SF Actor Knighted
Brian Jordan
<v...@redbird.org> writes
>In the non-sf but cool department, Michael Palin, CBE.
>
Who pointed out that his citation "makes no mention of Monty Python -
and quite right too."
Not that I'd agree with him!
Brian
--
Brian Jordan
Marcus L. Rowland
Zardoz, Highlander 1 and <deleted on the grounds of total crapness>,
Meteor, Time Bandits, Outland, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I
suspect others.
And of course The Name of the Rose (which may or may not count as
fantasy), and some sort of vaguely SF spy series...
There's probably a list of the other new year honours on line somewhere,
I don't think any of the others are SF related (unless you count Alan
Sugar, who sold many Brits their first computers).
--
Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
Alison Hopkins
Marcus L. Rowland wrote in message ...
>OK, so it's Sean Connery, but he was in several SF films including
>Zardoz, Highlander 1 and <deleted on the grounds of total crapness>,
>Meteor, Time Bandits, Outland, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I
>suspect others.
>
>And of course The Name of the Rose (which may or may not count as
>fantasy), and some sort of vaguely SF spy series...
>
>There's probably a list of the other new year honours on line somewhere,
>I don't think any of the others are SF related (unless you count Alan
>Sugar, who sold many Brits their first computers).
>--
Liam Neeson's OBE? Mind you, it would have been most pleasing if it had been
Ewan McGregor. OBE-Wan Kenobi.
Sorry.
Ali
Vicki Rosenzweig
-0000:
The entire New Year's honours list, if anyone wants, is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1999/12/99/new_years_honours/newsid_584000/584260.stm
but that page starts by noting that there are 2000 names.
For the SF connection, how about Dave Prowse, MBE? He was
given the award for services to road safety, but Americans
know him as Darth Vader. And if Sean Connery counts as an
sf connection, so does Dame Julie Andrews. Also, Doris
Lessing is now a Companion of Honor (though I realize she
has sometimes denied writing science fiction). (That's
as far down the list as I got.)
In the non-sf but cool department, Michael Palin, CBE.
And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
life peers includes a barony for
Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
Muslim Council of Britain.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Sue Mason for TAFF!
Rob Hansen
wrote:
>And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
>life peers includes a barony for
>Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
>Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
>Muslim Council of Britain
I'm puzzled. Why is this a sign of the times, exactly? There's nothing
unusual about it that I can see.
--
Rob Hansen
================================================
My Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
Feminists Against Censorship:
http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
Vicki Rosenzweig
+0000:
>On Fri, 31 Dec 1999 16:06:26 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
>wrote:
>
>>And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
>>life peers includes a barony for
>>Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
>>Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
>>Muslim Council of Britain
>
>I'm puzzled. Why is this a sign of the times, exactly? There's nothing
>unusual about it that I can see.
Not so much new this year, but the England we read about in
the history books, or in all those nice genteel old mysteries,
wouldn't have been handing out life peerages to Muslims.
Rob Hansen
wrote:
>Quoth Rob Hansen <r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> on Sat, 01 Jan 2000 14:07:26
>+0000:
>
>>On Fri, 31 Dec 1999 16:06:26 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
>>>life peers includes a barony for
>>>Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
>>>Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
>>>Muslim Council of Britain
>>
>>I'm puzzled. Why is this a sign of the times, exactly? There's nothing
>>unusual about it that I can see.
>
>Not so much new this year, but the England we read about in
>the history books, or in all those nice genteel old mysteries,
>wouldn't have been handing out life peerages to Muslims.
Which is one of the reasons I tend to loathe the sheer amount of
dramas set in the past that come out of this country. Not
surprisingly, it gives people elsewhere a view of the country so
outdated as to be a caricature. Not that I'm having a go at you, Vicki
- you've been here - but this is a bit of a sore spot with me.
Vicki Rosenzweig
+0000:
>On Sat, 01 Jan 2000 10:21:17 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
>wrote:
>
>>Quoth Rob Hansen <r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> on Sat, 01 Jan 2000 14:07:26
>>+0000:
>>
>>>On Fri, 31 Dec 1999 16:06:26 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
>>>>life peers includes a barony for
>>>>Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
>>>>Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
>>>>Muslim Council of Britain
>>>
>>>I'm puzzled. Why is this a sign of the times, exactly? There's nothing
>>>unusual about it that I can see.
>>
>>Not so much new this year, but the England we read about in
>>the history books, or in all those nice genteel old mysteries,
>>wouldn't have been handing out life peerages to Muslims.
>
>Which is one of the reasons I tend to loathe the sheer amount of
>dramas set in the past that come out of this country. Not
>surprisingly, it gives people elsewhere a view of the country so
>outdated as to be a caricature. Not that I'm having a go at you, Vicki
>- you've been here - but this is a bit of a sore spot with me.
No, Rob, you're entitled. The thing is, for the most part all that
gets mention of the Honors Lists is two or three famous people--lots
of Americans will hear about Dame Elizabeth Taylor, for example--
and I'd never actually gone and read one before.
Ah, well, the past is a foreign country. A different foreign country.
Mitch Wagner
said:
> On Sat, 01 Jan 2000 10:21:17 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
> wrote:
>
> >Quoth Rob Hansen <r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> on Sat, 01 Jan 2000 14:07:26
> >+0000:
> >
> >>On Fri, 31 Dec 1999 16:06:26 -0500, Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org>
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>>And, one of those signs of the times, the list of new
> >>>life peers includes a barony for
> >>>Adam Hafejee Patel, Vice president, Blackburn
> >>>Community Relations Council and Counsellor,
> >>>Muslim Council of Britain
> >>
> >>I'm puzzled. Why is this a sign of the times, exactly? There's nothing
> >>unusual about it that I can see.
> >
> >Not so much new this year, but the England we read about in
> >the history books, or in all those nice genteel old mysteries,
> >wouldn't have been handing out life peerages to Muslims.
>
> Which is one of the reasons I tend to loathe the sheer amount of
> dramas set in the past that come out of this country. Not
> surprisingly, it gives people elsewhere a view of the country so
> outdated as to be a caricature. Not that I'm having a go at you, Vicki
> - you've been here - but this is a bit of a sore spot with me.
I'm an American Anglophile myself, and I recall an online encounter with
an Anglophobe a year or two ago - he's actually a rather sensible fellow,
intelligent, well-read and good (virtual) company, but he's got a blind
spot when it comes to the U.K. and associates the nation with (1) the
British Empire and (2) costume dramas set before 1900. He seems to assume
that all American Anglophiles are people who wear a lot of tweed, drink
sherry, stand around in rooms decorated with dark wood and animal heads
(from "Inja," you know, good chap) and say, "Pip-pip" to each other.
So if someone in his presence said anything complimentary about, say, the
quality of Indian food to be found in London, this fellow would instantly
launch into a rant about atrocities committed under the Raj 100 years
ago.
It took a good deal of pounding him about the head and shoulders with a
virtual baseball bat (or should I say a cricket whatever-it-is-you-use-
in-cricket?) for him to concede that (1) the British Empire is, sort of,
past tense, you know, there was that whole World War I thing, followed by
that World War II thing, followed by that Cold War thing; maybe you've
heard about them, they were in all the papers at the time? and (2) what I
like is not some stupid sanitized TV rendition of British life in the
past - actually I rather dislike most British costume dramas - but rather
I like the ACTUAL NATION OF GREAT BRITAIN, which my wife and I have
visited a couple of times, along with ACTUAL BRITISH WRITERS, as well as
many of the ACTUAL BRITISH PEOPLE we have met.
--
Mitch Wagner | http://www.sff.net/people/mitchw
P Nielsen Hayden
<MPG.12d94eb448bbab7a989876@news>:
I think I've met a couple of versions of that guy, if not the exact
fellow himself.
I have a lot of sympathy with Rob's feelings on this, actually. But
nonetheless. First, a lot of that history is my history, too. Second,
the fact that I've read lots of British history and lots of novels set
in the British past, along with watching a lot of dramatic productions
likewise, has done nothing but enhance my several trips to Britain. I
like modern Britain just fine and don't expect it to be a historical
theme park.
I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Rob Hansen
>I have a lot of sympathy with Rob's feelings on this, actually. But
>nonetheless. First, a lot of that history is my history, too.
Well, yes, of course it is. And I'm sure you'd be rightly annoyed by
any Brits who sought to deny you the right to feel just as
proprietorial about it as them.
>Second,
>the fact that I've read lots of British history and lots of novels set
>in the British past, along with watching a lot of dramatic productions
>likewise, has done nothing but enhance my several trips to Britain. I
>like modern Britain just fine and don't expect it to be a historical
>theme park.
Some visitors do. Michael Moorcock once wrote about being in an
ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks coming
out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox). What were
they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking madrigals? The
fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's modern day locals
with modern day tastes who use it and who are, rightly, catered to by
the management.
>
>I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
>though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
>can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
>sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
Works for me, though TRAINSPOTTING was a few years ago, now, so a more
recent film UK that should be required viewing is LOCK, STOCK, & TWO
SMOKING BARRELS, a much better movie than the recent NOTTING HILL,
though that's the one that made the megabucks, of course.
Mike Kozlowski
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
>though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
>can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
>sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
Are we still allowed to read Patrick O'Brian books without quota?
--
Michael Kozlowski
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mkozlows/
Kip Williams
seen an "Andy Griffith Show" episode where one of the Mayberry hicks was
trying to act big in front of someone who they thought was English, and
said "we don't like Englisters around here." I always liked this awkward
coinage, which tries to insult someone else, but only makes the utterer
look goony. In retrospect, it almost seems like Larry Gelbart might as
well have written it (not that I think he did). It's like the great
malapropisms and freshly minted cliches of the classic _Movie Movie_ --
which I recommend to anybody reading this, any time, any place. George
C. Scott at his finest, and probably having a lot of fun.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
P Nielsen Hayden
<sfpv6so1tieor0jp7...@4ax.com>:
>On 2 Jan 2000 20:37:23 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
>>I have a lot of sympathy with Rob's feelings on this, actually.
