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

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Elizabeth Holden wrote:

> Ruth said:
>
> >  > Random thought -- one thing that bugged me
> >  > about the portrayal of Mal was his accent; his
> >  > pronunciation and intonation
> >  > are fairly "educated" ... yet he keeps lots of
> >  > "uneducated" Westernisms like "ain't,"
> >  > double negatives, etc.
>
> I loved that. That's dialect.  It's the way language
> works - not necessarily literally, but as a depiction
> of a frontier dialect five hundred years from now, I
> found it both effective and endearing.

I loved that.

I have a master's degree in history.  I can write fairly fluently
in a number of English dialects, but I am from the South, and
when I am relaxed, have been drinking, am really tired, &c, I
sound exactly like that.  ESPECIALLY around other Southerners.

(This is probably one of the reasons Supernatural fic comes so
easily to me; the speech patterns of most of Kripke's characters
are heart-breakingly familiar.  I have a lot in common with Sam,
and I must through the course of my life have known 20 guys who
could have BEEN Dean except of course for the ghost hunting and
credit card scams.)

There is no reason why an educated person has to use the academic
register all the time in every day speech when s/he is not trying
to make an impression.  Despite its bad press, ain't is a
perfectly good word, and while the double negative in standard
English cancels itself out, its use for emphasis is a part of
many dialects.

Many people frequently switch between a childhood dialect and one
learned in adulthood.  The fact that most people in fiction do
not have speech patterns this complex is not a reflection of
reality, it's just writers trying to make things easier on
themselves and on some of the readers who expect that.

~malfoy

****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Morley