Last week I had the pleasure of going over edits of Ring of Secrets with my awesome editor, and she proved her awesomeness by discovering some words I hadn’t thought to look up but which were way too new for my 1780-set book.

One of the most surprising is lowlife. It feels like an old-fashioned word to call somebody, doesn’t it? Like it should be from the age when base-born was one of the meanest things you could say about someone. But . . . it’s not.

The adjective form, low-life, did indeed enter the English language in 1794, meaning “vulgar, disreputable.” (Still too late for my story, mind you…), but it didn’t make the transition from adjective to noun until–get this–1911! Aaaagggghhhhhh!

Thanks heavens for an editor who thought to look this one up. She knows this sort of thing is important to me and got to laugh while I went “Aaaaaggghhhhh, really? Really? What in the world can I call him then?” LOL. (Enter “miscreant” and “criminal” for the two places in the book I’d used “lowlife.”)

I hope everyone was a great week!