>"Dr Hermes" <drhermes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>news:29245-4547E57D-989@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>I admit I missed the whole bit where the actors were saying "St Bedes",
>only to have "St Bodes" dubbed in.
>One problem with being American and watching vintage British shows is
>that I miss the implications of the various accents. We are generally
>much less aware of regional or class accents - they have to be fairly
>extreme before we notice them - and I keep thinking I'm missing a lot
>of irony or contrast that a British viewer would catch right away.
>Mark Hodder specializes in his ***ton Blake website these days, but he
>used to write wonderful reviews of the Bulldog Drummond, Richard Hanney
>and Simon Templar books. Often he would point out the hero insolently
>spoofing posh upper-class figures of speech, something that had gone
>right over my head.
I can see that. Howver, you are not missing an awful lot. For many young
English viewers, especially in the 1960s when there was much less
geographical employment displacement, the regional dialects and accents
were
a mystery too. And you are at least aware that there was some spoofing
going on. I get something similar with the Saint books - there are many
jocular references to 1930s slang (I'm on about the 14th book) which are
long-forgotten these days and need research to elucidate. But people do
the
same for 400-year-old Shakespeare, so we are not so badly off. England
and
America have grown closer recently (last 100 years) and with some
application we can each start appreciating the centuries of colloquialism
of
the other.
As a rule of thumb (we share that expression?) the more "sloppy" a Brit
accent sounds, the more "working (lower) class" it is - and the more
"strangulated" or nasal an accent is, the more "posh"/rich/aristocratic.
That is all you need to know - because that is all the differentiation the
1960s program-makers credited their audience with!
I would happily discuss this fascinating topic more, though. Here, or in
http://forum.theavengers.tv/
Happy Avenging!
--
Frank
--
Jen: Why do you never see any cockney goths?
Richmond: They're too cheerful. They ruin it for the rest of us.
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