Re: Bob Blackett - one version anyway...'gotten' no way!


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Posted by Ed Kiser on May 06, 2003 at 03:36:56 from 152.163.188.167 user Kisered.

In Reply to: Re: Bob Blackett - one version anyway...'gotten' no way! posted by Peter H on May 05, 2003 at 20:44:59:

Peter-

Thanks for pointing out one of very likely many discrepancies within our common language. I am sure, before a work takes on any official consequences, it will be subjected to some serious editing to catch these phrases that are not quite true to the culture being so sadly imitated from such a great distance. That I am American will show in my writings; any attempt to Britify (is that a word?) my dialect is purely guessed at and is primarily the result of reading Ransome. It was all I could do to spell "harbour" with my spell checker having a fit over that extra "u" in the word. And "Grey" instead of "Gray" upset it terribly. Putting dialog to someone like Cook was quite a challenge, and took a lot of looking up of other Cook-isms to get some sort of sample. Having never really heard natives of that part of the world doing their thing with what they think is English leaves me very much at a disadvantage with my feeble attempts to replicate that dialect in my writing. So the result is that much of what gets said is spoken very much in the manner that I would have said it, in my best Southern American English. It was a delightful experience even to attempt such a mental shift.

Your taking note of dialect errors is appreciated as being intended to be the most positive of critical observation, and as such is welcome. From such we try to learn. It is in the learning that makes this fun.

Thank you for stumbling through my foreign bastardization of perfectly good English. I meant well.

Perhaps we should all take to heart the advice that Ransome gave us through the words of Captain Flint in Swallowdale:

"When a thing's done, it's done, and if it's not done right,
do it differently next time. Worrying never made a sailor."

"We're all duffers sometimes, but it's only now and
then we get found out."

It has been fun to share and in some small way, be a part of
All Things Ransome.

Ed Kiser, South Florida



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