Musings on Language

Expressing ourselves in the Austenesque world

As I begin work on a World War II Austenesque variation, I am reading the biographies of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Many already know my fascination with Lewis. However, Tolkien offers those of us creating complex cosmologies and mythologies to consider meat and sauce!

Tolkien was a philologist…an expert on the bones and sinews of languages. His fascination with Welsh was well documented. His ability to declaim Beowulf in its original Anglo-Saxon was legendary. He was a talented linguist, creating languages (much as a modern-day philologist has created Klingon) that are logical and rooted in their own worlds, albeit imaginary ones.

In the modern (post-modern, perhaps) language revolution in the social sciences, we look at language as one evidence point describing the nature of the culture that created the tongue. We assert that language is a socially constructed discourse. Thus, the language used by the people living in that specific culture has been shaped by their life experiences.

Consider the Inuit people. In the 1880s, cultural anthropologist Frank Boas asserted that Eskimos have many words for snow…each describing different characteristics and utility.

For instance:

“piegnartoq” for “the snow [that is] good for driving sled…”

(David Robson, Washington Post, 1/14/2013)

Today, 140 years after Boas, linguists assert that more than fifty words within the Inuit vocabulary can be used to describe snow.

Yet, in American English, we have two or three…snow, sleet, and slush. A few more technical versions fit into constructed discourses (i.e., skiing): powder and corn. However, removed from their recreational context, they lose specific meaning.

That brings me to what I must believe was part of the root of Tolkien’s dissatisfaction with modern languages. Translating Beowulf or The Canterbury Tales into modern English leaves the reader with content without context, a meaningless mishmash.

Simply put, I assert, that our language, homogenized to the point of nearly being turned into a eunuch (a word which itself is almost sans meaning today), is coming dangerously close to no longer being useful to express complex human interactions. Our English is now divorced from the roots buried deep in the soil of the Midlands or Cornwall or Devon. Without those tendrils, the vibrant thing that allowed Shakespeare to express himself eloquently or Woolf to pointedly offer that

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

may cease to serve that purpose for which language was intended: to explain ourselves to others, to tell the great tales that elevate or depress, and to speak to generations yet unborn.

In essence, there are words that better express a thought than others and fit the tone and meter an author is seeking to achieve.

How does this apply to Austenesque variations?

Much as we cannot accurately “translate” the Canon using a narrow 21st-century vocabulary and grammar without destroying the author’s voice as expressed through her conscious word choice and structure, we should not seek to imitate Austen. We cannot hope to write as Austen did because we are neither formed by the events of her day nor by the dominant culture prevalent in Napoleonic/Regency England.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. (19^th Century)

Or

Everyone knows that an unmarried rich man needs a wife. (21^st Century)

A side note: After I wrote the above, Grammarly wanted to get its electronic hands on Austen’s original to tighten it and fit it to current stylistic norms.

Now, if we tried to imitate Austen, we would be pale copies bereft of understanding why Austen chose specific words or formed characters as she did. We were not formed by the same anything that shaped Austen. If we go down that path, will our work be original or reductive? And what of our readers: what will their experience with our books be? Will they hear our voice?

I do not suggest that Austenesque writers divorce themselves from the underlying character constructs established by Austen. We are working in a specific genre. But, I argue that we should use Austen as a starting point and build stories that tell the authorial truth we wish using language that fits the culture from which we write. In that process, we must recognize that readers will understand our codewords. Elizabeth is impertinent. Darcy is severe to the point of incivility. Wickham is smooth. The colonel is decisive. And so on.

Also, as authors, if we place our work in the Regency period, we must be attentive to inserting verbal anachronisms in our characters’ mouths. Authenticity is essential, or readers will question the veracity of the rest of the work. In other “words,” do not have Darcy speaking about a wagon’s “tailgate” when he would only know that the conveyance’s feature as a “tail board.” The former term did not exist until the 1850s.

In my current Work-In-Progress, I use slang and period references to help readers understand why the characters—living through World War II—act as they do. Consider the Prologue from Ghost Flight, which provides some backstory to establish the basis for the novel.

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This excerpt from Ghost Flight is © 2025 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved.

Prologue

November 21, 1943

The chimes broke through the haze through which he wandered. Misty shudders signaled each call until, eventually, nine had sounded. Otherwise, silence ruled the world, the tinkling notes falling muted by yarn and quilt.

He tried to open his eyes but could barely lift the lid on the right as the left refused to respond. As light invaded, so, too, did pain: not the low-level ache of being battered on the rugger pitch, but rather the full-body agony after being thrown by a mount refusing a hedge when riding to the hounds. Even with eyes clamped shut, there was no escaping the reddish cloud that wound around him.

His groan brought an immediate response. “Sir? Sir? Please remain still. You are trussed up like a Christmas goose, but even so, the less you move, the less your pain will be.”

