Regina Small, “People From The Fake Past Talk Too Much Like Us” (The Awl, Feb. 10, 2012)
Ben Zimmer, who writes a language column for the Boston Globe, has edited a series of clips featuring all of Downton Abbey’s various verbal anachronisms. … Zimmer’s written breakdown of the featured clips is here.
Read the rest here. (Related Word Routes column, Boston Globe column)
David Haglund, “Did You See This? Downton Abbey Anachronisms” (Slate, Feb. 9, 2012)
Ben Zimmer, a Slate contributor, has created a video for the website he executive produces, the Visual Thesaurus, detailing all the seeming linguistic anachronisms from Season 2 of the show, from “just saying” to “I couldn’t care less.” See them all below, and check out the Visual Thesaurus in the days ahead for explanations as to why these uses of language are probably historically inaccurate.
Read the rest here. (Related Word Routes column, Boston Globe column)
Judy Berman “Video of the Day: Verbal Anachronisms in ‘Downton Abbey’” (Flavorwire, Feb. 9, 2012)
When it comes to World War I-era verisimilitude, Downton Abbey sure looks authentic. But what about the dialogue? We’ve certainly caught the characters using phrases that sound awfully contemporary — and we’re not the only ones. Linguist and writer Ben Zimmer has also noticed some anachronistic usages on the show, from “I’m just sayin’” to the use of “contact” as a verb, and has made a short video compiling his observations. For those who are curious to hear more about language on Downton, Zimmer will be discussing it in both the Boston Globe and in his Visual Thesaurus column, “Word Routes.”
(Related Word Routes column)
Interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition” about the impact that Charles Dickens had on the English language. (Feb. 7, 2012)
Dickens’ novels often had more than 100 characters — major and minor — each with their portraits vividly painted — each with their own characteristic manner of speaking. Ben Zimmer of Visual Thesaurus wrote a birthday column calling attention to commonly used names and expressions that had their origins in Dickens: We call a miserly person a “Scrooge”; we refer to grouches who say “bah humbug”; and in Bleak House, it’s Mr. Snagsby who uses the expression “not to put too fine a point on it.”
(Show page, audio, related Word Routes column)