Posted by Ed Kiser on February 15, 2014 at 07:58:57 user Kisered.
One of the nice touches Ransome gives to his stories is his
presentation of dialects in the assorted speech of his
characters. As an American, far be it from me to judge
the assorted flavors of British accents, so I can in no
way asses his dialect spellings as he tries to spell out
the sounds of the particular dialect. The spelling of such
words is not in any dictionary that I am aware of. Of
such is the art of his writing.
The sound recordings made by Gabriel Woolf are quite
delightful, as he seems to be able to shift his mode
of speech into at least some sort of attempt to imitate
the various dialects that Ransome uses. As to how
accurate are his dialect presentations, I am in no
way a proper judge, but I do appreciate the "flavor"
his speech gives to these assorted characters.
Writing in dialect must be quite difficult as one must
make up the rules of spelling as one goes along. The
problem with personal conventions is perhaps an occasional
inconsistency, unintentional of course.
For example, consider chapter 3 of Pigeon Post, in
which our friends meet with Slater Bob deep within
his mine to get his information as to where the gold
is likely to be. Slater Bob's speech is written to
portray a form of dialect.
"I've summat to show thee. Tak' a look at yon."
A few lines further down, he repeats, "Tak' a look at
yon." Both of these have the word, "TAKE" with the
"e" missing, but replaced with the apostrophe.
Yet some 18 lines lower down, on that same page,
he says,"but that'll tak me oop to London." But
here, there is no apostrophe - thus an inconsistancy.
Perhaps this is just a typesetting error. Perhaps
in editions later than mine, this has been fixed.
But not to detract from the value his writing in dialect
has added to these books. In their assorted modes of
speech, the several characters take on this facet of
their personality, as shown by Jacky, Mr. Dixon, Cook,
Billy (policeman), the boat builder, Coot Club boys,
and assorted others I do not mean to slight by leaving
them out of this list. Such modes of speech enhance
the joy of experiencing the flavor of these stories.
For reading these stories is quite a delightful experience.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA