Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories have been the subject of an immense resurgence in interest in recent years; the success of the Robert Downey Jr films, the BBC modern reboot featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, and the American contemporary take called Elementary, starring Lucy Liu, all evidence of this new found popularity. This resurgence has led to a growing number of people to peruse through the readily available contents of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's gigantic library of Sherlock Holmes accounts. While this is indeed a commendable outcome of the production of TV interpretations of literary genius, there are a number of words, phrases and statements which were fine for the Victorian audience of the time, but are incompatible with a modern readership. The Victorian vocabulary used the exact same words as we use today but with an entirely different meaning, and our use of their words has created a major dilemma for anyone with a slight immaturity; ejaculate, aroused and tossed off are made reference to in the books, yet in the context of when they were written there is nothing offensive, lascivious or crude to what they mean. It is our ideas and immaturity which gives rise to this issue, and our redefinition of classical words which is to blame, not the accessible, fast paced writing style of the novels and stories.
A 21 year old History graduate looking for someone to listen to his ramblings. Lover of comic books, movies and all other superhero related things. Published in The Independent, always looking for interesting things to write about...Follow me on Twitter at @samclements1993, and check out my blog: http://samuelclements.wordpress.com/
