This is because it is forever the argument of pedantic sorts that forms and structures to which they object are always thought of as new, freshly misbegotten just the other day novelties that are to be shunned. This is usually far from the truth. For example, preposition stranding (ending a sentence with a preposition), which clucks many a pedantic tongue on both sides of the Atlantic, has been a point of contention since at least Shakespeare's day and ain't dates back to at least the 1700's. It doesn't surprise me in the least that your British author writing about the early 1900's would make casual flip-floppy use of this structure.
There's a joke I heard one time - a woman from the Deep South of United States (we'd say "a Southern Belle') gets on a plane, sit's down, and says to the woman next to her, "So, where y'all come from?" The woman replies, "I come from a place where we know better than to end a sentence with a preposition!" The Southern Belle thinks for a minute and then responds, "So, where y'all come from, b***h?"
Sometimes I struggle with dialog and I am native English speaking, born in the US. But I have lived in California, Utah, Oklahoma, and Alabama. I have picked up so many regional words and accents I have to really think about when I am wanting to write someone that is from a single area. A Californian wouldn't say 'Y'all', and someone from Alabama wouldn't say 'Awesome'. Fun stuff!
Yeah you pick up fun stuff. I have Western American dialect because my Dad's been in Colorado since the 50s and is one of the few people with an actual Colorado accent, have Western Pennsylvania retentions from my Mom's side (I can use "You'ns" in a sentence), Yidishisms from my synagogue, and I've picked up the proper use of y'all after moving to DC and being around people who use it at the beginning of sentences ("Y'all better get over here"). That and I study Australia and am starting to pick up Australianisms when I talk about that subject matter. Weird to think about all those influences.
This is an excellent thread. This shows what a diverse forum can do that books can't, or even 'the internet' or google. Real advice from real people who know the language. I just got some fantastic advice on idiomatic Hungarian, which I needed for my novel—provided by one of our members who is Hungarian himself. I have hunted the internet for years, to get what he offered me in a couple of PMs. Excellent resource. Maybe just call the thread something like "The Idiom Guide?" So that people will know it's not just about English usage? Sometimes a character in a novel written in English will need to coin a few foreign phrases, so it's nice to have experts on hand to make sure the writer gets them right.
My two cents worth (or "two pennies worth" for those who prefer the original British idiom) on the "some sort of (a)" issue: articles (a, an, the) are mainly used with specific (singular or plural) nouns, while the use of articles is optional with plural (countable (e.g. books) and mass (e.g. blood)) nouns (i.e. there are no reliable rules for their use). The use of "a" with "paralysis" may be a British English idiomatic convention (compare to: en-GB "in hospital" vs en-US "in the hospital").
I also do a bit of slush reading, and recently read a story by somebody for whom English was not a first language. While I could wish that any of my foreign languages was half as good as his English, it was his word choice that was the giveaway, rather in the "Mask evaded his ears" kind of way ("The mask missed his ears"? The mask slipped down over his ears"?). However, I did query the word choices in another story, and asked whether English was the author's first language, only to receive a very prickly response that, yes, English was his/her first language!
Not everyone speaks the same English and not everyone who writes in English will write in 'proper' or Queen's English.
Some people go out of their way to cultivate an unusual idiolect. I myself have been guilty of this. I deplore creating the subjunctive with if as the header. It feels pedestrian to me in narrative. Save for writing dialogue, I always use the verb headed form. Just the other day I received a request for corrections on a document I had translated (I work as a legal translator) wherein the attorney pointed out a shaming number of corrections to be made that were all to the tune of choosing more common, pedestrian syntax constructions in place of the more formal syntax choices I had made. In my defense, the original language text (Spanish) had been written in a very high register of formal syntax.
And depending on where one lives, the Queen's English can raise an eyebrow or two as well. There was a time when I had unwittingly adopted the affectation of saying different to, instead of different from or than. Of the three choices, different to is the one choice pretty much never heard in AmE. Someone made it a point of using the same construction in front of me, and in front of others, raised inflection and all, to point out my unusual use that I guess was annoying him. Needless to say, I stopped.
That must actually be pretty hard job, especially from a legal point of view as translating is not just changing one word for the equivalent in another language. I envy your foreign language skills @Wreybies
In the example that I was talking about, it was the inconsistency of the language that was the clue...one minute it was formal, Queen's English, the next minute it was quite idiomatic...as if the writer was straining with a foreign language, rather than his native tongue, and picking words out of his dictionary that matched the word that he used, naturally enough, in his own language...and English does have a wealth of different words that mean almost the same thing.
It's sometimes hard to choose certain words when writing, especially if you seem to be using the same word more often that you want to. (suddenly, is a good example). That's when you find yourself looking through the thesaurus for alternatives. The trouble with doing that, is if you don't quite understand or use the alternative in your everyday life, even though it's your native language, you can sometimes choose the wrong one. Yes, it might be an alternative to what you were using and it might mean the same thing but it doesn't always fit in the sentence you are trying to put it in. If you know what I mean.
I would never say different than. Different to, yes and different from, yes. It's different to mine, it's different from those ... Hmmm
You hear it in America, especially in the South, but even here it hits the ear as decidedly wrong. The person who says different than will also probably say had went. You get the picture.
the same with "I done it" Good lord, I don't have a posh, QE bone in my body but that really hurts my ears!
The use of "a" before paralysis makes me think the speaker is approaching the matter clinically. "Some sort of paralysis" would address the effect of the disability on the muscles; "some sort of a paralysis" considers the direct cause. (Other than the horse, of course.) It's a subtle difference, but there. You could also be looking at the product of early 20th century British usage. For that matter, we still say "He died of a stroke," not "He died of stroke."
An interesting notation. He died of a heart attack is standard, and he died of heart attack sounds either completely wrong or, at best, affected. But he died of pneumonia sounds fine and he died of a pneumonia sounds clinical, as in your example. It leaves a sense that the person who spoke might have a ready answer were you to ask what kind of pneumonia. Interesting indeed.
We also say "He died from a stroke." Maybe because a heart attack is one event (that can kill you in seconds) where as pneumonia is an illness that's a culmination of other illnesses that affect the immune system. You're right about "he died of heart attack" being wrong but if you change attack to disease, the sentence works. He died of heart disease. Which kinda follows the same reasoning as pneumonia, it's a long running illness rather than a sudden event.
