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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #2160 on: 17:07:19, 26-11-2007 » |
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I was quite unprepared for its being so sad - I have to take back my earlier "good fun" comment. Yes, the conditions were terrible in many ways, unless you were rich, and even then medical things were not much better. The place of women wasn't too good either. "The good old days" didn't really exist. All these social aspects are very much pointed up in the adaptation.
Brilliant acting from the main women. I love the two gossips, Julia MacKenzie (sp?) and Imelda Staunton.
Language....yes, lovely, but I doubt if "It's all go in Cranford" was something Miss Matty would have said! (I've commented on that before somewhere.)
My grandmother had two children who died of meningitis in 1906 before my mother and her brother were born. They were 2 and 4 years old. It's unimaginable, really.
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #2161 on: 17:30:34, 26-11-2007 » |
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I laughed at "It's all go in Cranford" myself. They definitely wouldn't have said that. This is to John W as well. Those who did attend school were taught English properly. The emphasis was on the three Rs. There weren't all the other (mostly useless) subjects that they're able to choose from these days. The poor didn't have much opportunity but if there was an education it was at least decent. In fact even up until later the teaching of English was excellent - my in-laws both left school at 14 as they did in those days. Their spelling was faultless and they could both write a beautiful letter as could my grandparents, in a lovely hand. Nowadays, spelling isn't regarded as important. My stepson regularly came home with his work uncorrected after writing "would of" and "could of". The teachers themselves have trouble. One teacher of my boys spelt independent wrongly in a spelling test she gave them. When I went in to see her she was most annoyed that I'd brought it up and asked if I'd looked it up in the dictionary. She said she always looked up the words to make sure. She looked it up in front of me and of course then realised that it was wrong. As I was leaving the classroom I noticed that she'd written "hampster" on the board.  Both Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell give a wonderful insight on the horrors of living in those days and I have to say that nobody does the dramatisation of these classics better than the BBC. They're admired the world over. Imelda Staunton is wonderful Mary. Her facial expressions are superb. The whole cast is wonderful in fact. I love the whole thing.  |
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John W
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« Reply #2162 on: 17:50:14, 26-11-2007 » |
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Those who did attend school were taught English properly. The emphasis was on the three Rs. Yes MJ, the teaching of English was good then, indeed I think it was good up to the 1960's - even in Stirlingshire, Scotland where I was educated - but this only meant we could WRITE good English, good use of tenses, clauses, vocabulary when you had a good think about what you were writing. It made no difference to how we spoke in the street or at home, we spoke Scottish dialect, and my family still do, and after a few days up there I will revert back to it, whereas here in Warwickshire where I've lived for 30 years I speak very plain English because that is the language here, they don't even have an accent never mind a dialect. In Victorian times I'm sure the school-educated could write very good English but in normal speech they reverted to dialect: Scouse, Geordie, Mancunian, Brummage, Black Country, Cockney, they all existed in Victorian times and that's how most people spoke then. Knutsford, Cheshire, may be like Warwickshire today and have a plain but clearly-spoken language, or is there a trace of Scouse or Mancunian? I'm not convinced all of Victorian Knutsford spoke like Elizabeth Gaskell, whose father was a church minister. |
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #2163 on: 17:57:05, 26-11-2007 » |
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John, if you were taught to write good English and you therefore had a decent vocabulary, to my mind it matters not one jot what accent you would have expressed yourself in! You knew words of more than one syllable!!!!!! I have no problem with regional accents at all. However they speak, they have to say words.  |
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #2164 on: 18:05:06, 26-11-2007 » |
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Warwickshire no accent, John? Do you not hear the short 'a' and the other vowels with just a hint of a Brummie tripthong? The sounds in Warwick and Leam are quite different to those in Oxford, Cov and Brum, being phonetically as well as geographically somewhere in between, in much the same way as those in Stirling are different from those in Edinburgh and Glasgow (and sometimes even within the latter two).
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #2165 on: 19:02:55, 26-11-2007 » |
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Let's not get into regional accent/differences. I didn't ever intend that to be part of the equation. At any rate, Elizabeth Gaskell writes in a way - even if nobody spoke like that - that I love dearly and miss in today's literature.
