describe them would reference our world, which would come off as a bit odd if the setting is not our world. There just is no entirely Earth-independant word for things like humanism and darwinism. The writer sometimes has to work around this, I think.

How do you work with it?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

With normal everyday words it does not matter because the presumption is that the story is a translation from whatever language your character's would use in their world.

I managed to change most things like for Litae's Sake in said of God's sake or using the Universal Father rather than our god. Humans are mortals etc.

In the end though I created some legends and a subculture where Earth was called the old world. Initially just so I could have a character say. "No ****, Sherlock." It has developed into a great plot idea with the old world books being banned but they are passed round schoolboys like pornography.

 

[Darth Angelus]

With normal everyday words it does not matter because the presumption is that the story is a translation from whatever language your character's would use in their world.

True, which is what I tried to say, in the beginning.

I managed to change most things like for Litae's Sake in said of God's sake or using the Universal Father rather than our god. Humans are mortals etc.

If you have a being that is the equivalent of God in your world, then of course using that as a replacement for "God" in existing expressions should not be a problem. But that is because you have made up a God for your world.

In the end though I created some legends and a subculture where Earth was called the old world. Initially just so I could have a character say. "No ****, Sherlock." It has developed into a great plot idea with the old world books being banned but they are passed round schoolboys like pornography.

Hehe, ok, interesting idea.
So, is "the old world" where the forefathers of your characters came from, or is it just fictional in your fictional world?

 

[Kissmequick]

The question is, how far do you want to go?

No sardonic? (relating to a poisonous plant that thrives in Sardinia IIRC). What about lunacy? (named after luna, our moon) etc etc. What about words derived from greek/latin when there is/was no Rome/Greece? Which really cuts down you words! (especially in naming say, your mage who gets power from the sun a heliomage, or using latin incantations).

You do need to think about it, imo. Then decide where you stand, be consistent. I generally go with 'I'm translating from whatever language', and then try no to jar, depending (and this is the make or break thing for me) on the tone and atmosphere of the story.

 

[Darth Angelus]

Good point.

It is difficult to draw a hard line between what is and what is not referencing the real world, in my opinion. As for words derived from Greek or Latin, I consider those unproblematic, definitely, no different from any English word, as both came up on Earth. I was thinking about the naming of specific places, people or events on Earth.

 

[Kissmequick]

Yeah, if you go too far, you run the risk of calling a rabbit a smeerp (if it looks like a rabbit, eats like a rabbit, moves like a rabbit and humps like a rabbit...just call it a rabbit, not a smeerp)

Make your own internal 'rule' and keep it consistent, and you shoudl be fine. To be frank, whichever way you go, someone will not like it... (too many Earth references! Called a rabbit a smeerp! etc etc)

It's worth thinking over and making the concious choice. But then go with that choice, and keep it all the way through.

 

[Abernovo]

This is basically a problem faced by translators and interpreters. If you're translating from a foreign language (especially where there are cultural differences), you cannot always translate exactly. You have to interpret.

There are plenty of phrases and idioms that only make sense in the original language. Bob's your uncle, for one. The person you're translating doesn't need to know that it refers to 18thC corruption in the British government* with regard to army careers. S/he only needs to know that if the preceding formula is followed, 'then everything will be fine'.

So, unless a strange name/language is fundamental to the story, it pretty much has to be written in terms that we can relate to. Otherwise, there's the risk that most readers will put the book down, and pronto. Just my opinion.

*Governments and corruption - some things never change.

 

[HareBrain]

I've avoided mentioning the adam's apple in my book because I couldn't work out what to call it in a world with no Adam. I never thought of smeerp-lump ...

 

[Ursa major]

The main story in my WiPs is a translation into English by a character in my frame story. If there are any translation issues in the main story, I blame that character.

 

[allmywires]

I also go by the 'translated to English' rule. Otherwise you'd spend the whole time second-guessing yourself and it you end up trying to find a new way of saying 'British Racing Green' and it's just a waste of energy. Unless you go the whole Clockwork Orange route and develop your own vernacular.

 

[HareBrain]

you end up trying to find a new way of saying 'British Racing Green' and it's just a waste of energy.

Dark green. You can have that for free.

Seriously though, was that a serious example? If I read "British Racing Green" as a description in a story set in another world, it would throw me right out of it. (Though it did come up in "Bored of the Rings".)

If your example was a joke, I apologise to myself for making myself seem like a humourless idiot.

 

[monsterchic]

Whenever my character uses the word God in reference to the deity, I jsut make it gods. Easy enough to remember, and in my society there are multiples I also have problems with naming, oddly enough, trees. Characters live in an Elven forest, so I can't decide whether to use already existing trees or make my own!

