(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

One of the many things I adore about books written in dialect (if that's the right word) are the bits where you suddenly encounter a "standard" English accent, also written out phonetically - because, after all, it's just another dialect too. After a lifetime of seeing and hearing English comedians taking the piss out of Scottish etc accents, it gives me the lols to encounter something like this exchange in Anne Donovan's Buddha Da:

(She says:) "Ah don't even talk like masel when ah'm at work."

(He jokes:) "Good morning, Miss Bools in the mooth speaking, how may I help you?"


There's a cracker of one of these in one of Niall Griffiths' books - I'll have to try to find it again. While I'm on the subject, v. interesting to learn from one of the docos on the Full Circle DVD that Bernard Padden, who plays Tylos, came close to being cast as Adric but lost out in the end because of his Northern accent. People from space don't have Northern accents. (Cut immediately to the bit from Rose you're thinking of.)

Comments

Two Things

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

1) I'm just now reading Will Self's The Book of Dave which has a lot of Cockney dialect in it, as well as a post-apocalyptic version which makes even less sense on the page. Took me forever to realize there was a glossary at the back to help me figure out what "yok" might be, as a building material.

2) I was recently reading fragments of the plays of Menander, in which a footnote mentioned that lines written in the rural Doric dialect are conventionally translated in mock-Scottish.

Re: Two Things

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

IIRC in The Hunt for Red October, Sean Connery's accent is explained by his character coming from Latvia.

Somewhere about the place I have Iain M. Banks' Feersum Enjin (almost entirely written in the narrator's eccentric spelling; read it) and an Irvine Walsh omnibus (haven't got to it yet).

Re: Two Things

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Since I got ma heed aroon' Neil Munro's Para Handy Tales (mostly written in the local dialect), mebbies ah shoul' gie Feersum Endjinn a luk-see, lol.

Re: Two Things

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Lithuania. Close :) He was known as "the Vilnius schoolmaster". Love that book.

I've read Feersum Enjin and while I usually adore Banks' work, I found the spelling really reduced my ability to lose myself in the story and care about it. Maybe I should try it again, now that I know what to expect.