>>But nonetheless. First, a lot of that history is my history, too.
>
>Well, yes, of course it is. And I'm sure you'd be rightly annoyed by
>any Brits who sought to deny you the right to feel just as
>proprietorial about it as them.
The trouble with the "proprietorial" thing, of course, is that it's
usually exclusive rather than inclusive. Too much of this leads to
outrageous situations, like that Amerindian tribe in the Pacific
Northwest that wants to have a lock on ten-thousand-year-old human
relics found on their reservation. Relics which almost certainly
involve people with barely more genetic connection to them than I
have...and, more to the point, relics that might upset various
delicately-balanced ethnic-political applecarts.
David G. Bell
mkoz...@guy.ssc.wisc.edu "Mike Kozlowski" wrote:
> In article <8EAF996...@166.84.0.240>,
> P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
> >though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
> >can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
> >sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
>
> Are we still allowed to read Patrick O'Brian books without quota?
The Doctor is Retired, but my personal recommendation would be ad
libitum interpolation of Forester and Montserrat, particularly "The Good
Shephard" and "The Cruel Sea".
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Rob Hansen
Saw a documentary about that case a while back, and it really was
outrageous. The discovery of an apparently non-Amerindian skull of
such antiquity was obviously hugely important....and can now never be
pursued. I was particularly stunned by the way the US Army destroyed
the site where it was found, so thoroughly contaminating it from an
archaeological point of view that no useful work can ever be done
there again. The impression I got from watching the documentary was,
oddly, more one of Communist Russia than of the modern USA, where
there was only one orthodox history and anything that appeared to
contradict this was airbrushed out or otherwise eliminated. Chilling
stuff.
Jo Walton
mkoz...@guy.ssc.wisc.edu "Mike Kozlowski" writes:
> Are we still allowed to read Patrick O'Brian books without quota?
Of course.
I don't expect Boston's changed much since :The Fortune of War: either?
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
Alison Hopkins
Jo Walton wrote in message <946895...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>...
>In article <84oun7$pbk$1...@news.doit.wisc.edu>
> mkoz...@guy.ssc.wisc.edu "Mike Kozlowski" writes:
>
>> Are we still allowed to read Patrick O'Brian books without quota?
>
>Of course.
>
>I don't expect Boston's changed much since :The Fortune of War: either?
>
Before I first visited the US, my view of it was formed by such gems as
"CHiPs" and Petrocelli. I was quite disappointed at how tame the LA freeways
were.
Ali
Avram Grumer
r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk wrote:
Sounds rather _X-Files_-ish, actually. Do you have any good keywords I
could use to dig up more about this story?
--
Avram Grumer | Any sufficiently advanced
Home: av...@bigfoot.com | technology is indistinguishable
http://www.PigsAndFishes.org | from an error message.
Bjørn Vermo
>
> I have a lot of sympathy with Rob's feelings on this, actually. But
> nonetheless. First, a lot of that history is my history, too. Second,
> the fact that I've read lots of British history and lots of novels set
> in the British past, along with watching a lot of dramatic productions
> likewise, has done nothing but enhance my several trips to Britain. I
> like modern Britain just fine and don't expect it to be a historical
> theme park.
>
Still, one of the things I like about Britain is that, besides being a
modern post-industrial collection of countries, it is also a living
historical theme park. I have met most of the stereotypes in real
life, and I think the country is richer for having them. They may be
rare, and getting rarer every year, but the good old eccentric retired
colonel and the banker wearing his hat are actually signs of a society
which is more flexible than most people will admit.
I remember back in '79 when I went to Barclays Bank in Brighton to get
some cash on my Visa card. The cashier still entered the transaction
in an old ledger with a pen, and I KNEW that they had the most modern
computer system of any bank in the world just out of sight in the back
room. When it works, that mixture of new and old is really nice.
P Nielsen Hayden
<946895...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <84oun7$pbk$1...@news.doit.wisc.edu>
> mkoz...@guy.ssc.wisc.edu "Mike Kozlowski" writes:
>
>> Are we still allowed to read Patrick O'Brian books without quota?
>
>Of course.
>
>I don't expect Boston's changed much since :The Fortune of War:
>either?
Not at all. I assume you've arranged for a coach-and-four to meet you
at Logan Airport when you arrive for Boskone.
Alison Hopkins
Bjørn Vermo wrote in message ...
>Still, one of the things I like about Britain is that, besides being a
>modern post-industrial collection of countries, it is also a living
>historical theme park. I have met most of the stereotypes in real
>life, and I think the country is richer for having them. They may be
>rare, and getting rarer every year, but the good old eccentric retired
>colonel and the banker wearing his hat are actually signs of a society
>which is more flexible than most people will admit.
Hey, don't say that, we'll get even more tourists we can fleece! :)
Seriously, I do believe that eccentricity is one of our National Treasures
and should be preserved at all costs. I was struck even more by this whilst
watching the Millennium Eve broadcasts, which included people swinging
burning bundles around their heads, and others jumping in to the sea.
<shudder>
>
>I remember back in '79 when I went to Barclays Bank in Brighton to get
>some cash on my Visa card. The cashier still entered the transaction
>in an old ledger with a pen, and I KNEW that they had the most modern
>computer system of any bank in the world just out of sight in the back
>room. When it works, that mixture of new and old is really nice.
>
Agreed; and we need to take the best of both, I hope.
Ali
Janice Gelb
>On 2 Jan 2000 20:37:23 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>>Second,
>>the fact that I've read lots of British history and lots of novels set
>>in the British past, along with watching a lot of dramatic productions
>>likewise, has done nothing but enhance my several trips to Britain. I
>>like modern Britain just fine and don't expect it to be a historical
>>theme park.
>
>ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
>apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks coming
>out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox). What were
>they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking madrigals? The
>fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's modern day locals
>with modern day tastes who use it and who are, rightly, catered to by
>the management.
>
Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists who
expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
*********************************************************************
Janice Gelb | Just speaking for me, not Sun.
janic...@eng.sun.com | http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/
"The legal system prevents us from killing each other. The
etiquette system prevents us from driving each other crazy."
-- Miss Manners
P Nielsen Hayden
<84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>:
>In article sfpv6so1tieor0jp7...@4ax.com, Rob Hansen
><r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>Some visitors do. Michael Moorcock once wrote about being in an
>>ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
>>apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks
>>coming out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox).
>>What were they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking
>>madrigals? The fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's
>>modern day locals with modern day tastes who use it and who are,
>>rightly, catered to by the management.
>>
>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists
>who expected the natives to be riding around on camels in
>headdresses and robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists
>who came to Australia expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city
>streets.
When I was a kid in Arizona, we sustained a visit from relatives from
Michigan who, you guessed it, professed themselves disappointed not to
see cowboys and Indians in the street.
Of course, Arizona was and still is full of the genuine version of
both, but they were looking for individuals from the world of Tom Mix,
not grizzled characters with beer bellies and pickup trucks.
Dorothy J Heydt
Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>
>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
And people come to the US and expect to see gangsters with
machine-guns in the cities and cowboys and, excuse me, cowpersons
and Native Americans, in the country.
And they will see them sometimes, mostly because these
traditional figures have been laid on by the local tourist
office. Just as when I went to Edinburgh, I stepped out of the
train station and saw a piper, in full kilt and glad rags,
playing traditional tunes to amuse the tourists.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
James Nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>And they will see them sometimes, mostly because these
>traditional figures have been laid on by the local tourist
>office. Just as when I went to Edinburgh, I stepped out of the
>train station and saw a piper, in full kilt and glad rags,
>playing traditional tunes to amuse the tourists.
I think it was Jo who commented to me that she'd seen a surprising
number of Scotsmen in Canada. IMS more than she'd run into at home.
I could walk across the street and get a passle of kilted bagpipers
as I can hear them practicing right now.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
-0500:
"Kennewick Man" ought to work as a search phrase.
Jordin Kare
<mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
> In article <sfpv6so1tieor0jp7...@4ax.com>,
> r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk said:
>
> > Some visitors do. Michael Moorcock once wrote about being in an
> > ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
> > apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks coming
> > out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox). What were
> > they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking madrigals? The
> > fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's modern day locals
> > with modern day tastes who use it and who are, rightly, catered to by
> > the management.
>
> To me, that's one of the best parts of visiting Britain: many of the
> buildings are supernaturally old, by American standards, and yet they're
> still living buildings, still in use.
>
Based on my limited traveling, I've found it fascinating to watch the age
of structures vary as you visit different regions of the world. I suspect
you could do some interesting scholarly work on the development of modern
civilization by mapping the age of buildings that locals think of as "old"
or "historic" (It's a fuzzy definition, obviously, since relatively
recent construction of special significance is often "historic", while
even the newest areas of California have the odd Spanish mission
building.)
My own rough estimates:
California -- 100 years ("It survived the '06 quake")
Midwest, south US -- 150-200 years ("Pre-Civil War")
Northeastern US -- 200 - 300 years ("PreRevolutionary")
England -- 500 - 1000 years
(Don't know how that compares to most of Europe)
Italy, Greece -- 1000 - 2000 years
Middle East -- >2000 years
It's not hard to find patches of Jerusalem, for example, where there are
substantial chunks of still-used structure dating from well before 1 c.e.
Jordin Kare
Avram Grumer
<v...@redbird.org> wrote:
> Quoth av...@bigfoot.com (Avram Grumer) on Mon, 03 Jan 2000 12:27:25
> -0500:
>
> >Sounds rather _X-Files_-ish, actually. Do you have any good
> >keywords I could use to dig up more about this story?
>
> "Kennewick Man" ought to work as a search phrase.
But we've already done a filk with that tune.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@bigfoot.com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~avram/
If music be the food of love, then some of it be the Twinkies of
dysfunctional relationships.
