Ripper Street starts tonight (30th Dec) on UK TV (BBC1)

[MajorParts]

Does anyone watch "Being Human"? Reids wife Emily was in it this week, but a somewhat different character

[richardh]

Anyone interested in posting their favourite lines from Ripper Street.

My two current favourites:

"she is going to have a child born unto her". and
"don't moon at my girls"

Best wishes,
C4

1st episode, Jerome Flynn (SgT Drake) - "Had enough shitstick?"

[curious4]

Ripper street

Anyone interested in posting their favourite lines from Ripper Street.

My two current favourites:

"she is going to have a child born unto her". and
"don't moon at my girls"

Best wishes,
C4

[richardh]

Episode Seven last night was interesting as it included reference to "cadaveric spasm", which has been debated on these boards recently.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2221120_dist...ric-spasm.html

cadaveric spasm, Isn't he a Russian shot-putter?

[Bridewell]

Episode Seven last night was interesting as it included reference to "cadaveric spasm", which has been debated on these boards recently.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2221120_distinguish-rigor-mortis-cadaveric-spasm.html

[Bridewell]

I believe it's back for Episode 7 (of 8) tomorrow evening.

[Steve S]

Thinking out loud...OK,Victorian WRITTEN stuff seems flowery and verbose...But how typical is that of the way people actually talked?

[Cogidubnus]

Very good points Tecs...My paternal grandfather was born in 1883 and when I was growing up his speech didn't seem that different to my own...sure he employed one or two slang phrases which dated him a little, but nothing very noticeable...

Written English from this era does sometimes appear a little stilted but that's a rather more formal style anyway...and I'm meaning letters rather than literature...I think you need to go back to (say) the first quarter of the 19th century to hit real differences even in written English...

All the best

Dave

[Tecs]

It's hard to tell how Victorians talked.

Surely people don't change the way they speak that much? I know accents can change but the way somebody speaks overall is probably the same when they are 18 and 80.

So, somebody born in 1870, who spent their formative years in the Victorian era would have been alive in the early fifties if they had lived into their eighties. Examining people from this time (for which there must be loads of recordings) would surely give us a good idea of how Victorians spoke.

Or, maybe there is another factor at work similar to the one mentioned on Q.I. recently. Everyone thinks that the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain were all posh and spoke very plummy. In fact, most were ordinary people who spoke normally. The actors who played them in the fifties and sixties, when those films were made, were posh and that is how the image stuck.

Maybe hundreds of films where Victorians spoke in a "'pon my sole, the wery same" etc kind of way has seared into our collective consciousness?

regards,

[Bridewell]

Episode 7 not on tonight. Disappointing.

[Flagg]

It looks promising. Some of the dialog isn't necessary and we know the East End was bad, but let's not go overboard. I'm not impressed with the way Abberline is portrayed. The character is a bullish with a quick temper. The real man is described as a gentleman in every sense. I hope there's more to these characters as we progress. It's worth a look.

[Bridewell]

Well Monro didn't come out of tonight's episode too well. I can't believe he was that spineless. The Okrana working in London, though, doesn't seem all that improbable.

[curious4]

Victorian grandmother

Hello Richard,

I also had the advantage of a Victorian/Edwardian grandmother. Nothing like talking to someone who was there at the time and family history entwined with national events is the best source material ever. Can't imagine her ever using the Ripper Street "dialect", which seems to come and go, by the way!

Best wishes,
C4

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I was more or less brought up with my grandmother, my mother and myself shared her house, and when my mother died , she and my aunt cared for me.
My grandmother was born in Feb 1880, and was very much of the Victorian era, she got married in 1900, and I can confidently say that as I knew her until I was nearly 16 years old, she was no different then any other person, her speech and mannerisms were not odd, and the tales of her youth, and family life were easy to imagine..she was certainly not in the mode portrayed in this BBC drama.
If one reads the papers of that period, away from the Ripper reports, one can see that life was similar , apart from the obvious transport, and material assets.
The ''Ripper street'' production, with all of its crudeness[ and that is amongst the police officers] and the Dickens type street scenes, simply do not ring true, but that is a personal opinion, and I am sure many people will enjoy the future episodes, it does after all give a dose of action , on what normally is a very low key Sunday evening on Tv.
Regards Richard.

[curious4]

How they spoke

Hello,

Somewhere out in Google world there is a site with letters from a young man from the Edwardian era and WW1. Well worth reading for vocabulary and content. There are also some recordings, (including one of Robert Browning), bit earlier that, but sounding surprisingly modern.

I found the way of speaking in Ripper street very off-putting but it is a good series.

Best wishes,
C4

Robert Browning was You Tube I think.