Perhaps I was born in the wrong century. Although.... looking at everything else, I'd rather be in this one. I've just made a lovely meal on a nice cooker, in a warm house, the child will soon be in the shower before bedtime, and I know that the laundry will be washed and dried by morning. I really deeply appreciate these luxuries and feel desperate for those wives and mothers of yesteryear who had a daily on-going struggle just to keep everyone clean and fed. Totally exhausting - and with all the ailments to cope with in the family for which there would be little or no alleviation, life must have been pretty hellish.
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John W
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« Reply #2166 on: 19:04:54, 26-11-2007 » |
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John, if you were taught to write good English and you therefore had a decent vocabulary, to my mind it matters not one jot what accent you would have expressed yourself in! You knew words of more than one syllable!!!!!! I have no problem with regional accents at all. However they speak, they have to say words. That's the point I'm trying to make MJ, I'm saying Elizabeth Gaskell WROTE how SHE was able to write, large vocabulary, no regional dialect, not necessarily how regular Victorian folks in Knutsford (yes, I know she lived there, but do you see what I'm saying?). Not having watched Cranford I need to ask, are there no Knutsford local accents heard in the programme or is everyone just speaking Gaskell as she wrote with her voluminous vocabulary ? Ron, I have to say I hear no real difference across Coventry and Warwickshire, at least in the Rugby, Warwick, Leamington, Nuneaton, Coventry areas  Even Solihull (the south part) has no trace of Brummage to me. |
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Antheil
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« Reply #2167 on: 19:14:59, 26-11-2007 » |
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John, you think Solihull has no accent  I think Regional Accents are great, it is who we are and no reason to be ashamed of them, but then, some are better than others ......... of course, but that is only they are melliforous Have I spelt that wrong? |
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #2168 on: 19:26:47, 26-11-2007 » |
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"Mellifluous" Anty (unless you intended "Melliferous" bearing or yielding honey.)
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #2169 on: 19:26:55, 26-11-2007 » |
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John W
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« Reply #2170 on: 19:31:36, 26-11-2007 » |
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John, you think Solihull has no accent I didn't say that, I said in the (posh) south they seem not to talk Brummage; it's a bit different in Chelmsley Wood My Scottish ears have maybe mellowed all the Warks speak into one MJ, I do understand you, you enjoy the polite and proper language written by Gaskell, I guess it is an escape to a more polite world which may have really only existed in aristocratic circles, not necesarily typical of town or village. I don't spend much time with TV dramas now, I could if I made the time for it, and recall as a youth enjoying the BBC's Jane Austen pre-Victorian Emma and Pride and Prejudice. Anyway new waffle awaited! |
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #2171 on: 19:37:26, 26-11-2007 » |
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New waffle in just one mo - because I just want to make another point. When Dickens writes as poor people spoke (or so we assume, not having had the actual experience) the grammar is dreadful and as you would expect from an uneducated person - but they were still polite! Much more polite than nowadays. They daren't be any different. Beggin' your pardon Sir..... |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #2172 on: 19:42:41, 26-11-2007 » |
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To my ears the Knutsford accent is sort of generic Northern, not Scouse or Lancs, but definitely northern, graded according to social class, of course ! In the programme, I think this is indicated, though quite gently. Miss Pole (the Imelda Staunton character) and her crony sound more northern than Matty and Deborah, and Harry more northern still. I didn't notice how Lady Ludlow spoke. |
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John W
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« Reply #2173 on: 20:04:27, 26-11-2007 » |
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Thanks Mary and Milly, wish I'd seen Cranford now I expect the satellite channels might show it later/soon or do I mean sooner or later Quite right about Dickens, more realistic My wife enjoys the soap Hollyoaks, Cheshire again, or more Chester, definitely some scousing in that TV show sorry for 5 smileys, you can tell I'm getting all embarrassed and apologetic |
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Andy D
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« Reply #2174 on: 20:10:20, 26-11-2007 » |
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Ar cor oonderstand wot enny of yow's si-yin |
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