His mouth worked. “Too strong. Not yet ready. Please...”

The woman, surely a nurse, was quick at her job. “Doctor left instructions for morphine to ease your burden. I’ll be adding it to your drip.

“Your cousin visited before you were awake. He left a message that you must rest and recover as quickly as you can. He will call on you to take up the cause in early Spring.”

Metal and glass clattered. His caregiver’s humming of a familiar tune was the soundtrack of a featureless film that gradually faded as the drug wrapped its numbing arms about him.

***

A lotus-eater’s dream

A forest of rattling leaves surrounded him as shards of the Dakota’s skin peeled away, torn by the Nazi night fighter’s sausage-sized rounds. Their only bit of luck outside of bad had been that the Me Bf109G must have been low on fuel and broke off its attack after the one devastating pass, probably confident that the issue was decided.

The North Sea called to his nightshade beast. Weary muscles struggled with the controls to fight the siren’s song. Neither Pratt & Whitney engine sounded healthy, although he felt that the left one had enough life to keep them above the choppy waves long enough for the aircrew to bail out—well, the two who could. He prayed they were high enough to allow parachutes to open. If not, maybe death on impact would be a mercy. November’s frigid waters would kill in under twenty minutes. True, they had life rafts—if they inflated and if the air-sea rescue boys could find two small dots amidst bands of rain, sleet, and snow—but the odds of surviving soaked in near or below-freezing temperatures were just barely this side of zero.[i]

He couldn’t see out of his left eye. He dared not release the yoke to probe how fragments of the Perspex windshield had ground into his face. The blood rivulets on his neck, frozen in the gale filling the flight deck, told him everything he cared to know.

Bingley sagged against his harness in the cockpit’s right-hand seat. His head lolled side-to-side as the aircraft struggled to turn turtle while Darcy fought to keep the left wing down and the nose pointed toward RAF Holme deep in the East Riding. The co-pilot's fur-lined flying suit bore alarming stains. His friend was still alive; that is what Foote had told Darcy when he crawled forward to cinch tight Bingley’s belts as the transport bucked around the sky. Whether he would survive what was to come in the next few minutes was an open question.

Although a man of few words, the corporal was nearly Shakespearean in his objections to his captain’s insistence that he and Sergeant Wilson take to their brollies before the American-supplied airplane augured in. He had stanched the worst of Bingley’s bleeding with battle dressings but did not give the insensible lieutenant a shot of morphine.

Foote then pottered around, bandaging Darcy’s injuries until the pilot snapped as the right engine belched flame and gave up the ghost, ‘This is not the Oxford Union. This is MY aircraft. I gave you an order, not a suggestion. I’ll not have you taking a Burton because you are too stubborn for your own good! Pull the fire extinguisher lever for Number One. Then you and Wilson get into your parachutes.’

Dawn’s twilight had limned land’s dark smudge, providing the first hopeful sign since the attack. The time they had made up cruising home from a routine Norwegian supply drop vanished with Jerry’s attack. Darcy fought to milk every knot from the remaining engine to keep the wounded bird from a fatal stall.

Darcy grunted as he wrestled with the control column. ‘...Aiming for the Humber’s estuary. You’ll have a good chance between the Navy and fishermen—plenty of boats about.

‘...No idea our altitude. Jerry’s pass did for the instruments. Maybe Angels one if we’re lucky. Use your judgment when to go. You two know what four hundred feet look like. Anything less and you’ll end up like the strawberry preserves your Aunt Margaret spreads on her scone.

‘I’ll try to get the kite feet dry before I ditch her; otherwise, Mr. Bingley and I will drown. Glad we're coming into the North. Less of a...challenge.’ He fought the plane’s desire to drag its right wing like a quail hen protecting her nest.

‘I wouldn’t like to try clearing the White Cliffs like we do on French runs: eighty meters if they’re an inch. Of course, the South Foreland guns would have thought we were a Stuka trying to sneak in. Our ack-ack crews miss more often than not, but I would not want to tempt Fate.’

Foote bowed to Darcy’s authority, pulled the pilot’s harness tight, twisted the volume knob on the radio, and crawled back into the cargo bay.

***

The static cleared in Darcy’s ears as a powerful carrier signal matched frequencies.

A voice snapped in his ears. ‘Ghost One, this is Control. Acknowledge Ghost One.’

He hadn’t noticed his gloves were slick. Not daring to shift his grip, Darcy carefully pushed the button mounted on the wheel. ‘Ghost.’

One word: that’s all he could manage. But ’twas enough.

‘Ghost One. Switch to frequency CA.’ Cee-alpha: her perfect diction calmed Darcy.

Flippancy was not his norm, but since he had reconciled himself to death, he resorted to upper-crust humor. ‘Sorry, Control. Cannot comply. Bit of a sticky wicket up here right now. The Hun bounced us and batted a six. ’

The Dakota shivered under his hands. Control, a cool-sounding young woman, unflappable she was, came back. ‘So sorry, Ghost. It sounds like he didn’t put your side out. What is your situation?’

