Today's literary nitpick
Jan. 21st, 2025 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyAs we all know, the names Patience and Fortitude refer to the lions in front of the main branch of the NYPL. (Which is not really called the main branch, but whatever.) And if you didn't know that, you now understand a little something about the Scholomance books which wasn't really all that funny, but that's not the point of this nitpick.
The names are attributed to LaGuardia sometime during the Depression, and if you can get a year more precise than the 1930s then I'd be glad to see it, but the point of this nitpick is that if your book is set in the 1920s, firmly before the stock market crash, then the lions should not have those names.
But hey! At least our protagonist has yet to loiter in a random midtown alley!
Edit: Oh, ffs. Nobody is being read their Miranda rights in the 1920s. And this, unlike the thing with the lions, really is common knowledge. Can we do a bare minimum of research when writing historical fiction? Neither of those details had to be there, and if they did have to be there then that's okay too - the book could just as easily have been set in the 1970s as the 1920s!
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The names are attributed to LaGuardia sometime during the Depression, and if you can get a year more precise than the 1930s then I'd be glad to see it, but the point of this nitpick is that if your book is set in the 1920s, firmly before the stock market crash, then the lions should not have those names.
But hey! At least our protagonist has yet to loiter in a random midtown alley!
Edit: Oh, ffs. Nobody is being read their Miranda rights in the 1920s. And this, unlike the thing with the lions, really is common knowledge. Can we do a bare minimum of research when writing historical fiction? Neither of those details had to be there, and if they did have to be there then that's okay too - the book could just as easily have been set in the 1970s as the 1920s!
This Giant Smiley Face in Oregon Appears in The Trees in Autumn
A looming 'demographic cliff': Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduates
‘It didn’t use to be like this’: woeful US healthcare system exposed by CEO killing
Meta is getting rid of fact checkers. Zuckerberg acknowledged more harmful content will appear on the platforms now
Mexico drops migrants in troubled resort as it disperses them far from US border
