Patrick O'Brian

[Norskie]

I've just finished 'Desolation Island' by Patrick O'Brian. I'd forgotten O'Brian's attempts to recreate the British brand of English from that era. I kept having to go to my dictionary to look up words, and wasn't able to find half of them! He sure keeps a fellow on his toes. Anyone here read these novels?
BTW, I stumbled on a website devoted to his work, and there was a link to a cook book called 'Lobscouse and Spotted Dog' by Grossman and Thomas. Modern cooks attempting to recreate the food in the Aubrey/Maturin novels.
Moose

 

[sequoia]

I've been working my way through the novels on tape for a few years now. I'm up to 17 or 18. They sure make the ride to and from work a lot less boring.

 

[steve stanley]

Don't worry....they're hard going for we English as well...but well worth it!
Steve

 

[Norskie]

That's a relief. Some of Maturin's medical terms have me scratching my head. The seagoing terms are much easier to figure out.
Have you any idea how O'Brian researched his language and vocabulary?

 

[JiminTexas]

Just think. If we hadn't have won that battle at Yorktown way back when, we'd all be speaking English right now.

 

[steve stanley]

Think O'Brien got it right...friend of mine summed it up beautifully as Jane Austen at sea....if You fancy a military equivalent,try Alan Mallinson's Matthew Hervey series...set in a British Cavalry regt.from the Peninsula into the 1830's.....talking of accents,how do we explain Canadian English?.....logic says either that's how it sounded in the colonies pre-independence...or they should talk like wot we do,gor blimey Mary Poppins!
Steve

 

[Norskie]

Seems to me all varieties of English have changed since those days. I secretly suspect that you Brits have let yours slide more than us former colonials. :grin: Some times ah cain't hardly unnerstan all y'all!
Moose

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

I have a hard enough with American accented English half of the time, Yo Homie, or is it G Dawg? I better be careful before someone busts a cap in my ass.
Jeff

 

[blacksmithman64]

I always say "bust a flint in yo ass"! :rotf:

 

[aragorn]

Re posting above, Standard Canadian owes a lot to Scottish (Glaswegian version), including the famous dipthong ('ote and abote' for 'out and about'), i or a for e in certain words ('reet' or 'rate' instead of 'right'), dropping the g in 'going', the lilt, etc. The accent is especially clear in the maritime provinces (except Newfoundland, which has it own accent of course, mainly Irish), but also in rural areas and small towns across Canada - for example where I live in a very Scottish settled area of southern Ontario. 'We're goin' ote reet abote now, eh?'

Re Patrick O'Brien - one of my favourite authors too - a big influence on his writing style was indeed Jane Austen, who was writing at about the same period as the setting for O'Brien's novels and gives an authentic bluepring for language use of the period. O'Brien was also a very keen natural historian and immersed himself in the great works of the 18th to mid 19th c, e.g. Lyell and Darwin (if you read Voyage of the Beagle, you can almost hear a version of Maturin speaking).

I think Peter Weir's Master and Commander is one of the best films ever made - perfectly captures the essence of the books, I find.

 

[Norskie]

Dang, now I gotta go read Jane Austen. How's her battle scenes? :grin:
Moose