Mitch Wagner
> Some visitors do. Michael Moorcock once wrote about being in an
> ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
> apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks coming
> out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox). What were
> they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking madrigals? The
> fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's modern day locals
> with modern day tastes who use it and who are, rightly, catered to by
> the management.
To me, that's one of the best parts of visiting Britain: many of the
buildings are supernaturally old, by American standards, and yet they're
still living buildings, still in use.
In East Anglia, we stayed in a 500-year-old B&B. This was a
building that was standing when Columbus sailed! And I sat right there in
the host's home office and checked my e-mail on his computer. Very
stfnal, in a way that perhaps you need to be an American to understand.
> Works for me, though TRAINSPOTTING was a few years ago, now, so a more
> recent film UK that should be required viewing is LOCK, STOCK, & TWO
> SMOKING BARRELS, a much better movie than the recent NOTTING HILL,
> though that's the one that made the megabucks, of course.
I thought "Notting Hill" was a cute movie, actually, although it
committed many Romantic Comedy Movie Failures, such as (1) I understand
Notting Hill, in real life, is an upscale neighborhood, and there's no
way the owner of a failing travel bookstore could ever afford to live
there, especially not in a really cute blue townhouse and (2) Like
"Crossing Delancey," my reaction to the movie was to wonder what the two
people see in each other. In "Crossing Delancey," I thought that the
pickle salesman was far, far too good for the Amy Irving character; and
in "Notting Hill" I was 50% baffled why Hugh Grant's character fell for
the Julia Roberts character - she could be SUCH an evil bitch sometimes -
and I was 100% baffled why the Julia Roberts character fell for the Hugh
Grant character; he was SUCH a wuss.
I think "Notting Hill" would've been a far better movie if the male lead
was written for, and played by, a young James Garner.
--
Mitch Wagner | dm.members.mitch-wagner | sff.people.mitch-wagner |
http://www.sff.net/people/mitchw
Mitch Wagner
> Works for me, though TRAINSPOTTING was a few years ago, now, so a more
> recent film UK that should be required viewing is LOCK, STOCK, & TWO
> SMOKING BARRELS, a much better movie than the recent NOTTING HILL,
> though that's the one that made the megabucks, of course.
I sent that previous message before I meant to.
I did think that "Notting Hill" had a lot going for it. I liked some of
the peripheral characters, in particular, the character of the
stockbroker. I liked the way he was portrayed as a bit pompous, a bit of
a stuffed shirt, but also good-hearted and true. I loved his reaction
when he was patronizing the Julia Roberts character, whom he assumed was
some struggling waitress-slash-actress, and he asked her how much she
made for her last picture. He expected her to say $100 or $200, but
instead she said, "Fifteen million dollars"--which is, as a matter of
fact, what Julia Roberts earned for "Notting Hill."
Kip Williams
>
> In article <84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>,
> Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
> >
> >Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
> >countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
> >phenomenon. [examples snipped]
>
> And people come to the US and expect to see gangsters with
> machine-guns in the cities and cowboys and, excuse me, cowpersons
> and Native Americans, in the country.
My pal David Mattingly took a trip out to New York City around 1970. On
his return, he told me that they'd asked him whether he'd had problems
with the Indians, and he'd said they had to close the bus windows
sometimes.
Of course, I took his story at face value. I liked believing that
Easterners were clueless. He could have been having me on -- a
possibility that didn't occur to me for years.
Kip Williams
Spring, Mr. Scott, and so on.
Fortunately, I've seen some examples of the awful accents that pass for
Yankee-speak in England, and I don't feel so bad any more. I've seen a
few who could do a really convincing USA accent: Peter Sellers and Bob
Hoskins, for instance. But the generic phoneme substitutions used to
simulate my countrymen result in a strange dialect I sometimes strive to
imitate.
It's sad. I used to think I should try going to England and volunteering
to do Americans for the BBC. Later, I thought maybe I should just go
over and coach them in how to do it. Nowadays, here I am... pondering
how to imitate a cheesy fake American accent.
mike weber
2000 20:37:23 GMT,
>I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
>though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
>can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
>sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
>
Heck, i'll watch "Trainspotting" twice if you'll let me off on the
Merchant-Ivory stuff.
OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
--
mike weber kras...@mindspring.com
==========================================================
The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns
something that will always be useful and which never will
grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.
overly ambitious website: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
mike weber
Mon, 3 Jan 2000 16:52:17 -0000,
:
>Before I first visited the US, my view of it was formed by such gems as
>"CHiPs" and Petrocelli. I was quite disappointed at how tame the LA freeways
>were.
>
A lot of USAns who have formed their images just as much through
teevee viewing are disappointed/amazed by how relatively civilised and
safe LA, NYC and the Rural South are when they actually visit them.
Andy Hickmott
wrote:
>
>And people come to the US and expect to see gangsters with
>machine-guns in the cities and cowboys and, excuse me, cowpersons
>and Native Americans, in the country.
>
>And they will see them sometimes, mostly because these
>traditional figures have been laid on by the local tourist
>office. Just as when I went to Edinburgh, I stepped out of the
>train station and saw a piper, in full kilt and glad rags,
>playing traditional tunes to amuse the tourists.
>
Let's see... I live in Manhattan, and in my home neighborhood (Inwood)
I've seen most of these.
I think I saw someone flashing what looked like a Glock once. I
didn't stay around to find out more, so I'm not sure. I took it
seriously.
The Native Americans throw a shindig in the park across the street
once a year. This park has in it a big rock with an inscription
saying, and I paraphrase, "This is where the Dutch forked over some
cheap beads for this whole island. Real estate is always a good
investment."
I've seen pipers fairly often. There are a lot of Irish in the
neighborhood, and ther've been a couple of people practicing for pipe
bands in the park regularly. I like pipe music.
I've never seen a cowboy in the neighborhood. But one of the fairs in
the park (I don't remember whether it was the aforesaid annual Native
American festival or the annual Local Fish festival) brought in a
llama (pronounced "yama" because it's a Domincan neighborhood as well
as being an Irish neighborhood) and associated wrangler. I can't call
the wrangler a cowboy, but the broad idea's the same.
I won't believe it's a real tourist attraction until they can get the
llama to play the pipes.
--
Andy Hickmott
How fleeting are all human passions compared with
the massive continuity of ducks. [Dorothy Sayers]
Kip Williams
>
> "Alison Hopkins" <fn...@dial.pipex.com> is alleged to have said, on
> Mon, 3 Jan 2000 16:52:17 -0000,
> :
>
> >Before I first visited the US, my view of it was formed by such gems as
> >"CHiPs" and Petrocelli. I was quite disappointed at how tame the LA freeways
> >were.
> >
> A lot of USAns who have formed their images just as much through
> teevee viewing are disappointed/amazed by how relatively civilised and
> safe LA, NYC and the Rural South are when they actually visit them.
I formed my opinion of Virginia from former Virginians who moved to
Colorado. To hear them tell it, this was a war zone in the late 60s. By
the time I got here, things seemed to have settled down remarkably.
Nancy Lebovitz
Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
>
>I'm an American Anglophile myself, and I recall an online encounter with
>an Anglophobe a year or two ago - he's actually a rather sensible fellow,
>intelligent, well-read and good (virtual) company, but he's got a blind
>spot when it comes to the U.K. and associates the nation with (1) the
>British Empire and (2) costume dramas set before 1900. He seems to assume
>that all American Anglophiles are people who wear a lot of tweed, drink
>sherry, stand around in rooms decorated with dark wood and animal heads
>(from "Inja," you know, good chap) and say, "Pip-pip" to each other.
>
Poor fellow--if he'd been paying attention, he'd know that American
Anglophiles have collections of all the magazines with Princess Di on
the cover.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com
October '99 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) is alleged to have said, on 2 Jan
>2000 20:37:23 GMT,
>:
>
>>I do know the kind of wifty sentimentality Rob is talking about,
>>though. Perhaps there should be a quota system for Americans. You
>>can't watch more than two Merchant-Ivory productions without also
>>sitting through something like TRAINSPOTTING.
>>
>Heck, i'll watch "Trainspotting" twice if you'll let me off on the
>Merchant-Ivory stuff.
>
>OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
>you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
>hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
"It's Bouquet my good man."
>[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
>BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
Hey, it was a nice show, though it has been dragged out too long.
Martin Wisse
--
I made this!
...
...
You must be *very* proud
Marilee J. Layman
(James Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <Fns4q...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>
>>And they will see them sometimes, mostly because these
>>traditional figures have been laid on by the local tourist
>>office. Just as when I went to Edinburgh, I stepped out of the
>>train station and saw a piper, in full kilt and glad rags,
>>playing traditional tunes to amuse the tourists.
>
> I think it was Jo who commented to me that she'd seen a surprising
>number of Scotsmen in Canada. IMS more than she'd run into at home.
>
> I could walk across the street and get a passle of kilted bagpipers
>as I can hear them practicing right now.
Naw, I think that was me. Not that Jo couldn't have said it when I
wasn't around, but I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
when I expected Canadian or French accents.
--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
relm...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: BOOKs > Chats & Message > SF Forum > The Other*Worlds*Cafe
Maureen Kincaid Speller
wrote:
>In article <sfpv6so1tieor0jp7...@4ax.com>,
>r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk said:
>
>> Some visitors do. Michael Moorcock once wrote about being in an
>> ancient country pub when some American tourists came in. They were
>> apparently very shirty about the fact there were Elvis tracks coming
>> out of the jukebox (and, probably, that it *had* a jukebox). What were
>> they expecting, I wonder - Gregorian chants and fucking madrigals? The
>> fact of the pub being ancient is irrelevant - it's modern day locals
>> with modern day tastes who use it and who are, rightly, catered to by
>> the management.
>
>To me, that's one of the best parts of visiting Britain: many of the
>buildings are supernaturally old, by American standards, and yet they're
>still living buildings, still in use.
