Medieval Underpants

But the problem with it is that it tends to burst the bubble of suspension of disbelief. The reader is jarred back to themselves and all the careful work the author has done to that point is compromised. Of course, if you intend that, and want the reader to have a laugh at their own expense, that's fine, but usually...?

I'm with rollin and opb on this. When I write a period story - even if the period's as recent as the 1950s - I always try to avoid any expressions (and of course clothing, artifacts, etc) that would stick out as anachronistic. There's no need to take this to jimisim's 'extremis', with 14th-century characters speaking Chaucerian English - but it's perfectly possible to write in such a way that the dialogue sounds authentic; as rollin notes, writers such as Bernard Cornwell do this, as does Hilary Mantel in her superb novels about Thomas Cromwell (set in Tudor England).

True, my 'Spanky Fairy Tales' break that rule - but then they're essentially jokey. Besides, fairy tales are timeless, aren't they?

I think that fairy tales have rules all their own... or no rules at all.

If I do a Victorian Era piece I would like to use silk drawers with curtains that could be pulled apart to bare the bottom.