English Pronunciation Question:

There's only one thing you need to know on this subject, Russ, and that is the famous quote from George Bernard Shaw in the Preface to Pygmalion:

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him

An interesting point Russ. It's not just your ears though - there is, even to my very English ears, little difference between Jeeves' and Wooster's accents. However, assuming you're watching the (fabulous) Fry and Laurie version, remember that both actors' accents were very upper-middle class anyway, given their backgrounds. Neither one particularly altered his normal accent for that particular TV series. If there is a difference, it's that Hugh Laurie puts on a slightly more 'what ho' accent than Stephen Fry does, but it's a fairly fine distinction.

There are plenty of examples in period dramas of those in service retaining their 'natural' accents - Downton Abbey being a very obvious example. Remember, though, that attention to period detail in these sorts of things, especially nowadays, is unlikely to stretch to the accents. Most of the 'above stairs' characters in Downton sound very ordinary to me and not at all like recordings of the real thing from the period which sound terribly 'cut glass' (as we say) by comparison nowadays.

Servants adopting the accent of their masters certainly did happen - Mountbatten's valet says in his memoirs that he was often mistaken for his employer on the phone. It doesn't really happen today, but 40 years ago or more, lots of people made enormous attempts to sound more upper class in their speech. There was a phenomenon of people having a 'phone voice' which was considerably - often preposterously - higher class than their natural speech. Actors about 50 years ago would have learned at drama school how to speak in a voice often called 'stage posh' - think early Margaret Thatcher. It doesn't happen to the same extent now - we're much less class-bound than we used to be, but that's not saying much! Even the Queen sounds far less 'posh' than she used to - find one of her speeches from the 1950s on YouTube and then listen to one from last year. Prince William sounds very much like any other public schoolboy of his generation.

Accents are so distinctive and varied in the UK that many of us alter our accents to fit in. My sister consciously Mancunianised her accent to fit in with her friends at school. Although it's slightly more unconscious, my accent is much more southern after living south of Watford Gap for the past 14 years. The only time I consciously go all cut glass is when an American says s/he likes my accent - then I start talking like Brian Sewell. Very odd.

Mark

I would say that both are hilariously dreadful attempts at their respective accents. DvD's (in Mary Poppins) was unconsciously so; Johnny Depp's almost certainly intentionally so. I've never met any real person who sounded like either.

Mark

Hi Russ,

I like your Beawulf project! I read Seamus Heaney's translation and the irony is that it took a working class son of a farmer with a thick Northern Irish accent to produce a wonderful version of this truly remarkable epic poem that was greatly readable to all those who stumbled across it.

I think I missed the RIP thread here on the Forum for Seamus Heaney last August, so this is my little contribution.

Jason.

P.S Let us know how you get on with your translations.

Char-Wallah: I have often wondered how accurate Hepburne's cockney accent was in the movie version of "My Fair Lady."  As a sidelight, I once had the opportunity to see the stage version here in the U.S.  The funny part was that the cast was entirely made up of a group from the drama and music departments of a small Presbyterian university---except for Eliza's father who was played by none other than Stanley Holloway himself!  Don't get me wrong--the college kids were good, but Holloway stood out like the biggest chunk of the Cullinan diamond tossed in with a cup full of rhinestones.

Would the nasal whine also apply to the utterances of any of the Royal Family?

Kevin: Shaw was wonderful and his quotable quotations abound.  Didn't he also say: "The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language"?  

I should add to my encomiums of the British, that your wit is vastly superior to that of me and my fellow Americans.  I have to admit that we sometimes have our best chuckle over a particularly loud fart.  Conversely, it is probably apocryphal, but I have heard that the Queen Mother was once asked what she thought of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and her alleged response was:  "Well, it is not a book one would give to one's game keeper, is it?"

Best regards,

Russ

If you want to talk like Prince Charles:

When answering in the affirmative, use the word for the hearing organs.

When answering in the negative, use the word that is the opposite of 'far'.

 Don't get me wrong--the college kids were good, but Holloway stood out like the biggest chunk of the Cullinan diamond tossed in with a cup full of rhinestones.

Holloway was from Manor Park, in East London. You can't fake that accent.

Shaw was wonderful and his quotable quotations abound.  Didn't he also say: "The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language"? 

Yes, it was Shaw who said that. I find his aphorisms more entertaining than his plays; they do, of course have the advantage of brevity.

I have to admit that we sometimes have our best chuckle over a particularly loud fart.

Oh we Brits love nothing better than farting. It is the basis of most of our humour.

I have heard that the Queen Mother was once asked what she thought of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and her alleged response was:  "Well, it is not a book one would give to one's game keeper, is it?"

That wasn't the Queen Mum (who was not really the sort of person to read books), but John Mervyn Griffifth-Jones, chief prosecutor at the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial in 1960. He asked the jury: "is it [a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" - this was taken as an indication of just how out of touch the prosecution was with the rest of British society.

