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Comment by sorokod | Hacker News Reader

I commented elsewhere that rereading a book can be compared to revisiting a certain landscape. After a wery long time I am rereading "A Study In Scarlet", the very first Sherlock Holmes story. Just from the first few chapters some things I have not noticed or perhaps forgot:

* Watson is an Afghanistan veteran

* The London borough of Holborn is referred to as "the Holborn" (no idea why)

* Watson and Holmes are flatmates, they share an apartment as they can't afford to live solo - some things don't change.

* The word "ejaculate" did some cultural traveling over the years.

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>> share an apartment as they can't afford to live solo

There was also at the time a general disdain for living solo. A person living on their own was almost seen to be hiding something. Their daily activity would be totally unchecked. The protestant ethic also saw it wasteful for one person to occupy an entire dwelling on their own. Think of all the scrooge-like literary characters who lived alone.

Not an expert on late 19 century England but this is not the way the story goes:

... He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.” “By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.

Note: story. "I should prefer having a partner to being alone." The character is reassuring the reader that he isn't the sort of oddball loner who might actually want to live alone. They may have expenses, but they both feel a societal need not to be that strange man living alone in an empty apartment.

There's a line in War of the Worlds that was innocuous at the time, but is impossible to read as intended now to our modern eyes:

"He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down stairs behind him. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating."

This brings back memories of me reading this is middle school. I remember getting to this exact spot and thinking should I be reading this? Lol. I'm glad to know I'm not the only person that read that passage a different way.

Funny how we (and victorians such as Conan Doyle and Wells) make an effort to avoid "naughty words" and then all efforts come to nothing as the language moves on.

No it isn't.

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