Kath, I had a similar moan about this kind of thing some time ago, after reading a book that was so full of period and speech inaccuracies that I would have dumped it but the story was very interesting! In a later book in the series the author changed or explained some of the mistakes that must have been pointed out to her!
Just grit your teeth and finish! I got through it by pretending my book was a bad translation of a foreign language one.

Wrong language, dress and behaviour for the period and such things can be very annoying, but if it's just one or two errors, I usually let it slip. What I really can't stand is geographical errors. One particularly bad one was when a romance author sent her hero to the Shetland Islands and he landed on an island that doesn't exist. I forget its exact name, but it was something like Great or Grand Shetland.

I also recall, from a different novel, a 19th century journey from London to Gretna Green that took a suspiciously short time.

Kath, re the 'pirate' stuff. Francis Drake was foremost a navigator, defeater of the Armada and scourge of the Spanish, but not a pirate, especially not of the many-hued beard varieties, in the modern sense of the word.
Did the 'Oak' book imply that kilt's were worn at an Elizabethan themed wedding? If so that would have been wrong as Scottish tartans/plaids etc were the result of a visit to Scotland by George IV. The writer Sir Walter Scott arranged a huge 'bash' and invented all these loud clan colours etc and surprisingly the lairds (all highly Anglicised) went along with it. Victoria and Albert extended the love of all things Scottish and the 'legends' took off. All of which is probably more than you care to know. ;-)

Vee, I know the kilts were made popular in Queen Vic's time, but the belted plaid, worn like a kilt but with a part to go over the shoulder, are from much earlier. The Dress Act after the Jacobite Rebellion in the mid 1746 forbade the wearing of the kilt and any other 'Highland dress' as part of the subjugation of the Scots, so they were certainly around.
And while Francis Drake was indeed a navigator, he was also happy to rob any Spanish boats he could, which I think makes him a pirate.
I guess my point is that there were pirates in Elizabethan times, and kilts at the time of the later pirates, so all those dresses kind of fitted in.

I think I should have become a proofreader because I find, and am annoyed by multiple grammar errors in novels. I sometimes read with a pencil in hand and underline all the errors I notice. I allow anything except misspellings that I find within quotations because it can be argued that the character's speech is filled with grammar errors. My biggest complaint is that English speakers from many countries say "try AND do" something when the author really means "try TO do" something. If one tries, AND does something, he has been successful. If he tries TO do something we know only that he has made an effort. I wonder if all publishers proofread before printing. I wish I weren't so picky because finding errors interrupts my concentration. I believe that publishers owe their readers a carefully proof read product.
Nancy

Kath, I take your point about the early Highland 'dress', but we will have to differ over Drake. I believe as England and Spain were at war with each other it was 'permissible' by the rules of War (such as they were) to seize cargo from enemy ships . . . and Drake gave the booty to a grateful cash-strapped Queen.
DH and I spent a fruitless lunchtime discussing past participles/tenses etc (he has the advantage of having studied Latin) but could come to no conclusion over sing, sung, sang etc. Chambers Dictionary says that sung, hung etc are older forms of those parts of speech.

I have come across, in American writing, the use of the word 'fit' as in "Her new kitchen was fit last week", while we in the UK would use it only in the present tense, so would say "Her new kitchen was fitted last week." or "Her new kitchen will be fitted next week." It throws me every time I see it written.

Get out the red pencil !!
For sure!

When I come across an error which slipped by the editor or copy reader ( do they still do this?) I cannot leave it without correcting the error.
I think it's the old teacher in me.
Of course it makes no actual difference, but I feel better no having left a glaring mistake on the page. LOL

It's just a book. Why on earth do you feel you have to finish it if it's annoying you?
Read the last two pages and be done with it.
Or, you may want to examine why you read.
I read to be entertained, amused, consoled, occasionally educated, but mostly, to escape.
If a book doesn't deliver, well, there are plenty more.

Not finishing a book because it is telling a story, no matter how badly, would be, for me, like walking away from a person who is speaking to you, even if they were using bad grammar and inaccurate words.
I have done proof-reading and do itch to correct mistakes but cannot bring myself to mark a book, even my own! Life can be so difficult at times :-)

I have had that experience, luckily not too many times. Attitudes are a particularly big problem for me - when the characters exhibit decidedly modern behavior and attitudes. This happens more frequently in movies. I can't continue with the book if it actually becomes part of the plot.

bumblebeez, I don't feel I have to finish any book anymore - but I want to finish this one as the story is good. Thankfully it hasn't annoyed me past the first third :-)

It depends.

