# Odd Omissions in Fiction Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2002, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506 "2002-10-09T10:59:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eidolon909](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@Eidolon909](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eidolon909)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/1 "2002-10-09T10:59:11Z")
I read alot of fiction of different genres and come across something inexplainable to me in “real-life” fiction. Namely, when the story is talking about a place, the place name is never given, its simply replaced with “------”, or sometimes when talking about a person its similarly “Mr. -----”. Why is this? Its particularly mindboggling why they couldn’t just give someone a name or give the place a name. Also, sometimes they do this with swearwords, in one place where the word is obviously “F\*cker” its “------”, another place its spelled out in all its glory. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/2 "2002-10-09T11:55:01Z")
I’ve never noticed that, but then I don’t know what “real-life” fiction might be. Since this is a question about literature, it belongs in Cafe Society. I’ll move it there for you. Off to Cafe Society. **Dr --------** General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/3 "2002-10-09T11:57:35Z")
I don’t know about Fiction, but this was common between intimates in 19th century America, when people didn’t want to write out the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/4 "2002-10-09T12:00:18Z")
This used to be common in nineteenth century fiction. Look in Poe, for instance. The practice continued on into the twentieth century, but it got less common as people started making up false names. The implication seems to have been originally that “this happened to a real person, but I can’t tell you who it is, so I’ll tease you with the initial”, but , like all literary innovations, it got old fast. Later it implied “Name witheld for privacy” (or, more usually, “we’re saying that we witheld the real name in ordfer to give this story an air of verisimilitude”), but that got old, too. Woody Allen spoofed the convention in one of his short pieces: “Should I marry W\_\_\_\_\_\_? Not if she won’t tell me the rest of the letters in her name.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/5 "2002-10-09T12:35:31Z")
It’s still used from time to time to give the story a 19th century flavor. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/6 "2002-10-09T13:39:53Z")
It’s also occassionally used in _roman a clef_ pieces where the character is too easily identified as the real person. For example, in one of Armisted Maupin’s Tales of the City books (and presumably in the original column as well) there’s a Rock Hudson charatcer who is in the text as \_\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_\_\_ . Another character says he feels like Doris Day but since that would be too much of a clue he says in the text that he feels like \_\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_ . Oddly when it was made into a mini-series for Showtime they made up a name rather than using Rock Hudson. ---
**Author:** ![Eidolon909](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@Eidolon909](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eidolon909)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/7 "2002-10-09T14:51:32Z")
Well to give an example of one of the more recent books I’ve read, it was Umberto Eco’s _Focault’s Pendulum_ now, one of the characters in this work of complete fiction, Belbo, is from a small town in northern italy, but the name of the town is never given. Its always dashed out “------”. This is so inexplicable, surely there are hundreds of small towns in northern italy he could have picked… ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/8 "2002-10-09T16:49:03Z")
Dostoevsky and other Russian writers used this technique in the 1800s for both people and placenames, IIRC. Also, the novel Catch 22 has a character Major \_\_\_\_\_ De Coverly. I always figured it was used to give the story an element of realism. You know, “I can’t tell you who these real people/places are, in order to protect the innocent or not so innocent.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/9 "2002-10-09T20:31:22Z")
It’s also so that if someone actually _does_ live in the town named, they can’t just say “Hey, that’s not right! The general store is three blocks away from city hall, not just across the street!”. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/10 "2002-10-09T20:32:00Z")
I think in Catch-22 it was because nobody knew his first name… just imho, of course. But yeah, I think I remember one of the Brontes putting in her book that she hated it when people bleeped out swear words in their books, which was why she didn’t do it. Or something like that… ymmv ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/11 "2002-10-10T01:43:27Z")
If you reread _Catch-22_, you’ll notice that it’s actually a spoof of the 19[sup]th[/sup] century cliche - sure, it’s a one-note gag, but to me, it was the funniest one-note gag in the whole book (yes, even more than Major Major). OTOH, I read a lot of fiction from that era, so it kind of hit home with me. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/12 "2002-10-10T13:27:17Z")
I’ve seen some books written in the 30s and 40s where the street name was -------- Lane. Maybe back then they were not allowed to make up names? ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/13 "2002-10-11T00:13:33Z")
It’s in Franzen’s _The Corrections_, too. I’ve noticed it in several books, and it’s pretty distracting, especially when I can’t figure out any reason for it. Never knew they used to do it in the 1800’s. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-omissions-in-fiction-books/131506/14 "2002-10-11T01:38:20Z")
I’ve noticed several books also blank out the year in which the action is taking place. _Life, the Universe, and Everything_, for example, mentions Arthur and Ford materializing in the middle of the cricket championship “of 19\_\_” I suppose the purpose is to prevent the story from looking out of date (which it ends up doing anyway, now that we’re in the 2000’s), but it breaks up the flow of the narrative even worse than if Adams’ had just said “of 1987.”