>
One of the things that amused me about visiting America and Australia
was the way people kept apologising to me because the buildings
weren't as old as ours, generally as we viewed some hundred-year-old
building (my house was built in 1903). I understand the general
feeling behind this but felt obliged to keep reassuring people that I
think a hundred-year-old building is actually quite something,
particularly when viewed within the local context. Then again, I
didn't expect to see kangaroos in the streets of Melbourne or cowboys
in Madison (I exclude New York because I don't think New York is like
anywhere else in the known universe, and there might conceivably be
kangaroos there - after all, we have wild wallabies in the Peak
District).
Maureen
Maureen Kincaid Speller
Folkestone, Kent, UK
m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk & http://www.acnestis.demon.co.uk/
Maureen Kincaid Speller
>mike weber wrote:
>>
>> >
>> A lot of USAns who have formed their images just as much through
>> teevee viewing are disappointed/amazed by how relatively civilised and
>> safe LA, NYC and the Rural South are when they actually visit them.
>
>I formed my opinion of Virginia from former Virginians who moved to
>Colorado. To hear them tell it, this was a war zone in the late 60s. By
>the time I got here, things seemed to have settled down remarkably.
In the days when we still had a Women's Institute Friday market in
Folkestone, standing in the queue was a very educational experience.
The market was patronised mainly by elderly women and to hear them
talk most of Folkestone was on the front-line in the drugs wars, with
muggers and pickpockets roaming the streets, everyone carrying
firearms, and you just weren't safe outside during the day. I can only
assume these criminals come down and infest the town on the days when
I'm in London for in fifteen years I've seen very little to support
this wild-eyed view.
Those of you I've shown around Folkestone will doubtless testify to
its fairly quiet and blameless character. Yes, things happen; old
people, of whom we have many, are an easy mark for bag-snatchers
because of their slowness, and foreign language students, because they
don't understand the language. There are places I do not go on foot at
night, because the street lighting is dreadful, and I don't believe in
taking unnecessary risks. I've been burgled. But things happen all
over, not just in Folkestone. And Folkestone seems a lot less
dangerous now I don't go to the WI market.
Doug Wickstrom
>OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
>you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
>hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
>
>
>[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
>BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
It's pronounced "Boo-kay."
--
Doug Wickstrom
"I am sorry that I have had to leave so many problems unsolved. I always
have to make this apology, but the world is rather puzzling and I cannot
help it." --Bertrand Russell
Doug Wickstrom
Hickmott) excited the ether to say:
>I won't believe it's a real tourist attraction until they can get the
>llama to play the pipes.
They should get a moose to fill out insurance forms. Now
_there's_ a tourist attraction. Watch out for the Moosejaw,
thought. Moose bite, and I'd just as soon Moosenee moose bites.
--
Doug Wickstrom
I have a fatal disease. I'm alive.
Doug Wickstrom
(Maureen Kincaid Speller) excited the ether to say:
>Those of you I've shown around Folkestone will doubtless testify to
>its fairly quiet and blameless character. Yes, things happen; old
>people, of whom we have many, are an easy mark for bag-snatchers
>because of their slowness, and foreign language students, because they
>don't understand the language
There's your problem, then, it's that Chunnel. Your muggers are
obviously French, if they go about accosting people because they
don't understand the language.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Saying something intelligent, as opposed to saying something, is very
difficult even for me. I can imagine how it must be for most people."
--Isaac Asimov
Randolph Fritz
Jordin Kare wrote:
>
>My own rough estimates:
>
>California -- 100 years ("It survived the '06 quake")
>Midwest, south US -- 150-200 years ("Pre-Civil War")
>Northeastern US -- 200 - 300 years ("PreRevolutionary")
>
>England -- 500 - 1000 years
>(Don't know how that compares to most of Europe)
>
>Italy, Greece -- 1000 - 2000 years
>
>Middle East -- >2000 years
>
Arizona, New Mexico--1,000+ years.
>It's not hard to find patches of Jerusalem, for example, where there are
>substantial chunks of still-used structure dating from well before 1 c.e.
Moshe Safdie, an architect I think fairly well of, wrote a book called
*Jerusalem: The Future of the Past* about practicing in Jerusalem; I
recommend it.
Randolph
Ailsa N Murphy
Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>
>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
>robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
>expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
>
streets, just not all the time.
-Ailsa
--
There is no forgetting sorrow an...@world.std.com
There is no regretting love Ailsa N.T. Murphy
All we really do is borrow all the dreams we're dreaming of
We can never know tomorrow, all we have is giving love today
-Midge Ure
Evelyn C. Leeper
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> When I was a kid in Arizona, we sustained a visit from relatives from
> Michigan who, you guessed it, professed themselves disappointed not to
> see cowboys and Indians in the street.
>
> Of course, Arizona was and still is full of the genuine version of
> both, but they were looking for individuals from the world of Tom Mix,
> not grizzled characters with beer bellies and pickup trucks.
Out first night in Arizona, we ate dinner in Socorro. As I noted in my
log, "we even sat next to a genuine Indian. He was from Gujrat."
(He was a student at the university there.)
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're
alive is a special occasion. --Ann Wells
P Nielsen Hayden
<fs237sore0ctkghot...@4ax.com>:
>Naw, I think that was me. Not that Jo couldn't have said it when I
>wasn't around, but I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
>when I expected Canadian or French accents.
Ontario, particularly rural southern Ontario, is one of the great
concentrations of relatively unadulturated Scottish ethnicity in modern
North America.
A fine book on this subject is John Kenneth Galbraith's THE NON-POTABLE
SCOTCH. Yes, the famous economist -- who was born and raised in the
region.
Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great invisible
ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious geneological
researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in fact nearly as
common as English ancestry among white modern North Americans.
P Nielsen Hayden
<38aca06b....@news.demon.co.uk>:
>In the days when we still had a Women's Institute Friday market in
>Folkestone, standing in the queue was a very educational experience.
>The market was patronised mainly by elderly women and to hear them
>talk most of Folkestone was on the front-line in the drugs wars, with
>muggers and pickpockets roaming the streets, everyone carrying
>firearms, and you just weren't safe outside during the day. I can only
>assume these criminals come down and infest the town on the days when
>I'm in London for in fifteen years I've seen very little to support
>this wild-eyed view.
We were in Folkestone. There was a piece of trash on one of the
streets. Also youth. Several youths.
Terrible place, Folkestone. I tell you.
mike weber
Jan 2000 12:27:03 GMT,
:
>In article <84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>,
>Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>>
>>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>>phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists who
>>expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
>>robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
>>expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
>>
>Well, up home (Maine) we _do_ have moose wandering around the city
>streets, just not all the time.
>
years, and i have personally seen coyotes in both Nashville (actually
a contiguous suburb, near Dan Caldwell's house) and the Atlanta
urbanity...
mike weber
on Tue, 04 Jan 2000 03:08:30 -0600,
:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 01:22:38 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>weber) excited the ether to say:
>
>>OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
>>you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
>>hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
>>
>>
>>[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
>>BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
>
>It's pronounced "Boo-kay."
>
Jason Stokes
wrote:
>>It's pronounced "Boo-kay."
>>
>I don't give a damn how she pronounces it, she's a pain in the arse.
She's meant to be; the problem is that the show is not bloody funny.
--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au
James Nicoll
mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Doug Wickstrom <nims...@worldnet.att.net> is alleged to have said,
>on Tue, 04 Jan 2000 03:08:30 -0600,
>:
>>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 01:22:38 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>>weber) excited the ether to say:
>>
>>>OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
>>>you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
>>>hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
>>>
>>>[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
>>>BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
>>
>>
>I don't give a damn how she pronounces it, she's a pain in the arse.
But how would people know social climbing was bad if it weren't
mocked in TV shows? Hyacinth might put on airs of being upper middle
class but underneath she will always be no better than her beginnings.
Isn't it funny that she aspires to greater things?
Not a uniquely British thing, either: the Beverly Hillbillies
tapped the same keg, I think. At least George Jefferson got to be
successful by his own labour, not blind luck. I imagine if I were a
black businessman living amongst Archie Bunkers, I'd be cranky too.
James Nicoll
--
P Nielsen Hayden
<8EB16AECBaw...@166.84.203.171>:
>I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
>Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
>of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
>talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>
>But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
>hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
>of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
>the South was first settled.
Sounds to me like one part truth and fourteen parts BS. The usual
explanation is that the "Southern" accent is descended from that of
English royalists and cavaliers, and that's probably way
oversimplified. I never heard it seriously asserted that it was
significantly Scottish.
Of course, there's a fascinating alternate history in which the Darien
Scheme actually worked, delivering an empire in Mesoamerica into
Scottish hands. And probably precluding the need for the Act of Union.
There would be a truly different world.
Patrick Connors
: In article <8EB0A92...@166.84.0.240>,
: P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
: >
: > When I was a kid in Arizona, we sustained a visit from relatives from
: > Michigan who, you guessed it, professed themselves disappointed not to
: > see cowboys and Indians in the street.
: >
: > Of course, Arizona was and still is full of the genuine version of
: > both, but they were looking for individuals from the world of Tom Mix,
: > not grizzled characters with beer bellies and pickup trucks.
: Out first night in Arizona, we ate dinner in Socorro. As I noted in my
: log, "we even sat next to a genuine Indian. He was from Gujrat."
Your first night in Arizona, you ate dinner in New Mexico?
I can top that:
My last morning in New Mexico, we ate breakfast in New Mexico while
simultaneously buying tires in Arizona. Really.
--
Patrick Connors | "You can't have everything.
pmc@ | Where would you put it?"
primenet com |
Maureen Kincaid Speller
But possibly not quite as Stepford as you made it sound. After all,
someone did vandalise one of the cafes on New Year's Eve. Gosh, the
excitement is killing me.
Evelyn C. Leeper
Patrick Connors <p...@primenet.com> wrote:
> Evelyn C. Leeper <ele...@lucent.com> wrote:
> : In article <8EB0A92...@166.84.0.240>,
> : P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
> : >
> : > When I was a kid in Arizona, we sustained a visit from relatives from
> : > Michigan who, you guessed it, professed themselves disappointed not to
> : > see cowboys and Indians in the street.
