A sentence or two might be able to eliminate the awkwardness, or it might increase it. To use a language example ( as in the OP) if a writer has a Sicilian character use "babbo" to mean idiot, did the writer fail to do enough research ( since in standard Italian it means "daddy")? Or should he add a sentence or two ( in a novel) explaining that many Sicilians speak Sicilian in addition to Italian and in Sicilian "babbo" means idiot? Should the writer who has a whole Texas town show up for the high school game explain that this really does happen in Texas , although it's not so common (even unheard of) in other parts of the US ? Those explanations would take me out of the story more than the lack of explanation.
You’re right, it’s much easier for the reader to construct an elaborate scenario for which the book, contrary to common sense, is an exception to prevailing norms that the author didn’t want to explain for fear of annoying the reader.
This seems like a non sequitur. Those are scenarios that are common in the contexts described. The reader might not know that, and to the extent that such a thing would seem counter-intuitive (as opposed to “exotic”), the writer might well want to set it up a bit.
But that’s not what we were discussing. We were discussing something uncommon, but maybe not quite as uncommon in a city as large and diverse as NYC. The fact that something has a probability greater than zero of existing by virtue of the setting being NYC doesn’t make it self-explanatory. Some things still feel awkward or incongruous without some set up. Maybe there are black guys living in Brooklyn who speak with a Cockney accent. In fact, I’ll bet you there are. But if you introduce such a character in your novel, speaking that dialect with no back story, the reader may well be confused, or wonder if you don’t understand in which city you set your story. In any event, the reader is likely to wonder, a la Chekhov’s gun, what the significance of the accent is. “It’s NYC, surely there are black guys who speak in a Cockney accent living there, no need to explain” won’t likely be the immediate reaction.
I’d have gone with Smashing Pumpkins myself. 1994 is when they started to peak, and they were just “edgy” and pretentious enough to appeal to a bunch of annoying New York high school students.
Possibly. I love the Pumpkins, but, as big as they were, I never really found them to be the type of band that appeals to wide swaths of people. I’d also argue that their peak was late 1995/1996, after the release of Mellon Collie and the string of charting singles. However, here in Chicago (their home base), they were certainly well known and got plenty of radio play on the rock stations during the Siamese Dream years, so it’s not impossible that they might appeal to New Yorkers during the same timeframe.
I agree that introducing a character with an unusual accent probably requires some backstory - and it’s easy enough to explain with a mention of his family in London. And if the book had an entire neighborhood in 1990 NYC going out into the street pulling Christmas crackers, that would probably require explanation. But a single “American” (probably Irish-American) family in NYC pulling Christmas crackers is more like an American (probably Italian ) family in NYC having a seafood dinner on Christmas Eve and it’s a lot harder to explain without adding to the awkwardness. I mean, you’ve pretty much got to either have the non-family guest ask about the Christmas crackers and get an answer like "Aunt so and so’s first husband was British and we picked it up from him ", or set it up by saying they pulled Christmas crackers as the family had ever since the great-grandfather came over from Ireland. Unless some plot point depends on the crackers, I might be crazy but I’m going think the aunt or her husband or great-grandpa is Checkov’s gun.
That would work for me, that explanation.**“Christmas crackers?” Bob asked.“Yeah, Aunt Mary’s first husband was British and we picked it up from him,” said Mrs. Smith.**This may just be one of those YMMV things, but for me, something so uncommon as to seem a possible mistake may need a bit of a set up, and this would be one of them.
“Miss” alone I have only heard used by rougher male “youths” to (usually) young, (usually) white, teachers. I was informed (by those teachers) that it was far from a term of genuine respect.
Your examples remind me of another Irish guy, named John Connolly. He’s apparently lived in the U.S. for awhile so got things 95% basically correct, but every now and then slipped up fairly egregiously (as these things go, I mean). The first one I caught was when he described someone "seeing [characters Y and Z) “sat on the porch.” That’s just never been uttered by an American (awaits inevitable contrary claim, but seriously, that’s strictly British Isles). Another time someone’s car got trashed and he said “I guess I’ll have to go hire a car.” Americans “rent” cars, nothing else. I was averaging finding 6-10 per book before I stopped (not, I hasten to add, because of the linguistic lapses, but because a series that started out as decent escapist hardboiled action novels quickly degenerated into a bunch of occult-driven plots and motifs, for which I’ve no use).
Happy to accomodate you. ‘Sat on the porch’ is used in American English both literally and as an idiom. We have porches, and we sit. It also refers to things delivered but not never taken in, or put out and never taken away. This extends to non-physical things as well. A law that is proposed but never voted on might be said to have ‘sat on the porch’.