‘One stump and one ball gone.’ Darcy hoped Control, probably one of M’s doughty school-mistress WAAFs, understood what he meant. No sense in giving the enemy any more gen than necessary. ‘Jerry was playing for keeps. Thought he had us bowled out.’

Did he detect a softening of her voice? ‘So not a beer match, then. Can you advise your team’s status?’

The wind shifted as he slid between the headlands guarding the river’s broad mouth. The plane’s nose lifted, giving them a bit more sky. He heard the cargo door slam against the fuselage. That meant the two NCOs—probably more valuable to the SOE than an aircraft chauffeur—sniffed out that it was time to go.

Darcy carefully pointed Georgie—although no white paint proclaiming his sister’s name marred the aircraft’s matte black exterior—toward one of the picket destroyers, keeping watch for a U-boat trying to sneak up to worry shipping coming out from Hull. The ship was one of those fifty ancient First World War four-stackers sent by the Americans under Lend-Lease.

He hoped its pom-pom gunners were up to date on aircraft identification. ‘Control: advise Coastal Command that my non-comms bailed out near one of their ships on Humber patrol.’

He paused to push the aircraft toward the river’s north shore dotted by farm fields and primarily low-lying and flat. He pressed the push-to-talk button again. “Control: two wounded souls aboard the Ghost. Will try to pancake somewhere south of Withernsea.

‘The good news is we’re near bingo fuel, so no fire. That’s also the bad news. The kite looks like it came from a Zurich cheesemonger. Probably will make a poor glider.’

For the first time, Control’s voice shook. Apparently, she had little experience with men about to die. ‘Ghost...’

Darcy summoned every ounce of command he could, digging deep to hear his father’s voice. “Control: no time now to be missish! These are not last words or anything like that!

‘I know I am transmitting au clair, but I may not be able to wait to see Preacher. He needs to hear this immediately.

‘We were compromised. The enemy knew we were coming. I bet they picked us up outbound to see where we were headed. Not too difficult. Georgie’s blind spot is anything aft of the hatch. Fat Hermann’s boys could have set up shop back there, and we’d never have known it.

‘They scoped where we made our drop. Best to check with our friends on skis to see if the Germans rousted their pick up.

‘No, Control, everything was too convenient given we spent the better part of four hours wave-hopping. Chancing on a single camo’d Dakota flying low from no place to nowhere would be remarkable. A transport is not the type of trade Jerry seeks when plenty of lumbering Lancs and Wellingtons are in the bomber stream every night.

‘No, this was a special op, and someone on our side peached.’

Her voice rang in his headphones. ‘Are you saying we’ve been penetrated?’

Darcy scanned the brightening terrain, land now, flashing beneath the aircraft’s nose. ‘Yes.’

‘Back to one-word replies, are we, Ghost?’ Her voice flashed with impertinence.

Darcy exhaled, exhilarated. ‘Things are a bit busy up here, Control.

‘If I prang the kite, I wanted to be sure someone was brought up to speed on my suspicions.’

Field and forest rolled monotonously brown to green and back again. Soon, they blurred. His head bobbed dangerously. Control’s honeyed alto broke in. ‘Captain, wake up! Wake up! Don’t drift off! You must stay awake!’

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and instantly regretted it as bells clanged behind his eyes. ‘Sorry, Control: it’s been a long night. Thought I’d slip off to Nod for a quick wink. Or maybe I am still dreaming as I keep hearing angels.

‘Oh, wait, that’s Bingley, always going on about this angel or that.’

‘Bingley? Angels? I am too young to be part of the heavenly host.’ Control sounded as though she smiled through the words.

Darcy imagined he heard sucking from the fuel tank—imagined was the critical word—and lined the plane up on a length of fallow field, rich brown from morning rain. Talking with Control helped him feel less alone. ‘My first officer always talks about his angels, erm, ladies.

‘You don’t sound like one of his: tall and blonde.’

‘That would be my sister, Jane.’

‘I imagine you look stunning in your WAAF service dress, but you sound darker, an alto.’

Darcy tried to picture Control. Although he knew regulations would have forbidden it, he saw brunette curls hanging around her face as she leaned toward the microphone. Dancing brown eyes focused on the grille as if she could see him.

His soundscape became narrow and quiet as the remaining engine chuffed and choked on the dregs. Its death meant his was seconds off. ‘What’s your name?’

He hauled back on the yoke, stalling the plane, and twisted the wheel hard to port, forcing the wing toward the dirt. As the tip dug into Yorkshire mud, Fitzwilliam Darcy registered her reply.

‘Elizabeth.’

---

[i] The Royal Air Force preferred naming aircraft over numerical designations. Thus, the American DC-3 transport became the Dakota.