> : >
> : > Of course, Arizona was and still is full of the genuine version of
> : > both, but they were looking for individuals from the world of Tom Mix,
> : > not grizzled characters with beer bellies and pickup trucks.
>
> : Out first night in Arizona, we ate dinner in Socorro. As I noted in my
> : log, "we even sat next to a genuine Indian. He was from Gujrat."
>
> Your first night in Arizona, you ate dinner in New Mexico?
How embarrassing. This sheds a whole new light on the complaints
people had with my regional descriptions, though. :-)
Mitch Wagner
> In article <MPG.12d94eb448bbab7a989876@news>,
> Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
> >
> >I'm an American Anglophile myself, and I recall an online encounter with
> >an Anglophobe a year or two ago - he's actually a rather sensible fellow,
> >intelligent, well-read and good (virtual) company, but he's got a blind
> >spot when it comes to the U.K. and associates the nation with (1) the
> >British Empire and (2) costume dramas set before 1900. He seems to assume
> >that all American Anglophiles are people who wear a lot of tweed, drink
> >sherry, stand around in rooms decorated with dark wood and animal heads
> >(from "Inja," you know, good chap) and say, "Pip-pip" to each other.
> >
> Poor fellow--if he'd been paying attention, he'd know that American
> Anglophiles have collections of all the magazines with Princess Di on
> the cover.
There you go: I'm an Anglophile, and yet I did not consider the death of
Princess Di to be a crucial event.
Yes, I was saddened when she died, but not significantly so. I am
saddened when many celebrities die. I was saddened when Gene "The Match
Game" Rayburn died.
--
Mitch Wagner | dm.members.mitch-wagner | sff.people.mitch-wagner |
http://www.sff.net/people/mitchw
Mitch Wagner
jtk...@ibm.net said:
> California -- 100 years ("It survived the '06 quake")
> Midwest, south US -- 150-200 years ("Pre-Civil War")
> Northeastern US -- 200 - 300 years ("PreRevolutionary")
>
> England -- 500 - 1000 years
> (Don't know how that compares to most of Europe)
>
That matches my perceptions, except on Long Island buildings which are 80
years old were considered historic.
Dave Weingart
>That matches my perceptions, except on Long Island buildings which are 80
>years old were considered historic.
They were?
(Although the Farmingdale LIRR Station is considered an historic
landmark, come to think of it).
And there's always the Big Duck
--
73 de Dave Weingart KA2ESK If you can read this,
mailto:phyd...@liii.com Y2K was over-hyped.
http://www.liii.com/~phydeaux
ICQ 57055207
Doug Wickstrom
excited the ether to say:
>In article <84rvmb$c...@netaxs.com>, na...@unix3.netaxs.com said:
>
>> In article <MPG.12d94eb448bbab7a989876@news>,
>> Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >I'm an American Anglophile myself, and I recall an online encounter with
>> >an Anglophobe a year or two ago - he's actually a rather sensible fellow,
>> >intelligent, well-read and good (virtual) company, but he's got a blind
>> >spot when it comes to the U.K. and associates the nation with (1) the
>> >British Empire and (2) costume dramas set before 1900. He seems to assume
>> >that all American Anglophiles are people who wear a lot of tweed, drink
>> >sherry, stand around in rooms decorated with dark wood and animal heads
>> >(from "Inja," you know, good chap) and say, "Pip-pip" to each other.
>> >
>> Poor fellow--if he'd been paying attention, he'd know that American
>> Anglophiles have collections of all the magazines with Princess Di on
>> the cover.
>
>There you go: I'm an Anglophile, and yet I did not consider the death of
>Princess Di to be a crucial event.
Of course not. It happened in Paris.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing. 'Twas mine,
'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my
good name, robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."
--William Shakespeare, "Othello"
Rob Hansen
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
> I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
>when I expected Canadian or French accents.
Really? I've often referred to Canada as a "former colony of Scotland"
since from the names up there - and the interesting ways in which the
Canadian accent differs from the American - it's perfectly obvious
that there's a *strong* Scottish influence/presence in Canada.
--
Rob Hansen
================================================
My Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
Feminists Against Censorship:
http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
Rob Hansen
weber) wrote:
>an...@world.std.com (Ailsa N Murphy) is alleged to have said, on Tue, 4
>Jan 2000 12:27:03 GMT,
>:
>>In article <84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>,
>>Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>>>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>>>phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists who
>>>expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
>>>robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
>>>expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
>>>
>>Well, up home (Maine) we _do_ have moose wandering around the city
>>streets, just not all the time.
>>
>We've had bears in the not-so-distant suburbs of Atlanta in recent
>years, and i have personally seen coyotes in both Nashville (actually
>a contiguous suburb, near Dan Caldwell's house) and the Atlanta
>urbanity...
I saw a fox while I was waiting for a train at the Bow DLR station
here in London last year. This surprised the hell out of me because
while I knew that foxes had been moving into urban areas for years, I
hadn't realized they had penetrated so *far*. Bow is a loooong way in
from the outskirts.
Rick Keir
jtk...@ibm.net (Jordin Kare) wrote:
> Based on my limited traveling, I've found it fascinating to watch the age
> of structures vary as you visit different regions of the world. I suspect
> you could do some interesting scholarly work on the development of modern
> civilization by mapping the age of buildings that locals think of as "old"
> or "historic"
A lovely quote, for which I do not have an attribution, is
"The Americans think two hundred years is a long time.
The British think that two hundred miles is a long way."
Marilee J. Layman
<r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 00:57:24 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>> I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
>>when I expected Canadian or French accents.
>
>Really? I've often referred to Canada as a "former colony of Scotland"
>since from the names up there - and the interesting ways in which the
>Canadian accent differs from the American - it's perfectly obvious
>that there's a *strong* Scottish influence/presence in Canada.
I'm not good at identifying origins from names (probably just as well)
although I do see what you mean about the Canadian accent.
--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
relm...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: BOOKs > Chats & Message > SF Forum > The Other*Worlds*Cafe
Vicki Rosenzweig
>In article <MPG.12d94eb448bbab7a989876@news>,
>Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
>>
>>I'm an American Anglophile myself, and I recall an online encounter with
>>an Anglophobe a year or two ago - he's actually a rather sensible fellow,
>>intelligent, well-read and good (virtual) company, but he's got a blind
>>spot when it comes to the U.K. and associates the nation with (1) the
>>British Empire and (2) costume dramas set before 1900. He seems to assume
>>that all American Anglophiles are people who wear a lot of tweed, drink
>>sherry, stand around in rooms decorated with dark wood and animal heads
>>(from "Inja," you know, good chap) and say, "Pip-pip" to each other.
>>
>Poor fellow--if he'd been paying attention, he'd know that American
>Anglophiles have collections of all the magazines with Princess Di on
>the cover.
No, we have cupboards full of odd food and drink, the Maya
Gold rubbing up against the Ribena, the odd teas pushing the
biscuits aside. Magazines? What's the good of that when you
need a good breakfast?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Sue Mason for TAFF!
Marilee J. Layman
(mike weber) wrote:
>an...@world.std.com (Ailsa N Murphy) is alleged to have said, on Tue, 4
>Jan 2000 12:27:03 GMT,
>:
>>In article <84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>,
>>Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>>>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>>>phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists who
>>>expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
>>>robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
>>>expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
>>>
>>Well, up home (Maine) we _do_ have moose wandering around the city
>>streets, just not all the time.
>>
>We've had bears in the not-so-distant suburbs of Atlanta in recent
>years, and i have personally seen coyotes in both Nashville (actually
>a contiguous suburb, near Dan Caldwell's house) and the Atlanta
>urbanity...
We're still rural enough to have the occasional cow or horse get out
and wander into the center of town.
Vicki Rosenzweig
>On 4 Jan 2000 15:05:22 GMT, awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt)
>wrote:
>
>>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
>><8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
>>
>>>Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
>>>invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
>>>geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
>>>fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
>>>Americans.
>>
>>I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
>>Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>>south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
>>of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
>>talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>>
>>But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
>>hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
>>of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
>>the South was first settled.
>Actually there were quite a few Irish Immigrants as well. New Orleans
>was one of the more popular ports, other than New York and Boston, in
>the U.S.The state of Georgia had a large number of Irish Immigrants,
>many of whom were plantation owners.
>
>Scottish Immigrants settled Western North Carolina as well as Eastern
>Tennessee and the more Mountainous areas of Virginia, South Carolina,
>Alabama. The Eastern Seaboard areas of Virginia, North and South
>Carolina seem to have been settled by predominately English
>Immigrants.
>
>My own family came to Savannah, Georgia in 1797-1799 from Dublin,
>as a result of the Uprising about that time. My GGGrandfather was
>forced to come to America.
>
>Most of what is the "Southern" accent comes from a laziness to
>pronounce English words correctly.
No. Nice try, but "correctly" is a null term in this context--no
accent is more correct than another, and none of them has much
to do with standardized spelling.
> Known as "Poor White Trash" style
>of talking. Now known as "Trailer Trash Talk".
>It's the style that is most copied in films and Television. Remember,
>the South has some of the worst Schools in the Nation. If I teach you
>to pronounce a word a certain way, until someone teaches you
>different, you continue as you first were taught.
>My favorite example is "Aunt".
>Is it correct to say "Ant" or "Ahnt"?
Yes.
>How were you taught?
>Don't forget, how your parents spoke also greatly affects how you
>speak. I've known Californians that sounded like they were from
>Brooklyn, yet had never been out of San Jose.
>There was someone doing research on regional Dialects once, but I
>never heard what became of his/her work.
There were, and are, many people doing such research. So far,
they've produced three volumes of the Dictionary of American
Regional English, which takes them through the letter O.
If you have never heard of DARE and know so little that you
think there was one person doing research on the subject,
what is the basis for your sweeping generalizations above?
Just that we're on Usenet?
