[LMB] Re: OT- Swords/jewelry/Firefly

[B. Ross Ashley]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:03:40 -0700 (PDT), Ruth Frey 
<solsticebiz at yahoo.com> wrote:

 >        Random thought -- one thing that bugged me about the
 > portrayal of Mal was his accent; his pronunciation and intonation
 > are fairly "educated" (among other things, his vowels are
 > relatively flat, not a lot of "glide" beyond what's in a
 > basic American accent), yet he keeps lots of "uneducated"
 > Westernisms like "ain't," double negatives, etc. in his
 > speech patterns.  I'm sure some of the careful pronunciation
 > was partly used to show the character's intelligence (and
 > from interviews I've seen, that's the actor's natural accent),
 > but what he ends up sounding like is someone who trained himself
 > out of a "country" accent, but inexplicably kept the bad
 > grammar.  I've known people who *have* deliberately worked out
 > of a strong regional accent, and they're usually pretty careful
 > about word choices and such, too, by reflex.

 >        Really nitpicky, I know, but I've found it jarring from
 > time to time, especially since there are other characters in
 > the show who have more realistic accents to go with their
 > Westernized speech patterns -- such as Jayne, for example.
 > Kinda gives a mixed message about Mal's background, too,
 > which is how I got to thinking about it RE the above conversation.

 >        -- Ruth

Now in turn I find that interesting ... I have a tendency to adjust my 
speech patterns and accent to fit the company I'm in. Among the fan 
community here in Toronto I'm more nearly a Torontonian, but among my 
West Indian and Philipino co-workers I sound more like a North Floridian 
with a high-school education. They're using their normal accents and 
speech patterns, and I respond in the ones I spent my adolescence using. 
Could Cap'n Mal be doing that? I mean, the crew are not exactly 
university educated, and Mal may be. We do not know.
-- 
B. Ross Ashley
http://www.brashley46.livejournal.com
http://brashley46.no-ip.info
"It would be too painful to think that there are worlds somewhere
where I got everything right."  Sulien, in _The King's Name_, by Jo Walton
Registered Linux user # 402119
All emails viruschecked by KlamAV