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Victorian Slang for Steampunk Characters
Whether your character is a thief, sailor, noble, engineer, or average citizen in the 19th century, dialogue can be the quickest (and the funnest!) way to paint their personality and circumstances.
Here is short list of resources I’ve found to be the most helpful, plus a compilation of 108 Victorian slang terms that happen to be my favorites.
Victorian Slang Resources
Passing English of the Victorian era: a Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang and Phrase (1909) is a book of slang from all levels of society, categorized by origin and dates of use.
Vocabulum, or the Rogue’s Lexicon (1859) is a book of slang published in the Victorian era itself, specializing in the slang of criminals and miscreants of all sorts.
An online list of 19th century American and Civil War era vocabulary, particularly helpful for military slang and for characters with an American background.
And a list of equally delightful slang from the Edwardian era, technically not Victorian but with reasonable room for overlap—and besides, who’s going to do as much research as you?
Now for my favorite slang terms, most of them compiled from Passing English. You’ll find some bias toward a roguish vocabulary, since my steampunk novella Aliferous is centered around air pirates!
108 Victorian Slang Terms
Above-board – Frank, open. From sailors’ lingo. Not between decks or in the hold, but above all the boards in the ship.
Ah, dear me! – ejaculation of sorrow
Alexandra Limp (approx. 1872) – An affected manner of walking seen for several years amongst women. Said to have been imitated from the temporary mode in which the then Princess of Wales walked after some trouble with a knee. (See Buxton Limp, Grecian Bend, Roman Fall.)
All his buttons on (approx. 1880 on) – Sharp, alive, active, not to be deceived. He is eighty-three years of age, but as we say hereabouts, has all his buttons on.
All a treat – Perfection of enjoyment, sometimes used satirically to depict mild catastrophe.
All over red (approx. 1840 on) – Dangerous, to be avoided.
Anti-Tox (approx. 1885) – A drug to sober a drunken person. Tox is, of course, the abbreviation of intoxication.
Balloon-juice (1883) – Soda-water; presumably suggested by its gassy nature. It’s as good as a bottle of balloon-juice after a night’s hard boozing.
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Tips for people who like to write by hand
So you’re an old timey writer who enjoys the feeling of paper as you breathe life into a story? Or, like me, you can’t use your phone at school and just wants to get some writing done while math class bores the others?
Well, me too and I’ve come to your aid! I’ve done some pretty stupid things that costed me hours and hours of searching for lost scenes and struggling to find ideas I knew I’d written down so you don’t have to!
Find the right notebook for you
By experience, notebooks take a long time to be filled. In good nanowrimo times, I take from 6 to 8 months to finish one. So you’ll be stuck with this guy for a long time. Make sure to pick one that you like and is right for your needs. I, for example, prefer spiral notebooks. You can rip out pages if you need to (if you mess it up, if someone asks you for one, if you just need a page to write down a grocery list or something, etc) and you can put a pen on the spiral. I also like having a pocket to put pieces of ideas I have.
Some spooky stories about having the wrong notebook:
I got stuck with a brochure old planner for two years. My mom didn’t use it in the year it was meant for, so I thought oh, it’s free real estate. As it turns out, it had really small space between the lines, so the pages would take forever to fill, it had all those day and hour numbers and the paper was really thin. It was terrible and it made writing terrible. It would have been a thousand times better if I just spent a few bucks on a regular notebook.
More recently, I started using just the kind of notebook I like, a spiral notebook with a pocket. But I bought it a couple of years ago at a fandom event I attended and the cover was a personalized Divergent cover. At the time, I thought if was pretty cool and everyone would know the reference. But now it has aged so very poorly. The cover has blood all over it and it says “Faction Before Blood”. So now I’m scared to pull it out to write at uni and people will think I’m in a gang or something.
Number your pages
I know, it sounds like a lot of work. But you can get a notebook with pages already numbered, number it yourself or do it like I do and number it every 10 pages (just because it’s easier). If you don’t feel like doing all of this repetitive work, date your writing. It’s cool to see how much you progressed, how long you have been writing this project, when you had this idea, etc. One thing doesn’t have to exclude the other, but both methods serve the same purpose.
And this purpose is to help you get an idea of how much you write (and feel good about your progress) and to help you organize yourself on all you’ve been writing. Which takes us to the next tip.
Make the first page an index
Not only it will take the pressure off the first page, it will also help you so you don’t keep losing the awesome stuff you’re writing and forgetting it exists. Everytime you start a new scene or change projects, go to the index and write down the page or the date you started this new section. Since I number every ten pages, I find the first page with a number on it and start counting forward or back to the new page. But you can do it in any way that suits you.
