I came across this on one of my myriad lists, and I really liked it, especially the story at the end.

Original Author Unknown

Avoiding Sounding Ridiculous When Playing Persona

Many SCAdians try to be different people when
attending events. This is
a Good Thing ~tm~ -- it's called persona play.
Persona play can make an
SCA event a truly medieval experience instead of a
bunch of
quasi-academics in funny clothes at a camp-out.
There are, however, some
unfortunate paths SCAdians have taken in the past in
order to get to the
desired end of a medieval atmosphere.

In order to avoid obvious mundanity in our SCA
experience, certain words
and phrases have developed. These phrases replace
the mundane references
involved with words and phrases of an
almost-medieval flavor. The
trouble is that, used on their own and in persona
play, they sound quite
silly. Moreover, they actually draw the listener to
the overt mundanity
which the words/phrases pretend to hide. To
illustrate, let us examine
some of the most common (and the ones most newcomers
first encounter),
and some possible actually medieval replacements:

Troll booth. Neither I nor my persona have never
seen a troll, much less
one in a booth. If either of us ever do, we will do
our best to kill
that nasty thing. A much more fitting phrase would
be gate guard. All
castles, fortified towns, and manor house complexes
(in short, all the
places a gathering of medieval people would occur)
had gates. Moreover,
those gates were supplied with guards.

Portable castle. Never have I heard of such a thing,
except in certain
late-period jousts, where spectacle was the order of
the day. Certainly,
the portable castles which did exist were not used
for the elimination
of bodily waste. Contrary to ostensible SCA belief,
there was a medieval
word for this concept: privy.

Smalls/Halflings. Thankfully, this word is not much
in use here in
Eisental. It is in use in much of the Kingdom,
regrettably. Like privy,
medieval persons had a word for humans who were not
yet grown: children.

Farspeaker. This is a tough one. Most often,
farspeaker is used in
conjunction with elf box, which is intended to hide
a reference to a
mundane answering machine. If we combine the twain,
we can easily
replace the concept with messenger or message.

Dragon. Like troll, above, if I ever see one, I
shall attempt to slay
it. Regardless, it can be reasonably assumed that
medieval people did
not travel about in the bellies of such beasts, much
less carry their
belongings therein. Believe it or not, car is
actually a period word for
a conveyance, as are sedan and van. As these are too
obvious and
therefore offensive to the anachronist, allow me to
suggest wagon, cart,
or wain. All these are period words for conveyances,
and are
sufficiently estranged from the modern parlance to
sustain the medieval
atmosphere.

To further illustrate my point, let us examine the
following sentences:

"I left my dragon down at the troll booth so I could
find a farspeaker
to leave a message on my lady's elf box, and now I
must take my smalls
to the portable castle."

Or:

"I left my wagon down at the gate so I could send a
message to my lady,
and now I must take my children to the privy."

Which sounds more medieval? Hm. I thought so. If you
stop to think about
it, the second is actually easier to say! Avoidance
of silly-sounding
jargon is a very nice thing indeed.

This can be used in other ways, also. When
explaining why you were late
to an event, instead of saying you had a flat tire
on the way, say you
had a wheel break on your wagon. Or make up a story
about bandits along
the road. Or a bunch of loony pilgrims who insisted
on telling stories
to pass the time on the road (wait -- that's been
done). If you've been
away from events for a while, don't tell people "My
mundane life caught
up with me." Come up with a creative story. If
you're a teacher and the
kids have been unruly, say you had to put down a
minor peasant revolt
(get it? "Minor peasant"?). If work has been a
time-consuming pain, tell
them that the effort of running your estates has
been hectic. It's easy,
and all it takes is some creativity.

Let me tell you a tale, after which I'll close this
missive. It seems,
some years ago, in the Kingdom of Ansteorra's Barony
of Bjornsburg there
was an event. To this event came one Master Ragnar
Alf-something-or-other, who had succumbed to that
mid-80s mundane fad,
"the perm." He was stopped and questioned about his
newly-curly hair,
and stood there for a moment, thinking. Then his
face lit up, and he
proceeded to tell a story: "One day, not long ago, I
was travelling up
the mountain next to the fjord where I
live. The path was treacherous, and many men have
fallen to their deaths
on the rocks below. As the path wound through a
small wood, I came upon
a circular clearing in the trees, which, as any man
knows, is a place of
magic. That day, magic was upon us, for there in the
middle of the
circle stood the Thunderer himself: Thor. He said,
"Here, Ragnar, hold
my hammer." And thus, my hair became curly." Ragnar
was overheard
telling the same story over and over again, with
greater and greater
embellishment as the day progressed.

You don't have to be a master storyteller like
Ragnar. You just have to
get into the medieval mindset.