Huerta88, in my last job I had to write in American English and almost invariably I made mistakes with terminology in each course I wrote. There are plenty of Hiberno-English terms that aren’t widely understood even in Britain and it’s only when they’re pointed out that one realises how common these terms are.
Are you talking about literally sitting outside on the porch? There’s nothing foreign at all sounding to this American’s ears. Here’s an NPR story on porch-sitting. Or is there a British idiom I’m missing?
ETA: Oh, wait, you mean specifically that phrasing, as in “I saw Jack and Jim sat on the proch” instead of “sitting on the porch.” Yeah, that sounds off.
Like I say, it’s cumulative. One or two maybe wouldn’t be so grating but so far there’s been:
- Christmas crackers
- Calling the teacher “Miss” at high school
- Old people being called “pensioners”
- A 1994 high school class being enthused by Oasis (to which I can now add: so enthused that their teacher dedicates an entire period to analyzing the lyrics of Supersonic)
Not one of those things would be out of place if the chapters were set in Ireland.
To those of you from the US who are skeptical about my finding what I perceive to be cultural and linguistic mismatches in this book, can you do me the favour of reading Inishowen by Joseph O’Connor and telling me if the scenes set in New York ring true or if they seem like a scene originally set in Dublin that’s been transplanted to New York in a somewhat careless manner? (Cynic in me: to try to appeal to a wider international market?)
Remembering that time pretty well, I probably would have picked Counting Crows (Mr.Jones) for the same reasons, keeping in line with the whole Oasis feel. Or to be a bit edgier, perhaps the Breeders (Cannonball).
I had a dictionary of Irish idiom once. It was not a thin book. I couldn’t get a consistent answer to what half-five meant in different parts of the British Isles.
Re “sat on the porch,” I thought I was clear but if not, I meant using “sat on the porch” as a present-state state of being, such as “I am sat on the porch,” i.e., the present participle form (I guess Brits also use it to refer to past participle, as in “they were sat on the porch.”). Americans would always handle the participle form with “sitting,” and reserve “sat” for the simple past tense.
This gets tricky, potentially nit-picky. Stuff got radioplay at different times in different parts of the country. And you’d have to know if, say, the school had an especially large crowd of pop fanatics (different schools I was in, music was sometimes a huge social identifier, sometimes not taken that seriously). Not to mention genres, as the hardcore fans of Counting Crows would not be the same people, generally speaking, seeking out Oasis. Plus, we’re only talking about a perhaps forgivable difference of a couple of years before Oasis got heavy airplay in the U.S. (which I agree is quite true). Nowhere near as jarring, to my ear at least, as having an American talk (in any relevant time period then or now) of being “at University” (instead of in college) or describing an establishment as “the newsagent in the next lane” instead of “the newsstand on the next street” (two more I seem to recall).
No, but I might have a go at doing you the favor.
But what I really meant to ask – is it any good? I’ll gladly play along with spot-the-Anglicism if it’s a decent read, but if it’s crap – you’re on your own . . . .
Everything I’ve read by him before has been great. Star of the Sea, about a famine ship going to America in the 19th Century is one of my favourite books of all time. This one is a kind of cop/gangster mystery thing set in Dublin, New York and (presumably) Inishowen. It’s pretty entertaining so far.
That would be spot the Hiberno-Anglicism mind you. Don’t blame us, blame the Micks. 
ETA: he’s Sinéad O’Connor’s brother.
Apropos of not much, don’t know if you’re familiar with the foreword to Huck Finn where Twain notes the various white and black, urban and rural, idioms that he had become familiar with and tried to replicate, “lest the reader think the author had been trying to make all the characters sound alike but done a bad job of it.”
Sounds like your guy may have the opposite problem . . .
P.S. wish you hadn’t told me that about Sinead, but I suppose there was no getting around my finding out.
Yea, the problem is that I really have no direct context. Jjim, hasn’t given me enough to go on, quoted from the story. I can see that perhaps the particular choice of Oasis as being a “hip band” that was popular perhaps indicates a particularly “European” group of students or musical conscious among this clique. MTV, radio, and perhaps specialty magazines were the main purveyors and marketers then, as compared to the soon to come internet based music scene which really opened up the International scene, so Oasis wouldn’t have been so widely known. For me, domestically,'94’s playlist was alt (and newly trending to “Indie” terminology). groups like Dinosaur Jr., Counting crows, Urge Overkill, The Breeders, Jane’s Addiction, Butthole durgers, Blur, stuff like that.
Oh, and my alternate universe would have included Gin Blossoms, Goo Goo Dolls, Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket . . .
De gustibus I guess.