>
>As a former "Southerner" I still have a slight drawl after years
>living all around the Globe. Mostly, it only comes out when I'm very
>tired. Otherwise, I sound like I'm from Illinois or Ohio.
>
>And all this diatribe came as a result of being proudly of Irish
>descent, born in the South, and seeing post claiming "Scots" settled
>the South.
>
>Liam
>"Never give up, Never Surrender!"- Commander Taggert
Marcus L. Rowland
<r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> writes
>I saw a fox while I was waiting for a train at the Bow DLR station
>here in London last year. This surprised the hell out of me because
>while I knew that foxes had been moving into urban areas for years, I
>hadn't realized they had penetrated so *far*. Bow is a loooong way in
>from the outskirts.
Foxes are using the railway embankments and tunnels, also canal banks
etc., as their main routes into London, so it isn't that surprising you
should see one at a station. Also, it depends on your definition of "a
long way in"; I live in Paddington and our garden is visited by several
foxes; if you go by the AZ Inner London map, which has Bow out towards
the edge, I'm actually nearer to the centre of London than Bow is.
I'd be surprised if there aren't foxes around Trafalgar Square etc.;
plenty of parks in the vicinity, and lots of pigeons and waste food for
them to eat.
--
Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
Cally Soukup
> an...@world.std.com (Ailsa N Murphy) is alleged to have said, on Tue, 4
> Jan 2000 12:27:03 GMT,
> :
>>In article <84r3dm$duf$2...@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>,
>>Janice Gelb <jan...@marvin.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Clueless tourists are clueless tourists wherever, and I think most
>>>countries with popular mythos are affected by the same annoying
>>>phenomenon. Israelis have plenty of stories to tell about tourists who
>>>expected the natives to be riding around on camels in headdresses and
>>>robes, and I was told on my DUFF trip of tourists who came to Australia
>>>expecting to see kangaroos wandering the city streets.
>>>
>>Well, up home (Maine) we _do_ have moose wandering around the city
>>streets, just not all the time.
>>
> We've had bears in the not-so-distant suburbs of Atlanta in recent
> years, and i have personally seen coyotes in both Nashville (actually
> a contiguous suburb, near Dan Caldwell's house) and the Atlanta
> urbanity...
Last spring I saw a coyote walking calm as you please down an
electric company right-of-way in Palos Heights, Illinois, which is a
close southwest suburb of Chicago. It looked both ways before
crossing the street.
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
Elisabeth Carey
The Clampetts weren't social climbers, though. They had no desire be
"better" than they were; they took it for granted that they were the
equal of anyone they met. The show didn't mock that assumption,
either. Jed and his family often got themselves into temporary
problems by their lack of education and unfamiliarity with urban
civilization, but their values of honesty, uprightness, family
loyalty, neighborliness, and generosity always prevailed in the end,
and it was Mr. Drysdale, Miss Hathaway, and other urban
"sophisticates" that wound up looking foolish or small.
Lis Carey
P Nielsen Hayden
>Most of what is the "Southern" accent comes from a laziness to
>pronounce English words correctly.
I don't think you'll find a linguist alive who would agree that any
accent -- Southern, or any other kind -- is the result of one region's
people being somehow overall "lazier" than people everywhere else.
In other words, with all due respect, I suspect this is complete
nonsense.
Mitch Wagner
kras...@mindspring.com said:
> "Alison Hopkins" <fn...@dial.pipex.com> is alleged to have said, on
> Mon, 3 Jan 2000 16:52:17 -0000,
> :
>
> >Before I first visited the US, my view of it was formed by such gems as
> >"CHiPs" and Petrocelli. I was quite disappointed at how tame the LA freeways
> >were.
> >
> A lot of USAns who have formed their images just as much through
> teevee viewing are disappointed/amazed by how relatively civilised and
> safe LA, NYC and the Rural South are when they actually visit them.
OTOH, a friend who hitchhiked on a mountain road in the South about 20
years ago swears he was actually picked up by a couple of bona-fide
reckless-driving good-ole-boys driving a car they named the General Lee.
Mitch Wagner
m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk said:
> Those of you I've shown around Folkestone will doubtless testify to
> its fairly quiet and blameless character. Yes, things happen; old
> people, of whom we have many, are an easy mark for bag-snatchers
> because of their slowness, and foreign language students, because they
> don't understand the language. There are places I do not go on foot at
> night, because the street lighting is dreadful, and I don't believe in
> taking unnecessary risks. I've been burgled. But things happen all
> over, not just in Folkestone. And Folkestone seems a lot less
> dangerous now I don't go to the WI market.
While in London, one of our Chatty Taxi Drivers (TM) was bemoaning how
the city has gone downhill and become unsafe since he was a young man. He
was about 50 years old. Why there are now neighborhoods in London where
it is NOT SAFE TO WALK THE STREETS AT NIGHT, he said.
Oh, heavens, I said.
Mitch Wagner
said:
> p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
> <8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
>
> >Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
> >invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
> >geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
> >fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
> >Americans.
>
> I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
> Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
> south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
> of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
> talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>
> But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
> hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
> of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
> the South was first settled.
The way I heard it is that Southern white accents are derived from
Southern black accents - that Southern whites learned to speak, in part,
from the African slaves who raised them.
Mitch Wagner
> One day in Teletubbyland, Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> said:
> >That matches my perceptions, except on Long Island buildings which are 80
> >years old were considered historic.
>
> They were?
You bet. I was a local newspaper reporter on Long Island; I attended many
Zoning Board meetings where some poor guy who wanted to put a deck on his
house had to come to the Zoning Board to get a variance. The variance was
needed because the house was considered a historic monument because it
was standing around the time of World War I.
>
> (Although the Farmingdale LIRR Station is considered an historic
> landmark, come to think of it).
>
See, there you go.
> And there's always the Big Duck
What's the Big Duck? Aside from being a big duck, that is.
P Nielsen Hayden
<jua47scniro0drc5g...@4ax.com>:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 00:57:24 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>>I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
>>when I expected Canadian or French accents.
>
>Really? I've often referred to Canada as a "former colony of Scotland"
>since from the names up there - and the interesting ways in which the
>Canadian accent differs from the American - it's perfectly obvious
>that there's a *strong* Scottish influence/presence in Canada.
It's also kind of clear from the names of their earliest Prime
Ministers. I mean, unless you think "John A. Macdonald" and "Alexander
Mackenzie" are traditional English names.
I realize that the United States Constitution forbids Americans
actually knowing even the most elementary facts about Canadian history
(check it out; it's in the Interstate Commerce clause), but heck, these
guys are on big public buildings and banknotes and stuff.
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
mumble - Jonathan Harris, maybe?> that looked at English as she is spoke
all over the world, and made comparisons with dialects that still exist
in pockets all over England and those in places with English
settlements. It was extremely interesting - the series even went so far
as looking at regional differences within the settled country, down to
the level of a word - for example - how "house" is pronounced in St.
Catharines vs. elsewhere. It was a really interesting series and I wish
they would run it again on one of the eddycational channels.
Which is one of the reasons I am _not_ going to watch the George
Washington historical thingie on A&E. While Jeff Daniels is probably the
right actor to play Washington, no way did George Washington speak with
today's modern American accent. I hate it when filmmakers don't pay
attention to the details. Anything approaching verisimilitude seems
anathema (whew! I've just used up my syllable quota for the week!).
pira...@pacifier.com wrote:
>
> On 4 Jan 2000 15:05:22 GMT, awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt)
> wrote:
>
> >p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
> ><8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
> >
> >>Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
> >>invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
> >>geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
> >>fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
> >>Americans.
> >
> >I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
> >Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
> >south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
> >of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
> >talk normal away down south in Dixie.
> >
> >But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
> >hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
> >of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
> >the South was first settled.
> Actually there were quite a few Irish Immigrants as well. New Orleans
> was one of the more popular ports, other than New York and Boston, in
> the U.S.The state of Georgia had a large number of Irish Immigrants,
> many of whom were plantation owners.
>
> Scottish Immigrants settled Western North Carolina as well as Eastern
> Tennessee and the more Mountainous areas of Virginia, South Carolina,
> Alabama. The Eastern Seaboard areas of Virginia, North and South
> Carolina seem to have been settled by predominately English
> Immigrants.
>
> My own family came to Savannah, Georgia in 1797-1799 from Dublin,
> as a result of the Uprising about that time. My GGGrandfather was
> forced to come to America.
>
> Most of what is the "Southern" accent comes from a laziness to
> pronounce English words correctly. Known as "Poor White Trash" style
> of talking. Now known as "Trailer Trash Talk".
> It's the style that is most copied in films and Television. Remember,
> the South has some of the worst Schools in the Nation. If I teach you
> to pronounce a word a certain way, until someone teaches you
> different, you continue as you first were taught.
> My favorite example is "Aunt".
> Is it correct to say "Ant" or "Ahnt"?
> How were you taught?
> Don't forget, how your parents spoke also greatly affects how you
> speak. I've known Californians that sounded like they were from
> Brooklyn, yet had never been out of San Jose.
> There was someone doing research on regional Dialects once, but I
> never heard what became of his/her work.
>
> As a former "Southerner" I still have a slight drawl after years
> living all around the Globe. Mostly, it only comes out when I'm very
> tired. Otherwise, I sound like I'm from Illinois or Ohio.
>
> And all this diatribe came as a result of being proudly of Irish
> descent, born in the South, and seeing post claiming "Scots" settled
> the South.
>
> Liam
> "Never give up, Never Surrender!"- Commander Taggert
--
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:
hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
><8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
>
>>Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
>>invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
>>geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
>>fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
>>Americans.
>
>I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
>Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
>of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
>talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>
>But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
>hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
>of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
>the South was first settled.
This doesn't sound true to me, particularly given that what's most
missing from the US southern accent is something that's blatantly
present and Scottish in the Northern accent.
What sounded true to me was the theory that what really distinguishes
the southern accent is the input from blacks.
