Posted by Jock on July 22, 2006 at 13:46:38 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Sequels (Was: Where is everybody? posted by PeterH on July 22, 2006 at 12:48:18:
You would, of course, have your characters speaking the way modern children do - 'Nancy said 'Jibooms and bobstays' would become 'Emma was like 'Front up, dude' or whatever it is they say now. 'Yo Walker!'? Attempts to copy 1930s lingo would be an absurd pastiche, and you would never get away with it.
The great joy of Peter H's postings is looking for the pearls hidden away in his throwaway comments. For "Jibbooms and bobstays" was never '1930s lingo', it is Ransome's own literary creation that transformed semi-obscene sailor speech into Nancy's quaint parody.
On the basis that AR took bits of real-life people and places and jumbled them up, I conclude that Nancy is based, linguistically at least, on a real life little girl who used to go around saying things like, 'as smooth as a hippoptamus's b*m'.