Can't stand grammar or punctuation errors - but those are really the fault of the proof-reader. I was recently horrified to find a recent paperback copy of 1984; my own copy is beautifully accurate, but this one, for some reason, had replaced at least some of the semi-colons with commas. So presumably, someone had carefully "corrected" them. Grrrrr.

As far as factual accuracy is concerned - well, I shrug and accept it. If a flower is in bloom at a time of year when it couldn't possibly be, I wouldn't notice in any case - similarly with not-too-gross anachronisms.

Black Swan Green did slightly annoy me - the book was set in the eighties, and the kid in the book kept referring disparagingly to things being a bit "gay". Well, by then, "gay" was certainly used for homosexual, but the use by kids as a slightly disparaging term is really quite modern - certainly within the last twenty years, I'd have said. Bit subtle, that.

I can live with technical errors about computers, even though I work with them. I can normally ignore scientific errors, too. But there is the famous error in The Lord of the Flies - Piggy was short-sighted, so his glasses would not have worked as burning glasses. Something as fundamental as that, on which the whole book turns - damn it, it should be right!

When I come upon an error in accuracy of fact it's like being shaken awake from a lovely dream.
I lose my immersion in the story and am suddenly aware of reading over someone's shoulder who is writing a book and seeing their weaknesses rather than the storyline.
It can be very distracting.
I imagine that a good editor will take care of all this before it gets in my hands.
Like everything else in life, there are good ones and not so good ones !

When I find an error in spelling or grammar it is like missing a step on stairs, hearing a dischord in a beautiful symphony, or seeing someone wearing checks with paisley, stripes and plaid!
Nancy

Publishers don't seem to bother editing books much these days. It is a pity. Writers do make mistakes, and indeed probably always have. I do like a good command of the language in books and grammar is part of this.

R

This is a very interesting thread. I suppose we all have our "hot buttons", glaring inaccuracies which really just get under our skin. For me, it is the issue of first names. Though writers of historical fiction often do exhaustive research, many rarely check to see which names were common during the same period. They will set a novel during a distant historical period, but give the main characters trendy names from our time. The end result are novels with characters named "Trent" and "Lauren", but set centuries ago. Or they play it too safely and name every male character "Jacob", and every female one "Emily".

Barbara Pym, for example, gave much thought to the names of her characters, the deciding factor often being the age of the person in question. Her assumption was the first names are like historical artifacts. In her published journal, she discusses the naming of a heroine based on the changing trends of names for middle-class, everyday Britons. Also, she occasionally raises the issue of names in her novels, often to make jabs at the affections of the upwardly mobile.

I think it's very important indeed, if you are writing a period piece, that you use names which were around at the time. It's very simple to check - or just look at the literature or historical figures of the time. For example, I know that the name 'Blanche' was around in the 14th century because Blanche was a Duchess of Lancaster and Chaucer dedicated a poem to her.

I couldn't read a historical novel where characters had glaringly anachronous names. It just wouldn't even begin to evoke in me 'that willing suspension of disbelief.'

Dido

Dido

Many names which seem very modern to our ears, are actually very old. There seem to have been many 18th century women named "Dorothy", for example. I know of at least one "Mabel" who was around in Tudor times.

I totally agree with your observation regarding how easy it is for writers to check for names which are appropriate.

I wrote a college paper on King Arthur once and found it interesting that one source said that after the time he is supposed to have lived, there were many boys named Arthur but the name was not common before.

Kath, in one of the C J Sansom books, the Tudor lawyer, walks through his kitchen and notices the pot-boy peeling potatoes . . . over a hundred years before they would have been at all familiar in England.

Interesting about names used in literature. I always though Daphne du Maurier's choices quite 'over-the-top'; several Barbara's and a Donna (very Hollywood) and as for Maxim (de Winter) is it meant to be the shortened form of Maximilian?
Carolyn, re the name Arthur I wonder if your 'source' for your college paper got it the wrong way round and that at the time when the tales of the Knights of the Round Table were popular the name 'Arthur' was already 'out there' as a boy's name. Presumably if there had been a 'real' King Arthur, he would have lived in post-Roman times when names would have been very simple and 'Nordic'.
The most anachronistic use of names I have come across was in a movie, set in swashbuckling days, mid seventeenth century. The two heroes were called Gary and Wayne. ;-)

Hahaha! Gary and Wayne!!

Yes, that potato one is poor. Brings us back to Francis Drake *g*

(We learnt a song in primary school which I have just been Googling with no luck, the chorus had a line 'assured his name eternal fame by finding the potato'. Anyone else know this one?)