Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, BLACKSTOCK, ROB wrote: > > #All right... I have a question for you guys which is (gasp!) actually on > #topic! > # > #Has there ever been an explanation for the change in the language style > #between the anti-interregnum and the Taltos era? Or, did the language > (ante-) > #style not change, but had simply been "enhanced" by Parfii in his > #romances? > > I've always assumed that this is Paarfi's style, plain and simple. Well, > and added to the fact that it's VERY different from Vlad's style and the > way most of the Jhereg talk. If you compare Paarfi's dialogues with > the way Morrolan, Aliera, Sethra, and Lady Teldra speak in the Vlad > novels, I think you'll find them a lot closer. > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/ > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website I had gotten the impression (perhaps wrongly) that some of the change was due to the informality and chaos of the interregnum. Just as titles became less meaningful and society cumbled, so did language, as people expressed things in simpler, less erudite ways. After all, it hardly mattered if one's speech could hold up in court--there was no court at which to present it. I think someone on this list suggested this a while back, perhaps shortly after the book became available. I could be misremembering, but I think I saw this theory, in some form, advanced somewhere before I thought of it. Also, it could be that, now that Paarfi is writing for a commercial publishing house rather than for scholarly journals, he no longer has to adhere to the usages of Dragaera's scholarly class. After all, it was explained that he writes the way he does because, on Dragaera, all scholars write like that. Sorry I don't have any page numbers; I do not have my books handy at the moment. -- J A Dusty Sayers Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ Kings of Chaos http://www.kingsofchaos.com/page.php?id=295152 'Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.' -- Herodotus