Chapter 11: Quick-Reference Appendix
This appendix collects the tables and lists you'll want closest at hand once you've read the full book. It isn't meant to teach anything new — see the earlier chapters for explanation and examples of everything here.
11.1 Pronouns
| Nominative | Objective | Possessive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | I | me | mine |
| you (familiar, singular) | thou | thee | thine |
| he / she / it | he, she, it | him, her, it | his, hers, its |
| we | we | us | ours |
| you (plural, or general) | ye / you | you | yours |
| they | they | them | theirs |
Reserve thou/thee/thine for Quaker characters, English dialect speakers, or rare moments of real intimacy. See Chapter 3. Pronouns and the Everyday Verbs.
11.2 Forms of Address at a Glance
| Situation | Period form |
|---|---|
| Man of the gentry or middling sort, formal | Mr. + surname |
| Man holding a militia colonelcy | Colonel + surname |
| Officeholder, by office | Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Mr. Attorney |
| Married or widowed woman of standing | Mrs. + surname (or Mistress) |
| Unmarried woman under ~50, gentry/middling | Miss + surname |
| Unmarried woman over ~50 | Mistress + surname |
| Gentleman or middling man, general | Sir |
| Gentlewoman, any age or marital status | Madam |
| Relative | brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, father, mother |
| Warm address to a stranger or acquaintance | friend |
Full discussion and caveats — including how this system intersected with enslavement and free status — are in Chapter 2. Meetings, Partings, and Forms of Address.
11.3 Quick Substitutes for Modern Phrases
Reach for these whenever a distinctly modern phrase is about to slip out.
| Instead of... | Try... |
|---|---|
| "Are you okay?" | "Are you well?" / "Do you not feel well?" |
| "I have to / I need to" | "I must" / "I am obliged to" |
| "I've got to go." | "I must be gone." |
| "No problem." | "It is of no consequence." / "Think nothing of it." |
| "Great! / Awesome!" | "Excellent!" / "Well done!" |
| "Why? / How come?" | "Why, pray?" / "For what reason?" |
| "I'll check." | "I shall see to it." |
| "Check this out." | "Observe this." / "Mark this." |
| "What's your opinion?" | "What are your sentiments?" / "What say you?" |
| "Because" (casual) | "For" |
| "But" (casual, mid-sentence) | "Only" |
A handful of very modern concepts genuinely have no natural eighteenth-century phrasing — there's no period way to say "check your email" because there was no email to check. For these, the better move is an in-character deflection ("I know not what strange thing you speak of") rather than a forced, anachronistic-sounding workaround. See Chapter 10. Building Your Character's Voice.
11.4 Words Whose Meanings Have Shifted
Some of the trickiest words to use convincingly are the ones that still exist today but meant something different — sometimes almost the opposite — in the eighteenth century. Using a word in its modern sense when a guest expects the period one (or vice versa) can create real confusion, so these are worth knowing cold.
| Word | Eighteenth-century sense | Modern sense |
|---|---|---|
| awful | inspiring awe or reverence | very bad |
| enthusiastic | fanatically religious, possessed by a cause | eagerly interested |
| nice | fussy, exacting, precise | pleasant, agreeable |
| artificial | skillfully made, artful | fake, synthetic |
| disinterested | impartial, having no personal stake | uninterested, indifferent (a modern confusion many still object to) |
| condescension | a virtue: a superior's gracious willingness to treat with an inferior | a patronizing, superior attitude |
| luxurious | given over to sensual pleasure or excess | expensive, opulent |
| stout | strong, sturdy, brave | overweight |
| temper | self-command, evenness of disposition | a display of anger |
| fabulous | mythical, invented, untrue | wonderful |
| sophisticated | adulterated, tampered with (of wine or goods) | worldly, refined |
| explode | to hoot someone off the stage, to discredit noisily | to burst violently |
| want | to lack something | to desire something |
| occasional | made for a particular occasion | happening now and then |
When in doubt about a word that seems too modern to say — "interesting," "nice," "awful" — check whether it existed in 1770 with a different meaning before assuming it's off-limits entirely. Many surprisingly common modern words are period-accurate as long as you (and, more importantly, your character) mean the eighteenth-century sense.
11.5 A Short Stock of Proverbs and Interjections
Keep a few of each memorized cold, so they surface without conscious effort in conversation. See Chapter 7. Proverbs, Exclamations, and Genteel Profanity for the full list and more context.
Proverbs: Birds of a feather flock together. • Actions speak louder than words. • Make hay while the sun shines. • Necessity is the mother of invention. • It never rains but it pours.
Interjections: Ah. • Fie! • Pish! • Pshaw! • Good lack! • Lord!
Fillers: Well, ... • Why, ... • Pray, ... • In truth, ...
11.6 Feature-Sheet Template
Use this blank template — described fully in Chapter 10. Building Your Character's Voice — to build a personal cheat sheet for each character you portray:
- Opening greeting and reply: ________________________________
- One recurring grammatical habit (verb form, negative, pronoun): ________________________________
- One vocabulary habit (intensifier, connector, or filler): ________________________________
- One proverb or idiom held in reserve: ________________________________
- One interjection or mild oath: ________________________________