On "accents"
Posted: April 11, 2009, 08:36:22 PM
Anybody remember Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue"? Various witnesses reported hearing shouting in a foreign language -- but no two witnesses agreed as to WHICH foreign language. However, each witness described the language as unfamiliar -- if the witness spoke German, he or she guessed it might have been (say) Spanish, if the witness spoke Spanish, he or she guessed it might have been Russian.
The "joke" was that the language was orangutan -- the murders had been committed by a trained ape (trained to shave its master as part of a carnival act), trying to carry out its training on panicky strangers. So -- Our Hero thinks the neighbors have a "Swedish or German" accent. People who spoke Swedish and/or German would probably think otherwise.
(Rose Tyler to the Doctor: If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North? (Northern England, she means)
The Doctor: Lots of places have a North...)
RM
The "joke" was that the language was orangutan -- the murders had been committed by a trained ape (trained to shave its master as part of a carnival act), trying to carry out its training on panicky strangers. So -- Our Hero thinks the neighbors have a "Swedish or German" accent. People who spoke Swedish and/or German would probably think otherwise.
(Rose Tyler to the Doctor: If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North? (Northern England, she means)
The Doctor: Lots of places have a North...)
RM