I shall receive no lagniappe for pointing out the phenomenon of the foreigner trying to swear. It profits me not. I shall have no thirteenth bread roll.

If it really is a source of inspiration, ok, though you are the first I've heard citing it as such.

Those who I have raised this with before have tended to do something a bit different though, eg: "I can't say trousers again (in my tailoring based thriller), perhaps he is wearing plus-fours?"

(or worse, another word for said?)

For the historical speech thing, does the bland, usageless, meaningless listing of the thesaurus not simply exacerbate the swearing foreigner syndrome?

I was at Sheridan's The Rivals last night, and it would not have been enough to replace "Jeez" with Zounds or "God's sake" with Od's to replicate their speech.

(or worse, another word for said?)

Now that really would be worrying.

I would say, though, that one subsidiary reason for my freakish habit of using a printed thesaurus (I used a printed dictionary, too, since you can't get SOED online without paying), apart from the fact that the online ones aren't as good, is that I don't have recourse to it as easily as I might be tempted to if I had one on the computer. It's a get-up-and-fetch away so I probably think for longer before I do.

Luckily the foreigners I'm trying to swear like (and I'm not, I'm only trying to make my modern reader believe they swore like that) are extremely dead... The day I'm shaken away by Anthony Woodville telling me I got him all wrong, I'll eat my thesaurus.

Emma

<Added>

"does the bland, usageless, meaningless listing of the thesaurus not simply exacerbate the swearing foreigner syndrome?"

No, because I wouldn't use a word which I didn't, actually know. But your working vocabulary is about a third of the words which you actually KNOW, though maybe the working vocab is more stretched in writers, but then so probably are the words we know, so I suspect the proportion remaings the same. It's the other two thirds I'm trying to get at with a thesaurus - which includes the more historical words. If I was tempted to use something but wasn't sure if I'd got it right, SOED is next on the shelf, and it has definitions and dates of first use, if I'm really worried.

Hadn't realised how much I'm not using, and I might play with it, but I suspect there is a difference with historical drama versus the more modern stuff.

For example, if I only use a third of what I have, that is probably because it is the third I know I have in common with those I talk to. For dialogue, therefore, using a thesaurus could only make it less realistic (save when dealing with a linguist or other verbally extraordinary character) as it implies using words that are uncommon.

Not sure how far the argument holds for descriptive prose.

Well a thesaurus is always going to be more use when you're going beyond the spoken vocab of people like oneself. And even in narrative prose it's going to depend on the voice of the narrator.

And sometimes the word just doesn't exist. Sometimes I've been banging my forehead to find a word which isn't quite either 'bitter' or 'sour', neither of which is quite the taste which rises in my characters' throat when they realise... whatever. (and don't say 'neutral'...) and, I comb the thesaurus, only to find that actually, there isn't one. Though there might be a metaphor, and reading round the edges of the specific entry - the figurative language associated with the adjective's verb or noun cousins, say, occasionally makes me think of one.

Emma

Ya see, that's the trouble with historical fiction: Neologism is considered somewhat taboo.

(due, I believe, to the sf community's insistence that it might trigger a catastrophic implosion on the fourteenth dimension of the Linguistic continuum)

I am intrigued by such a taste being important enough to warrant all that work! Some kind of poison, I'm guessing?

Neologism is considered somewhat taboo.

Only if readers realise it is one... Though of course Shakespeare is the ultimate neologist, and I don't suppose he batted a quill pen at putting them in his history plays.

I am intrigued by such a taste being important enough to warrant all that work! Some kind of poison, I'm guessing?

More likely that they realise that something they've done has ruined their life, or someone else's.

Emma

Fortunately, not a flavour I am familiar with!