 

[allmywires]

I was joking HB, rest assured

 

[Warren_Paul]

It all depends on what real world elements you are building into your world. In regards to animal names, you get away with that easily, because who says a world isn't allowed to have the same animals as Earth?

If you're writing a world based on medieval england then for them to speak like English makes complete sense. Just because it's a different world doesn't mean speech developed differently - although if you wanted to make it different there is nothing stopping you, but you don't have to. The only thing you can't do is use real world saying that were formed from history and places in real life. Like the Bob's your uncle slang. If you're going to use that, then you need to research it's origins to see if you can make it fit in your world's history. It might be possible you can.

You know, there is no reason why you can't take a real life city and stick it in a fantasy world... just because it's another world doesn't mean they didn't name the city London, or Chicago, or whatever... Could be interesting to see a spin on a city and culture done that way. Although, it would probably confuse the reader.

As far as religion goes, why can't a fantasy world have God? There is no reason why you can't make a singular God as the religion for the world and just call it God. Just because it's a fantasy world doesn't mean the religion system has to be different. You just have to make the history of your world match in some similar fashion to what happened in real life - it doesn't have to be exactly the same though, just the same principles. Russell Kirkpatrick did this, he took bible stories and made a version of what it would be like in a fantasy world.

Brand names are the only thing you really can't get away with, because otherwise you'd have to have the people who invented them as part of your world - which you could do if you wanted to - but for instance, you can't call a car Ford or Holden, or Honda, but you could still call it a car.

You can't call an airship a zeppelin, but you can still call it an airship. It's about using the generic names for things, rather than the people inspired names. Although in the case of brandnames there is nothing stopping you from inventing replacement names, but you don't need to - just use the generic names.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Hehe, ok, interesting idea.
So, is "the old world" where the forefathers of your characters came from, or is it just fictional in your fictional world?

Umm gets complicated. Some yes and some no. They are the forefathers of all the mortals. By the time my story is set it is like Christianity or Hinduism in terms of belief with the likes of the Famous Five and Sherlock being almost scriptures. Only a handful of pre-mortal (more or less immortal) natives still believe in the connection.

There are two ways the world is connected. One via Noah Flood, an accountant from Southampton, who was told by god (actually a character from my world) to build a spaceship. He and a religious cult travel to the planet and crash. It is the only vessel to have crossed a crystal dome surrounding the planet.

The second is through a Narnia style door where Earth becomes the secondary world. Some of my characters are actually Merlin, Socrates, Alice in Wonderland (the real inspiration during Carroll's missing ten years) etc.

It basically allowed me to call my characters things like Angus, Alexander, Beatrice and Jack, and covered any Earth references I wanted to include. I call it the Old World so as not to be confusing with the earth people and their lands.

 

[Beef]

The worst is when you're writing a sf book in which all the animals have been dead for thousands of years and you want to use an animal metaphor to describe something. It sounds wrong. If someone has elaphantine skin, for example, but the character thinking this has never seen an elephant and doesn't know what one is, you can't say it. Most irritating.

As for the exclamations, I have just finished reading Asimov's 'Foundation', and in that, people don't use God's name, they just say 'Space'. Like, "For the love of Space!", "Space's sake!", "Space! Don't touch that!", etc. To me, it seemed faintly ridiculous.

 

[hopewrites]

I've avoided mentioning the adam's apple in my book because I couldn't work out what to call it in a world with no Adam. I never thought of smeerp-lump ...

Jugular.
For the longest time I thought that bony bit was what animals were always going for when it said they were "going for the jugular", because who wouldnt want to bite into something that interesting!?

So, although I've grown up now, and realize its the vein and nether of them are chew toys, it's still the first thing I think of when I hear that fascinating word.

 

[Warren_Paul]

That's rather scary, Hope. Better keep my jugular covered when around you I think.

 

[hopewrites]

I hang out with predators, what can I say

 

[Darth Angelus]

In fairness, writing fiction taking place in our world begs its own kind of questions, which are not a problem in an entirely alternate world. I found this article about celebrity paradox, and this has occured to me, too. Basically, it is about whether there is fiction within the fiction, and problems which arise due to that question.
Basically, because fiction takes place in our world, unless otherwise noted, it follows that it would have the same people (notably celebrities), as our world, and many fictional francises have included examples of both our celebrities and other examples of other fictional franchises in our world.
My example: Does the actor Tom Cruise exist in the Mission Impssible world, and if so, shouldn't Ethan Hunt recognize him as a lookalike? Wouldn't he have people chasing him for autographs and such, thinking he was actually Tom Cruise?

It seems best to avoid references that would bring this problem up (don't mention other Tom Cruise movies within Mission Impossible, to tie to my own example above). The way I understand it, this paradox is when the writer fails to follow this rule, bringing this absurdity into the light.

This seems to be the inverse of unintentional references to our world, in a way.