Mark: Very interesting information and I thank you for it.  I had thought that both of Princess Diana's sons sounded considerably less "posh" as you put it than the older generation--but couldn't be sure.  I would suspect that English youth, perhaps to a lesser extent than American are or will be greatly homogenized in their speech by common exposure, not only to each other, but to television and other media.  I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, which in the 'fifities and 'sixties, could be characterized as a combination of a major U.S. city and a sleepy Mexican village--at the time about fifty percent Hispanic.  I learned to love the Spanish accent of most of the kids and adults I knew at the time.  Fast forward about forty years and I was returning from a hunting trip in Wyoming with a Mexican American friend of mine.  We arrived at his house and he showed me a picture of his daughter, a gorgeous girls of about fourteen with dark hair and eyes.  In my mind's eye, I pictured one of the girls I knew in high school.  Then Joe flipped on his answering machine and there was his daughter's voice: "

Um, like Dad!  Like you promised me a new pair of jeans when you got back, and I'm like--I need the money!"

Jasonf:  My God, I have to confess myself embarrassed all to hell--Until you mentioned it, I had no idea Heaney had died!  I agree that his translation was the most readable and, for lack of a better word, artful.  Let's face it--translating poetry isn't really just difficult--it is impossible.  From what little I understand of Old English stress and meter, he succeeded admirably in trying to capture both in his translation--as well as the use of alliteration.  

In my own case, it is not really fair to say that I am "translating" Beowulf.  Rather, I am reading through the entire poem and more or less memorizing the vocabulary as I go--to the extent one can while not being particularly interested in the case and tense.  (Since it is all told pretty much in the past tense, it doesn't give me much trouble in that regard.)  So my interest is in the words themselves, and in the use of alliteration.  After each major section of fifty to a hundred lines, I read several translations (Donaldson's prose translation seems to be the most literal) and Heaney as well, taking what he says with a huge grain of salt from the standpoint of word meaning.

The tool I am using is "Electronic Beowulf" purchased for $40 U.S. which can only be described as the World's greatest cheat-sheet.  You can mouse over each word and each line, for a literal translation of each.  It also has many other features that would be important to a more serious scholar.

The main take-away so far has been that my wife wants to purchase a one-pound Yorkshire Terrier and name him either "Grendel" or "Hrothgar".

Best regards,

Russ

Russ, Heaney was recorded by the BBC reading his translation of the poem. The Beeb rebroadcast it last year as a tribute. It was great. I think it's on YouTube in a different (and slightly inferior) version.

Kevin: I am not a great lover of Shaw's plays either, but then, with the exception of Shakespeare, I do not enjoy reading drama.  Thanks for the correction as to my misquoting the Queen Mother.  And you are right of course--the timely-let "farte" was prominent in Chaucer, even.

Years ago, I practiced law for a while, until I got tired of the rat race and not having a life outside the courthouse.  I had two partners and one of my partners' wife was our office manager.  She was born and reared in Wimbledon and was not educated beyond what we would call the high-school years.  But she was extremely well educated, bright, and witty and had what I suppose you would call a beautiful middle class accent.  At our first firm meeting, circa 1979, when all three partners had finished trying to impress each other, she said, as far as I can remember:

"I would like to add something if I may.  I will personally do everything I can to support all of you and this firm.  I will work day or night, come in when I am ill, and, with the exception of my beloved husband, cover for you with your girl friends.  However, I will NOT make your ****ing coffee."

Best regards,

Russ

RE - Jeeves speech seems just as precise and high-born to me as that of Wooster ...

That is one of the many brilliant qwirks & sub plots of J&W from P,G,Wodehouse

Wooster from the upper classes & years of inbreeding can cause some limitations in the common sense area & the character portrayed is stereotypical of the British upper-class buffoon.

Wooster would have attended the best public schools his family money could buy, but attendance is no guarantee that it actually found a home in the Wooster brain cell.  

Jeeves on the other hand, background unknown, was eminently better educated & his diction & manner were far superior to that of his young master

Cheers Kevin, I also missed that.

By the way, you must have seen the Melvin Bragg interview with Dennis Potter shortly before cancer finally  took him. I will never forget the moment when he had to stop momentarily during the televised interview to take a swig of morphine (I believe). Truly, one of the most moving interviews I have ever seen.

Jason.

As an aside, I attended University of Texas at Austin for slightly less than a hundred years.  Now, U.T. Austin was endowed by the Texas Congress (when we were an independent nation prior to joining the United States), with a few million acres of worthless desert land that so happened to comprise the Permian Basin Oil field.  Consequently my Alma Mater often proves to have more money than good taste.  On campus there is a four story building with an outdoor courtyard on top.  I have not been there for many years, but back in the day there were two glass doors through which one went out onto a patio on the top floor.  On each side of these doors was an enormous sterling silver vase, about four feet high and weighing upwards of a hundred pounds, I would guess.  Students, passing through the doors would toss cigarette butts and gum wrappers into one or the other of these beautiful vases.  One day I asked the curator if they were real silver (which he assured me they were) and where they came from.  "Oh, they once belonged to Bernard Shaw.  We had them in storage and thought they might look good here."

