Posted by Magnus Smith on November 08, 2014 at 12:35:14 user Magnus.
In Reply to: Re: Ransome's language posted by Roger Wardale on November 08, 2014 at 03:57:32:
I'm not sure I would use the word 'timeless' to describe the speech of the S&A children. They use the word "jolly" an awful lot, probably just as much as in (I shudder to say it) Enid Blyton's books. Things are jolly useful, jolly good, jolly lucky...
Running my eye down the list my computer spits out (423 matches), I see that the Swallows, Amazons and Ds use "jolly" as much as Tom, Port and Starboard...but Joe, Bill and Pete never do.
"I say," is an equally popular expression (480ish occurances). I'm sure no-one starts their sentences that way any more, and it also sounds rather middle class!
"Golly" only apears 15 times in 5 of the books, but that's another give-away of the date! Same sort of stats for answering someone "Rather!"