Mike Kozlowski
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
[Canada is Scottish]
>It's also kind of clear from the names of their earliest Prime
>Ministers. I mean, unless you think "John A. Macdonald" and "Alexander
>Mackenzie" are traditional English names.
I'm one of these people who is often ridiculously immune to recognizing
the nationalities of names. When you point it out like that, it seems
pretty obvious that yes, those names are Scottish, but I'd never come to
that conclusion on my own. Hell, I'd probably not even realize that my
own name was Polish if not for the jokes I got as a kid.
(And even trying to think about it, I can't decide what "Nielsen Hayden"
would be -- either part. German? English?)
>I realize that the United States Constitution forbids Americans
>actually knowing even the most elementary facts about Canadian history
ObOnion: "Perky Canada Has Own Government, Laws"
--
Michael Kozlowski
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mkozlows/
P Nielsen Hayden
<8EB1C84D2aw...@166.84.203.171>:
>mi...@wagner.net (Mitch Wagner) wrote in
><MPG.12dc311d4d33d6d3989889@news>:
>
>>In article <8EB16AECBaw...@166.84.203.171>,
>>awnb...@panix.com said:
>>
>>> I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
>>> Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>>> south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying
>>> explanation, of course, because I have always wondered how come
>>> they don't just talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>>>
>>> But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't
>>> really hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But
>>> then, a lot of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge,
>>> I suppose, since the South was first settled.
>>
>>The way I heard it is that Southern white accents are derived from
>>Southern black accents - that Southern whites learned to speak, in
>>part, from the African slaves who raised them.
>
>Well, but ... if that's true (and, granted, there's a certain logic
>to it), the obvious next question is where did the Southern black
>accents come from?
>
>Surely there's some weighty tome on the "Origin of the Southern
>Accents"? Patrick's suggestion that they derive from the English
>Upper Crust makes sense to me, personally.
My what?
I said:
"The usual explanation is that the "Southern" accent is descended from
that of English royalists and cavaliers, and that's probably way
oversimplified."
I said this was the usual conventional wisdom, and I said I suspected
it was oversimplified.
Alan Winston - SSRL Admin Cmptg Mgr
>In article <38721172...@news.mindspring.com>,
>mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>Doug Wickstrom <nims...@worldnet.att.net> is alleged to have said,
>>on Tue, 04 Jan 2000 03:08:30 -0600,
>>:
>>>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 01:22:38 GMT, kras...@mindspring.com (mike
>>>weber) excited the ether to say:
>>>
>>>>OTOH, i'll watch everything Merchant-Ivory ever made in one sitting if
>>>>you'll just show me a video of Hyacinth Bucket[1] being slowly and
>>>>hideously tortured to death at every intermission...
>>>>
>>>>[1] ? is that the name -- that ghod-awful social climber on that
>>>>BritCom my otherwise discerning friend loves so well?
>>>
>>>It's pronounced "Boo-kay."
>>>
>>I don't give a damn how she pronounces it, she's a pain in the arse.
>
> But how would people know social climbing was bad if it weren't
>mocked in TV shows? Hyacinth might put on airs of being upper middle
>class but underneath she will always be no better than her beginnings.
>Isn't it funny that she aspires to greater things?
Yes, without having even seen the show I'm willing to believe that it's
a pernicious (if perhaps unconscious) attempt to persuade everybody that
they'll be happiest staying in the class they came from.
>
> Not a uniquely British thing, either: the Beverly Hillbillies
>tapped the same keg, I think.
Well, no. The humor of the Beverly Hillbillies was precisely that they
_weren't_ social climbers. They were extremely rich, they'd moved to
Bever-ly, but they betrayed no class consciousness whatsoever, and mostly
continued living like 1790s backwoodsmen, simply using the money to indulge
some of their own interests (like Ellie Mae's exotic animals). While the
show often used the humor of incongruity with respect to the Clampetts
naivete ("cement pond", etc.), they generally triumphed simply by being
good-hearted and authentic, while the upper classes around them were shown
as silly, prejudiced about externalities, and extremely venal.
[Occasionally Jethro would get carried away with some inappropriate idea -
driving sport cars and wearing berets - but he always got over it.]
I think "Keeping Up Appearances" is in the same tradition as Moliere's
'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'. The Hillbillies are more in the tradition of
honest-country-people-outwit-the-city-slickers, seen in American entertainment
from the early 1800s forward.
[Incidentally, none of this analysis means that I don't find "The Beverly
Hillbillies" silly and tedious; it was often very stupid material delivered
well by a very talented cast. Out of that family of shows, the inspired
surrealism of "Green Acres" is what wibbles _my_ frottis pouches.]
-- Alan
===============================================================================
Alan Winston --- WIN...@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056
Physical mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 69, PO BOX 4349, STANFORD, CA 94309-0210
===============================================================================
P Nielsen Hayden
<t7t47ssqq47fbphh0...@4ax.com>:
>What sounded true to me was the theory that what really distinguishes
>the southern accent is the input from blacks.
Specifically, the blacks charged with the tiring job of taking care of
the kids. One thing we now know for sure from twentieth-century
linguistic studies is that kids get their accent from the adults
they're around, not the adults they're related to. (Sounds obvious;
took a lot of empirical data to convince people.)
Another reason this idea of the "Southern" accent -- that it's heavily
influenced by the West African-accented English of slaves -- rings true
is that it accounts for the constant and sometimes somewhat hysterical
insistence by white Southerners of a couple of generations ago that the
"Southern" accent was the accent of Cavaliers, or Elizabethans, or
Constantinople bagpipe makers for all we know. Anything but, gasp, the
accent of black people. (Of course, the same white Southerners would
also have insisted that they had no black ancestry. None whatsoever.
White white white, that's them. Really _extremely_ white. Have I
mentioned that I'm Marie of Rumania?)
P Nielsen Hayden
<84u7g8$530a$1...@news.doit.wisc.edu>:
>In article <8EB1CE2...@166.84.0.240>,
>P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>[Canada is Scottish]
>
>>It's also kind of clear from the names of their earliest Prime
>>Ministers. I mean, unless you think "John A. Macdonald" and
>>"Alexander Mackenzie" are traditional English names.
>
>I'm one of these people who is often ridiculously immune to
>recognizing the nationalities of names. When you point it out like
>that, it seems pretty obvious that yes, those names are Scottish,
>but I'd never come to that conclusion on my own. Hell, I'd probably
>not even realize that my own name was Polish if not for the jokes I
>got as a kid.
>
>(And even trying to think about it, I can't decide what "Nielsen
>Hayden" would be -- either part. German? English?)
"Nielsen," spelled that way, is Danish. "Hayden," spelled that way, is
English. (I'm the Hayden. Teresa's the Nielsen.)
>>I realize that the United States Constitution forbids Americans
>>actually knowing even the most elementary facts about Canadian
>>history
>
>ObOnion: "Perky Canada Has Own Government, Laws"
One of the funniest Onion stories ever. Sadly, no longer on their
archive site.
mike weber
Jan 2000 00:43:13 GMT,
:
>In article <38714c5f...@news.mindspring.com>,
>kras...@mindspring.com said:
>
>> "Alison Hopkins" <fn...@dial.pipex.com> is alleged to have said, on
>> Mon, 3 Jan 2000 16:52:17 -0000,
>> :
>>
>> >Before I first visited the US, my view of it was formed by such gems as
>> >"CHiPs" and Petrocelli. I was quite disappointed at how tame the LA freeways
>> >were.
>> >
>> A lot of USAns who have formed their images just as much through
>> teevee viewing are disappointed/amazed by how relatively civilised and
>> safe LA, NYC and the Rural South are when they actually visit them.
>
>OTOH, a friend who hitchhiked on a mountain road in the South about 20
>years ago swears he was actually picked up by a couple of bona-fide
>reckless-driving good-ole-boys driving a car they named the General Lee.
>
region ought behave just as much through teevee viewing just as much
as people from Elsewhere...
((Incidentally, i remember the day i was driving in I20 west of
Atlanta and looked up in time to see four identical "General Lee"'s
heading west on a transporter -- the first three episodes of "Hazzard"
were filmed here [Janice came over to our place to watch all three on
our teevee, i seem to recall] and the original car and all of the
later duplicates were built by a local speed shop...))
--
=============================================================
"They put manure in his well and they made him talk to lawyers!"
-- Cat Ballou
mike weber -- kras...@mindspring.com
mike weber
on 4 Jan 2000 15:45:33 GMT,
>>I don't give a damn how she pronounces it, she's a pain in the arse.
>
> But how would people know social climbing was bad if it weren't
>mocked in TV shows? Hyacinth might put on airs of being upper middle
>class but underneath she will always be no better than her beginnings.
>Isn't it funny that she aspires to greater things?
>
It's the character, not the social-climbing per se that i doslike; she
sets my teeth on edge.
mike weber
Tue, 04 Jan 2000 16:02:47 GMT,
:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 15:28:09 GMT, mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com>
>wrote:
>
>>>It's pronounced "Boo-kay."
>>>
>>I don't give a damn how she pronounces it, she's a pain in the arse.
>
>
BINGO!!!!!!!
mike weber
Jan 2000 15:05:22 GMT,
>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
><8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
>
>>Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
>>invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
>>geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
>>fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
>>Americans.
>
>Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
>of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
>talk normal away down south in Dixie.
Dialects found in various parts of the Appalachian Mountains used to
be basically unmodified Elizebethan English to a great extent; radio
and teevee fixed *that*; also Dave van Ronk collected a tune for the
Scottich murder ballad "Mattie Groves" (or, actually, i thionk, the
earlier "Little Musgrave") from the Southern hills and combined it
with a New Orleans blues lyric to give us the version of "House of the
Riding Sun" that we know today...
>
>But I wonder if the explanation is actually true. I can't really
>hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But then, a lot
>of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge, I suppose, since
>the South was first settled.
>
There is a definite influence, but it's not so great as that in, as
someone mentioned, Canada, i'd say.
