While reading Tipping the Velvet, I kept thinking how a writing a Victorian novel from a modern perspective influences the text. I thought Fin made an interesting point about how Waters tells the story in a more approachable way than Dickens. She sets up a historical context without the implied understanding of the setting that Dickens uses to address his London audience. Waters creates a setting and language for the reader without assuming that the reader knows about the subject but also without spoon-feeding the information. She uses Nan as a narrator that tells the story as if she is talking with a person, starting the novel by directly addressing the reader with the second person. She then establishes the setting and vocabulary through context clues and carefully chosen details. Waters uses the word queer several times to create a double meaning between the definition at the time the novel is set (Strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious) and the connotations it carries now (of or pertaining to homosexuality). She mostly uses queer when all three meanings can be attached. As Danielle said, it makes the most sense meaning peculiar or of questionable character. However, it is also usually related to Nan’s feelings for Kitty or to dressing in man’s clothing. The modern reader can connect these things homosexuality and therefore to what many people considered (and sadly still consider) “of questionable character.” I was trying to figure out what this double meaning accomplished because it seems to reinforce homosexuality in a negative light. I think Walters must have used this to show the origin of the word queer and emphasize society’s opposition to homosexuality.