Becoming Mrs. Lewis, by Patti Callahan, a novelization of the relationship between C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman, has a passage that made me gnash my teeth.
Davidman supposedly quotes a line from Lewis’s Prince Caspian, and I was puzzled at not recognizing it since I’ve read the book dozens of times. I googled it and found that it was a quote from the film version and not the book. The film version appeared 50 years after Davidman’s death!
Well, I remember a review of contemporary music which started off talking about Toad the Wet Sprocket, a band that did not exist until many years later.
David Milch, the creator of Deadwood, disputes Sheidlower, but I would tend to trust an editor of the OED over a TV producer.
No, they didn’t. I may have the curse word wrong, but I’m pretty certain it was “cocksucker.”
Jewish, Yiddish speaker, heard it both ways.
Reminds me of a forgettable book I read that tried to say that an old piece of writing in Hebrew had the word “Moses” in it, and commented on it ending in the “S” sound, that being significant in some way. Except in any Hebrew document, Moses isn’t “Moses,” he’s “Moshe.” “moe-SHEH”
Not me. I say Wih- Scahn- sin. Madison native.
Also, it’s Sheh-WAH-meh-gun, not Check-wah-May-kon for the Chequamegon National Forest. Looking at you, Starman.
There was an episode of House, MD where Hugh Laurie lost his accent for one word. It was in the latter half of the series, and House references aluminum. However, it comes out of the British Laurie’s mouth as “aluminium.”
That was the only time that I recall his American accent wavering.
Well, I think we’re all agreed that that’s the sort of conversation in which that word would be used…
That’s not quite so much a difference of accent as there actually being slightly different words in use in the two countries. Were I to say “aluminum” with my English accent it would be just that - “aluminum” with an English accent - not “aluminium”.
But all I’m doing there is being picky about the idea of what an accent is. In terms of the OP, you’re bang on.
I notice verbal anachronisms in a fair few British TV period shows set within the last three or four generations (say, since about 1900). The further back they’re set, the more latitude you have to allow, otherwise writers start producing loads of “Ho! Varlet!” and other Victorian attempts at the mediaeval. But when it’s within living memory, or even a couple of generations’ oral tradition, it can’t be that difficult to get a sense of how people spoke - or didn’t - then.
One that sticks in the mind was a series set in the run up to the Suez nonsense in 1956, where a character was talking about a party she was going to even though she thought it was a “pity invite”. Whaaat?
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” takes place in the late '50s, but I’ve heard a number of terms that sounded anachronistic to me: perp walk, nerd alert, avoiding drama, fat suit, play date.
I’m glad to hear that. But Jeopardy was wrong, then, because that’s where I learned the banger pronunciation is the much more common, much to my confusion (and horror).
Brits go to “Hospital” and “University”, instead of “the hospital” or “the university”.
Furthermore, they park their cars in a GAR-idge, unlike how 'muricans park in gah-RAH-jes.
The elderly Irishman I used to work with in the 70’s always pronounced it GAH- razh.
And I’ve never heard any American ever pronounce it gah-RAH-he. Is this a typo, joke, or have I been missing something?
Nothing wrong with a Californian moving to Virginia and teaching the natives how to talk right…
I give this show some latitude because I don’t think you could tell this story to a modern audience limiting yourself to 50s vernacular. Still, the first time I heard “nerd” with the connotation of “brainy but awkward” was in the 70s on Happy Days, which was set in the 50s. Maybe it was an actual term in Garry Marshall’s neighborhood growing up?
Really?
I’m from L.A. County. It’s the Santa Monica Freeway.
Yes, from one end to the other.
And Linkletter didn’t call it Hoose Party?
Mind. Blown.
Broadly speaking, the American pronunciation of “garage” has emphasis on the second syllable, but I think the way that was described was a bit confusing. Something akin to guh-RAHZH is what I think was meant.
Brits are more likely to have GA-rahzh or GA-ridge (first syllable as in “gas” in both cases).
Anyway. Does any of this refer to a particular character’s unlikely speech, or is it just general transatlantic differences?
Not true. It stops being the Santa Monica Freeway in downtown LA and becomes the San Bernadino Freeway. Most people I know simply call it the 10.
i