Elisabeth Carey
<snip>
> Which is one of the reasons I am _not_ going to watch the George
> Washington historical thingie on A&E. While Jeff Daniels is probably the
> right actor to play Washington, no way did George Washington speak with
> today's modern American accent. I hate it when filmmakers don't pay
> attention to the details. Anything approaching verisimilitude seems
> anathema (whew! I've just used up my syllable quota for the week!).
I'm sorry, but I think that's a silly objection. Of course George
Washington didn't speak with a modern American accent. The original
Roman imperial family didn't speak English at all, let alone modern
British English, either. You may multiply examples as you please.
Filmmakers ought to avoid obvious and unnecessary anachronisms, but
having the characters in historical dramas speak in accents that will
be reasonably intelligible to an audience that's out for
entertainment, not education, can't fairly be classed as an
"unnecessary anachronism" most of the time. When a "historically
correct" accent can be used both well and effectively, it's a good
thing to do. When it can't, well, you cope. It's a tough enough job to
get actors to do living accents sufficiently correctly that they don't
make native users of those accents wince. Getting a "dead" accent
right is a much trickier proposition.
Lis Carey
Elisabeth Carey
>
> mi...@wagner.net (Mitch Wagner) wrote in
> <MPG.12dc311d4d33d6d3989889@news>:
>
> >In article <8EB16AECBaw...@166.84.203.171>,
> >awnb...@panix.com said:
> >
> >> Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
> >> south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying
> >> explanation, of course, because I have always wondered how come
> >> they don't just talk normal away down south in Dixie.
> >>
> >> really hear much similarity b/w the two sorts of accents. But
> >> then, a lot of scotch and waters have passed under that bridge,
> >> I suppose, since the South was first settled.
> >
> >Southern black accents - that Southern whites learned to speak, in
> >part, from the African slaves who raised them.
>
> Well, but ... if that's true (and, granted, there's a certain logic
> to it), the obvious next question is where did the Southern black
> accents come from?
West Africa, mostly. They learned to speak English, but their native
accents persisted, and blended, and influenced the accents of the
slaveowners' children who were to a great degree raised by black
slaves.
<snip>
Lis Carey
P Nielsen Hayden
<3872b242...@news.mindspring.com>:
>awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt) is alleged to have said, on 4
>Jan 2000 15:05:22 GMT,
>:
>>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
>><8EB15AE...@166.84.0.240>:
>>
>>>Of course, in a broad sense, Scottish ancestry is the great
>>>invisible ethnic layer all of North America. Some serious
>>>geneological researchers have argued that Scottish ancestry is in
>>>fact nearly as common as English ancestry among white modern North
>>>Americans.
>>
>>I heard a Knowledgeable Type once say that the tree of American
>>Southern accents grows out the accent of Scots who settled down
>>south early on. I found this an enormously satisfying explanation,
>>of course, because I have always wondered how come they don't just
>>talk normal away down south in Dixie.
>
>Dialects found in various parts of the Appalachian Mountains used to
>be basically unmodified Elizebethan English to a great extent; radio
>and teevee fixed *that*; also Dave van Ronk collected a tune for the
>Scottich murder ballad "Mattie Groves" (or, actually, i thionk, the
>earlier "Little Musgrave") from the Southern hills and combined it
>with a New Orleans blues lyric to give us the version of "House of the
>Riding Sun" that we know today...
Leaving aside my other comments about Southern English, which isn't the
same thing as Appalachian English, it does in fact appear to be the
case that pockets of Appalachia preserved some very old usages and
dialects.
Of course, the same could be said of American English in general. Case
in point: the name of the season between summer and winter.
mike weber
2000 03:47:18 GMT,
:
>Leaving aside my other comments about Southern English, which isn't the
>same thing as Appalachian English, it does in fact appear to be the
>case that pockets of Appalachia preserved some very old usages and
>dialects.
>
However, Appalachian English and Southern English overlap -- Manly
Wellman's Silver John is, i would say, inarguably Southern and
inarguably Appalachian.
P Nielsen Hayden
>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
>
>>awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt) wrote in
>><8EB1C84D2aw...@166.84.203.171>:
>>
>>>Surely there's some weighty tome on the "Origin of the Southern
>>>Accents"? Patrick's suggestion that they derive from the English
>>>Upper Crust makes sense to me, personally.
>>
>>My what?
>>
>>I said:
>>
>>"The usual explanation is that the "Southern" accent is descended
>>from that of English royalists and cavaliers, and that's probably
>>way oversimplified."
>>
>>I said this was the usual conventional wisdom, and I said I
>>suspected it was oversimplified.
>
>Sorry, I was short-handing what I obviously only half-remembered,
>confounding "royalists" with "upper crust". And I actually wondered
>about the word "suggestion" but sort of went with it because I
>was hurrying. (Don't know how many times I have to learn that
>lesson.)
I must be talking with a sock in my mouth, or something. I wasn't
objecting to the conflation of "royalists" with "upper crust," I was
objecting to the idea that this was "Patrick's suggestion." It's not
my suggestion. It's the conventional wisdom. I had been observing
that it's the conventional wisdom. And questioning whether it is in
fact true.
>But I knew you had stated you suspected you were oversimplifying.
>Just about any statement on this topic, from the brief amount of
>research I've done, would have to be an oversimplification.
I didn't think "I" was oversimplifying...aargh! (Here the author's
scrawl becomes illegibly intermingled with the large drops of blood in
which this end of the foolscap appear to have been soaked.)
P Nielsen Hayden
>Well, this really comes under the category of Learn Something New
>Every Day. I'd really like read more about the actual mechanics of
>this though. It just seems really hard to believe, through the veil
>of my own prejudices, perhaps, that the parents would allow their
>children to talk like The House Darkies. I understand that children
>pick up their manners of speech from the adults around them, but I
>dunno, on a day-to-day basis, at the lunch and dinner table, it's
>really hard for me to see how the parents wouldn't "correct" the
>child's speech. Day-to-day. And even if it wasn't day-to-day, even
>if they only saw the kid a few times a week, in a society so utterly
>class conscious, or, at least so acutely aware of the purported
>differences b/w owners and their slaves, it just seems really hard
>to believe that the parents would let that sort of thing slide.
You're assuming a level of attention to children that's more
characteristic of the twentieth century.
P Nielsen Hayden
>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
>
>>awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt) wrote in
>><8EB1E098Faw...@166.84.203.171>:
>>
>>>p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote in
>>><8EB1D56...@166.84.0.240>:
>>>
>>>>awnb...@panix.com (Michael R Weholt) wrote in
>Sigh... yes, it's just as you said, in your suicide note. I should
>retire from usenet again. My mind is addled by this weather.
No, don't go! You're all we have to live for...oops.
James Nicoll
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>It's also kind of clear from the names of their earliest Prime
>Ministers. I mean, unless you think "John A. Macdonald" and "Alexander
>Mackenzie" are traditional English names.
>
>actually knowing even the most elementary facts about Canadian history
>guys are on big public buildings and banknotes and stuff.
>
There was/is a lot of French/Scots intermarriage [Scottish
settlement in New France occured even before 1759, although obviously
not as much as after] so PMs whose names are French often also have
Scots background.
James Nicoll
--
Theresa Wojtasiewicz
I don't disagree with your assessment - but I just found it off-putting
in the trailers for it, I don't know why. They could have at least
_tried_ something approaching the accent; I don't think it would have
hurt the production at all - and a good enough actor should be able to
do the job (remember Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice? She was spot on -
listening to her gave me the creeps because she sounded so much like my
relatives. I've never been able to sit through that film a second time.)
What I think oft-times is funny in some historical dramas is when
nobody's accents match anyone else's and is completely wrong for the
period - "Yonda is da castle of my faddah" is the example that springs
to mind. Yeowch!
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk (Rob Hansen) wrote in
><jua47scniro0drc5g...@4ax.com>:
>
>>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 00:57:24 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
>><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I did find a lot of Canadians with Scottish accents
>>>when I expected Canadian or French accents.
>>
>>Really? I've often referred to Canada as a "former colony of Scotland"
>>since from the names up there - and the interesting ways in which the
>>Canadian accent differs from the American - it's perfectly obvious
>>that there's a *strong* Scottish influence/presence in Canada.
>
>
>It's also kind of clear from the names of their earliest Prime
>Ministers. I mean, unless you think "John A. Macdonald" and "Alexander
>Mackenzie" are traditional English names.
I would never think about their nationality from their names. There
are people with Mac at the beginning of their last name who aren't
Scottish.
>I realize that the United States Constitution forbids Americans
>actually knowing even the most elementary facts about Canadian history
>(check it out; it's in the Interstate Commerce clause), but heck, these
>guys are on big public buildings and banknotes and stuff.
What, am I supposed to know the national background of all of our
founding fathers, too? Isn't it enough to know they're founding
fathers?
--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
relm...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: BOOKs > Chats & Message > SF Forum > The Other*Worlds*Cafe
Maureen Kincaid Speller
wrote:
>Quoth na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) on 4 Jan 2000 05:15:54 GMT:
>
>>In article <MPG.12d94eb448bbab7a989876@news>,
>>Mitch Wagner <mi...@wagner.net> wrote:
>>>
<snip reminiscence of an Anglophobe>
>>>
>>Poor fellow--if he'd been paying attention, he'd know that American
>>Anglophiles have collections of all the magazines with Princess Di on
>>the cover.
>
>No, we have cupboards full of odd food and drink, the Maya
>Gold rubbing up against the Ribena, the odd teas pushing the
>biscuits aside. Magazines? What's the good of that when you
>need a good breakfast?
I think Paul was devoutly grateful to find that so many of our
American friends are practising Anglophiles ... not being a coffee
drinker, and not being that much of a herbal tea drinker either, he
was relieved to be plied with proper tea whenever he visited anyone.
Maureen
Maureen Kincaid Speller
Folkestone, Kent, UK
m...@acnestis.demon.co.uk & http://www.acnestis.demon.co.uk/