3 posts tagged “american english”

I can see why some people dislike Fox News. Like the TV broadcast, the website makes a song and a dance and takes a long time to get to the meat of the story:

Fox News’ déjà vu

3 comments

   I began reading, ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   Then my eyes went down the page to read, ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   And then: ‘Carrie Prejean encouraged to surrender sash, declines offer to join beauty queens to promote the “diversity” of California in new PSA’.
   Yes, I get it. I don’t need to read a headline three times. I got it the first time, when it was in large type. I don’t need to read it once in 16 pt, once in bold, and once in roman. I know online Rupert doesn’t have to fork out anything in terms of printing supplies, but this is crazy.
   I got a bit further down and got a bit stuck at the sort of language being used. I wondered if this was some strange American English thing:

Tarts

   Right, they’re talking about getting a whole bunch of former beauty queens together and then the co-director is talking to ‘Tarts’? I know some people don’t like beauty pageants, but unless Tarts means something different in American, that’s a really mean thing to say.
   I re-read it in case Mr Lewis was talking to a Mr Tarts or a Ms Tarts—but there was no earlier mention.
   It took ages for me to realize that the section is called ‘Pop Tarts’, which I believe is an American term and nothing to do with the women, but some form of pastry from Kellogg’s. I know, it’s a play on words—the pop meaning popular—or at least I hope.

The Murdoch Press—The Times, anyway—is putting forth a contrary viewpoint to all the hype around Ashes to Ashes, by journalist Caitlan Moran.
   And I think she has a point.
   In summary, Moran feels that Ashes to Ashes has reached some level of self-parody. The star is now undeniably Gene Hunt, which, as I put forth in the comments, must be akin to the Fonz getting top billing in Happy Days after Richie left.
   Richie is Sam Tyler in this context.
   Moran, who has seen the première, or pilot, writes:

It’s not Phil Glenister’s fault – he continues to play Hunt with malicious, controlled glee. The problem is with the show itself. It has lost its innocence. It’s gone from being a little bit in love with Hunt – as any rational programme would be – to borderline stalking him. Every Hunt entrance is a “Hero Shot” – slow pans, moody lighting, orchestral upswell. Every scene is waiting for Hunt to enter, or animate, or conclude it. The show will give him anything he wants – machineguns, a speedboat, a ludicrous plot resolution.

   My remaining concern is whether we are as fond of the 1970s as we are of the 1980s. The cop show—what Americans call police procedurals now, in an effort to differentiate from English English*—probably reached a zenith in the 1970s in the UK, with shows such as The Sweeney (the sort-of inspiration for Life on Mars) and The Professionals (which was designed to compete with The Sweeney). In this context, The Sweeney is the Gospel of Matthew, and the last season of Special Branch with George Sewell was the Book of Malachi.
   But I am not sure if we are as fond of the next decade because we missed these dark, gritty shows. Dempsey and Makepeace and Cat’s Eyes are loved only by fans of the genre. Putting Gene Hunt into this world means the show must centre around him and the evolution of his character in a new decade, full of bright colours and later, pastel shades. Ashes to Ashes cannot be a homage to anything actually from the 1980s even if Moonlighting had been cited in an early press release—to all intents and purposes it can only be a homage to Life on Mars.
   Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the new show, because it presents an opportunity for fans to ask a new set of questions. Or at least I hope we can.
   As Life on Mars neared the end of its run in 2007, there were numerous speculations on what actually happened to Sam Tyler. Some argued that 1973 was Purgatory. Another theory was that Sam Tyler leapt into the body of a 1973 cop called Sam Williams while in a coma. He would wake up, someone else said, and find that Annie Cartwright was actually his nurse and they would fall in love and get married. And a lot more pointed out the Wizard of Oz references. 
   Scriptwriter Matthew Graham put that all to rest when he said, yes, Sam’s in a coma and he killed himself to get to his idea of Heaven, which features Gene Hunt, Ray and Chris, and, most importantly, Annie Cartwright. No other explanation is canon.
   Are we to accept that it’s so elegantly simple?
   Maybe yes, since this is just a TV show, but Graham and co-creator Ashley Pharoah say they want to explore the ‘mythology’ of Gene Hunt.
   The press kits are essentially saying that DI Alex Drake has imagined 1981 and the gang because she read Sam Tyler’s case file and developed an obsession over it.
   It just seems too simple, if it is written as cleverly as the original. I can’t imagine watching Ashes to Ashes and not having the same questions about: what is this time period? Who is Gene Hunt? And I would hope that Graham, Pharoah, Chris Chibnall and whomever else is writing would explore the “why” element of all of this than leave us without pondering what has happened to Alex Drake.
   If this is all—if Hunt is a psychological manifestation of a tumour or the bullet in Alex’s head—then we approach Ashes to Ashes backwards. Last time, seven million of us watched the finalé because we wanted answers. This time we approach the show knowing the answer first. And there goes one major element of why we watched the original.

* The Brits I hung out with for drinkies last night had never heard of the term police procedural.

I was over at Kevin Roberts’ blog today—no, not where you’d expect someone like me to be. I was interested to note his huge use of American spellings in, for example, his post about the Eurostar. He begins (note even the U.S.):

Traveling by air in Europe is not quite as bad as the domestic pain involved in U.S. air travel, but it’s up there. That’s why over recent years, the Eurostar has become a Lovemark to me. The last time I had meetings in London, I traveled from Paris and back on the Eurostar, returning the same day. It’s two-and-a-half hours each way and you get to leave from the center of Paris and arrive in the center of London.

   All well and good. I don’t have a problem with American English on American blogs, or even those who opt to use it over British English.
   Just that Kevin does make a big deal down here about his Kiwiness, and he is English by birth. He even talks about the All Blacks on his blog. In neither country do people like American English. We just think it’s a bit odd, just as an American would get puzzled by our weird-ass spellings for manœuvre.
   When it comes to a personal brand, even the way you spell needs to be consistent.
   Unless he gives a different image for the American market?
   In which case, I would advise against it, as citoyens du monde. We need to have one personal brand worldwide.
   The reality is, probably, that the blog is written by an American colleague, in which case it really isn’t a personal blog, is it?