Best regards,

Russs

Russ, is it true that Texas is the only State in the US that has a Foreign Affairs minister? It's probably called something else though.

Jason.

Jason: Not to my knowledge.  Things were a bit different for us for a while, due to the fact that we came in as an independent nation.  As you may know, Norte Americanos, as Anglos were called, filtered into the area for many years starting around 1809, into Texas which was a part of the state of Cohuila, Mexico.  Each immigrant received roughly 4,500 acres of land in return for loyalty to Mexico and an agreement (honored in the breach most often) to practice Roman Catholicism.  Gradually, as you can imagine, the Anglo population wanted more and more independence, (sound familiar ?) and in fact, wanted to join the U.S.  Andrew Jackson wanted that as well.  In any case, in 1836, to make a long story short, we declared our independence from Mexico, Generalissimo Santa Anna marched north with an army of 5,000, and massacred approximately 180 "Texicans" at the Alamo in San Antonio, and a few more than that at the small mission town of Goliad,   Then, a couple of months later, near the city that now bears his name, "General" Sam Houston and a few hundred of his militia (including one of my great-great-great grandfathers) surprised the Mexican Army and returned the favor by slaughtering nearly a thousand.  Thus from 1836 until 1845, Texas remained an independent nation--much larger than it now is, extending most of the way to Canada and a long way toward California.  It was vital to join the Union because, our previous victory notwithstanding, Mexico was far more powerful and it was only a matter of time until the land would be reclaimed.  Repeated attempts to annex Texas failed, however, due to the slave/free state controversy and also due to the very fact that annexation made war with Mexico a certainty. 

During those 9 free years, we sent legations to many European countries including France and England, and France returned the favor--there is still a stone building known as the French Legation in Austin.  But the Constitution would forbid any state having an officer with the powers attendant upon a foreign minister or the like. 

So there you have it--you made the mistake of asking a Texan for a small amount of information about Texas.  As one of my cousins would say: "That'll larn ya!"

Best regards,

Russ

In other news, I was just reading a book called "Inventing English" by Seth Lerer, and came upon these little gems from Dr. Johnson which are all we Americans need to cure any budding sense of self-respect we might have begun to feel:

"...To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America....But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism."

And again:

"Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."

One can only wonder if the good Doctor, returned to life, were approached on the streets of London by my eighty-year-old uncle, wearing plaid shorts, black socks, and white sneakers, slapping him on the back and shouting in his ear: "Hey there, Mister, where the Hell can a man get some decent food in this goddamn burgh?"

No doubt his reply would begin with "Sir" and go on from there!

Russ,

In the spirit of this thread, two questions;

1) Have you read 'The Great Train Robbery' by Michael Crichton?

2) Is any man from Texas in a position to generalize on the the feelings of "most Americans"?

This is so untrue the van Dyke performance gave an added humour to the Brits watching the film that uncle Walt never sought.

Do a Youtube search on "How to do a Cockney Accent" to get an idea. Apologies about the brain deadening commercial before the useful part of the video.

Remember it well Jason. Gripping telly.

It was liquid morphine DP was swigging. He was also defiantly smoking away throughout. He also told how he's christened his tumour "Rupert", after that nice Mr Murdoch, of whom he was not a fan...

Yes, chain smoking all the way.

My other favourite, for completely different reasons, is Melvin Bragg interviewing Francis Bacon  for a documentary on his painting career which i have on DVD.

About half way through the documentary, they decide to go for lunch in a Soho restaurant. They proceed to get drunk, Bacon actually plastered and then explains how being homosexual directs the way he paints male flesh in a way that somehow he hopes to capture the "violence of life" or it's "voluptuousness".

"Cheerio!"

One of my favourite Francis Bacon quotes;  "I am a very optimistic person, I am optimistic about nothing".

Jason.

Don't recall the Bacon thing Jason, but it sounds good - will have to try and track it down. When I was a student in London in the early 1980s (I was studying history of art) me and my mate actually went to one of his regular Soho haunts (The Coach & Horses, I think) to see if he would talk to us. We found him sure enough, he was standing there, utterly pissed, on his own, but neither of us had the nerve to actually speak to him.

Kevin and Jason: I found his statements about Murdoch interesting, if not surprising.  I am not aware of all the beefs against Murdoch on your side of the ocean, but  I heard him speak of one of them--manipulation of news--and I have no doubt Murdoch does his share of that on both sides of the water. Nonetheless, in the spirit of blaming Bush for everything that has happened from the beginning of time until the end of the Earth, I will point out that Brent Bozell, head of a conservative media watch group in the U.S. reports as follows:

The big three networks in the U.S. (ABC, CBS, and NBC) spent 17 times more time reporting on the Chris Christie bridge scandal in less than 24 hours than they did reporting on the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups (for differential tax treatment) in the first six months since that story broke.

So to the limited extent that the video dealt with that aspect of Murdoch (which I do not contest), manipulation of the media seems to be endemic.  I do know Murdoch's organization went beyond that, of course and do not defend their actions. 

Best regards,

Russ