Make a random idea page
It doesn’t have to be the second page (it usually isn’t for me), but it’s good to have one. Sometimes, in the middle of writing, you have that great idea for something you need to change on what you’ve already got, or you got a completely new insight. It’s good to have your idea page somewhere close you can just flip to, write it down and get right back to writing. And don’t go easy on that page! Write it diagonally, vertically, draw on it, anything. It’s just there to take out those ideas so you can take a look at it another time and not mess the flow you’re in right now.
Keep your enemies close. And your pen even closer!
You know your favorite bic friend? It has a secret weapon just for you to use. That little flap of the cap? Use it to keep your pen always close. I normally put it on the spiral of my notebook. But if you have a brochure, you can put it on the cover. Sometimes it damages it a bit, but it’s a good trade for having it always ready for action. If you use moleskine, I saw that they normally have designated pen places. If they don’t, I have a tip for it just under this one!
Take your time to find which kind of pen is your weapon of choice. Personally, I think nothing beats a black ballpoint pen. I know some people like fineliners for writing, but they make the other side of the paper all gross looking and I like to keep it clean. Plus, I write really small and fineliners often bleed in my handwriting. I took my time searching for my favorite brand and I settled on Molin ballpoint pens.
I would recommend buying your favorite pens in bulk. Nothing is worse than pen hunting around when you have an urgent idea. I bought 50 pens for super cheap and I stack them EVERYWHERE. In all my bags, in my sketchbooks, in my bullet journal, in my writing notebook, in my drawers, anywhere I think it will be easy to find one when I need it ( also giving some to my friends who keep stealing my pens).
Crafting the perfect notebook
You don’t have to be a crafter to modify your notebook to better suit you! Find a ribbon anywhere in the house. Cut it to be a little longer than the book. Tape that bad boy to the inside of the back cover and everytime you stop writing, put that ribbon on the page you stopped. This helps you not to get lost in your previous writing and get right back to business when you resume.
Also, if you really like that moleskine vibe but don’t have the cash, just get a regular clothing elastic, make cut it just the size of the notebook and glue both ends to the inner part of the back cover. There you go! Now you can close it (and keep it closed).
If you like post-its, you can take half of the block (or however many sheets you cant put in there and still close the notebook comfortably) and glue it to the inside part of the cover of your notebook so it will always be conveniently available for you.
If your notebook doesn’t have a place to put your pen on and you really don’t want to mess up the cover, you take a small elastic (smaller than the pen) and tape (or preferably glue it) it to the back part of the notebook with both ends inside. There! Ready for the trip! Speaking of which…
Always carry your notebook with you
You never know when inspiration is going to strike. In class. At the bank. In a mall. Whenever you have a little time, you can write something. Or just take a look at what you’ve done and feel good about it.
Not in the mood for writing? Edit. Reread what you’ve done and start finding what you want to change once you type it in. When doing this, don’t be scared to cross out entire sentences and rewriting them on top. If it starts getting too messy, go to a blank page and rewrite the scene and you think it should have been done the first time. It seems counter-intuitive in a copy+paste kind of age, but I assure you it is worth it.
Typing your work
This is one of the biggest reasons I love writing in pen and paper. When you type, your first round of editing is done!
Don’t zone out when typing. As I said, typing is your first round of editing. It is important to keep aware of all of the things you might have done wrong when writing. Some people say writing it on paper and then typing it is a waste of time. I say it saves time and lives.
Keep it loose!
Just because you are writing in an actual physical book, it doesn’t mean you are writing a actual physical book. This is still your notebook and these are still your notes. So don’t be afraid to get messy. Write things out of order (seriously, it’s okay to not go chronological. i know it’s hard). Outline. Sketch. Tip-ex the whole thing. Get post-its on it. Take notes. Make genealogical trees. Draw maps.
If you’re feeling down or uninspired, try very basic writing exercises: write what you see, what you feel, something to try and make you laugh or something to make someone cry. It’s your place to express yourself. And once you got those creative juices flowing, happy writing :)
I hope you enjoyed my tips and please, feel free to reblog this with your own tips and tricks. I’d love to hear them! And follow me for some more writing content!
Helpful things for action writers to remember
Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll.
Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast.
Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention.
Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them.
Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently.
ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face.
Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.
Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone.
A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way.
If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword.
ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters. (CLICK ME)
If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability.
People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot.
Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME)
If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)
Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here.
the suffering never ends
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