Leia wrote:

I can hear Vila saying something on the lines of 'oh sod it' though. I think he's have to be wuite worked up to use bastard. And there are a number of the crew he's got plenty of ( err *non* slash) reasons to call a 'daft bugger' or similar as 'bugger' is reguarly used by most Brits without any of it's literal meaning attached.

And yet the use of "oh sod it" or "daft bugger" would give me pause. Maybe because as Anna said about "I guess" those words--sod/daft/bugger--weren't used in the series. Anything not in the series has to fit the formal, futuristic speech patterns of the characters (as I hear them) to work for me.

Beyond words used in the series, we're all influenced by our own backgrounds and our own expectations of how the characters would speak. What sounds "right" to one fan might sound "wrong" to another fan (and not just because of American/British/Australian/etc variances in speech and word usage). It's like every other difference of perception in regard to the series. We can either tolerate the differences and continue reading or avoid stories/writers that bother us. Which is simple enough. There's plenty of fanfic to go around.

Carol