Comments | dark_aegis: Doctor Who and the Foreign Writer

dark_aegis

Doctor Who and the Foreign Writer

Aug 07, 2007 22:02

Everyone's done it. You sit in front of a keyboard and suddenly words appear on your nice, clean and blank word processor's sheet. A letter, then a word, then a sentence. Sentences become paragraphs. Paragraphs become chapters. And, sooner or later, you have a story ( Read more... )

writing, doctor who, random

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Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... wendymr August 8 2007, 11:54:53 UTC

You make dinner, or cook it, or prepare it. You don't fix it, because 'fixing' something implies that it's broken ;) Fix = repair :)

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... bulky_monster August 17 2007, 15:28:13 UTC

I could never get the whole dinner/supper/teatime thing straight. They still call noon meals lunch sometimes, too.

I've had this explained to me multiple times, but I never have got the hang of it. I believe this is because some words are used interchangeably depending on where in the U.K. you are, what the meal consists of, and what time of day it is.

It took two years for it to sink in that, when my neighbors invited me for tea, there would be food and, in fact, there might not be any actual tea. Considering it's all the same language, there's an awful lot to learn!

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... acciochocolate August 21 2007, 05:04:14 UTC

*grins* I direct you to Professor Higgins' song, Why Can't the English? in My Fair Lady. See the lyrics here:

http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/myfairlady/orchestrawhycanttheenglish.htm

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... bulky_monster August 21 2007, 15:18:24 UTC

Thanks! That's kind of hilarious ;)

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... acciochocolate August 22 2007, 02:57:00 UTC

The whole musical is rather good, actually. :) Well, it's Lerner and Lowe, of course. :) The Broadway soundtrack is better than the movie soundtrack. It's got a twenty-year old Julie Andrews singing her heart out. Still have no idea why she wasn't in the movie. :( And the silly movie folk wouldn't even let Aubrey Hepburn and Jeremy Britt (later to become famous as Sherlock Holmes) do their own singing. Hepburn was dubbed by Marni Nixon, the go-to girl for that sort of thing at the time.

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... bulky_monster August 22 2007, 14:39:28 UTC

Crazy.

You know, I have never seen nor watched Sherlock Holmes, except once when The Hound of the Baskervilles was playing in the launderette. (ooh, that's another one. Laundromat vs launderette.) Anyway, it was intriguing... I really need to read some of those stories.

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... elshadye October 27 2007, 03:22:08 UTC

Still have no idea why she wasn't in the movie.

I believe I heard that it was because they were (irrationally) afraid that, as a stage actress, she wouldn't transition well to film - and so they'd have less chance for an Oscar for Best Actress. And then Audrey Hepburn wasn't even nominated. :-P (Although, it may have been retaliation for the Julie Andrews snub -- according to imdb.com.)

And they *did* have Hepburn do some of the singing, but she couldn't hit all the notes. Actually, she does some of the singing in the film. From imdb:

Audrey Hepburn's singing does actually appear in the form of the first verse of "Just You Wait, Henry Higgins". However, when the song heads into the soprano range (76 seconds in), Nixon takes over vocals. Hepburn sings the last 30 seconds of the song as well as the brief reprise. She also sings the sing-talking parts for "The Rain in Spain".

These are user comments, however, so I have no idea as to their accuracy. :-)

Re: As someone who is neither British nor American... acciochocolate August 21 2007, 05:34:39 UTC

For the noon meal, some say lunch, some say dinner.

For the evening meal, some say dinner, some say supper.

In the Deep South (USA) one always used to say lunch and dinner; the use of supper was something that came from up North. :)

And then of course there's high tea and low tea in the UK. If tea is before 4 pm, it's just tea and what we might call snacks. :) After 5 pm it's more like dinner/supper, or so I have gathered from reading British lit over the years and reading some websites a while back about fancy teas in hotels if one was travelling in England.

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