Posted by Dave Thewlis on August 10, 2000 at 21:09:46 from adsl-63-200-128-218.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net:
In Reply to: Re: Picts and Martyrs Oddities posted by Disgruntled Northerner on August 08, 2000 at 19:45:13:
Okay, I'm afraid I get to disagree with the Disgruntled Northerner. Since I live in the far north
of California, perhaps I am a Gruntled Northerner...
In any case, with respect to "...not oddities in the country in which the book was written..." I think
that presumes a degree of homogeneity which certainly neither the U.S. nor the U.K. seem to possess.
Certainly the usages between (for example) Maine and Alabama are as extraordinarily different in speech, pronunciation
and colloquial usage as between (also for example) Northumberland and Devon. I realize D.N. was applying
a particular sense to "oddity" but I think even in a single country very different usages seem odd to the
extreme he suggests.
Although some Americans do think the world should dance to the U.S. tune, most of us probably don't -- what
we do tend to do is have a very simple picture of other countries and peoples, believing in a homogeneousness which
doesn't exist. We're not particularly alone in that.