I've said it before, but it bears repeating...man, when you undertake to speak and write in English, you really are picking up a Strativarius. This language is a fine instrument, arguably just as expressive now as it was in Shakespeare's time. There's a lot of fine modern examples. Here's a few, taken from an internet monologue site. The first is from a TV script written by Stephen Fry (below):
"I think it was Donald Mainstock, the great amateur squash player, who pointed out how lovely I was. Until that time, I think it was safe to say that I'd never really been aware of my own timeless brand of loveliness. But his words smote me, because, of course, you see, I am lovely, in a fluffy, moist kind of a way.
I walk, let's be splendid about this, in a lightly-scented cloud of gorgeousness that isn't a far shot from being quite simply terrific. The secret to smooth, almost shiny loveliness, of the order which we are discussing in this simple, frank, creamy-soft way doesn't reside in oils, unduants, balms, ointments, astringments, creams, milks, moisturizers, linaments, lubricants, embracants or bolsoms, to be simply divine for just one noble moment; it resides, and I mean this in a pink, slightly special way, in one's attitude of mind. To be gorgeous and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely, all you have to do is to believe that one is gorgeous and high and true and fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely. And I believe it of myself, tremulously at first and then with mounting heat and passion because, stopping off for a second to be super again, I'm so often told it. That's the secret really."
Wow! That's over-the-top gay English raised to the level of fine art! I love lines like, "I walk, let's be splendid about this, in a lightly-scented cloud of gorgeousness, that isn't a far shot from being simply terrific!" Of course a good English sentence doesn't have to be fluff. How about this (below) from "There Will Be Blood"?
Plainview: "Ladies and gentlemen... I've traveled over half our state to be here tonight. I couldn't get away sooner because my new well was coming in at Coyote Hills and I had to see about it. That well is now flowing at two thousand barrels and it's paying me an income of five thousand dollars a week. I have two others drilling and I have sixteen producing at Antelope. So, ladies and gentlemen... if I say I'm an oil man you will agree. You have a great chance here, but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you're not careful. Out of all men that beg for a chance to drill your lots, maybe one in twenty will be oilmen; the rest will be speculators-men trying to get between you and the oilmen-to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has money, and means to drill, he'll maybe known nothing about drilling and he'll have to hire out the job on contract, and then you're depending on a contractor that's trying to rush the job through so he can get another contract just as quick as he can. This is the way this works."
Man: "What is your offer? We're wasting time."
Plainview: "I do my own drilling and the men that work for me, work for me and they are men I know. I make it my business to be there and see to their work. I don't lose my tools in the hole and spend months fishing for them; I don't botch the cementing off and let water in the hole and ruin the whole lease. I'm a family man- I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Plainview. We offer you the bond of family that very few oilmen can understand. I'm fixed like no other company in this field and that's because my Coyote Hills well has just come in. I have a string of tools all ready to work. I can load a rig onto trucks and have them here in a week. I have business connections so I can get the lumber for the derrick; such things go by friendship in a rush like this. And this is why I can guarantee to start drilling and put up the cash to back my word. I assure you, whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there..."
Holy Mackerel!..a plain, blunt style, emphasizing harsh consonants and delivered in a battering ram rhythm! Veeery nice!!!!
Talking about rhythm, what do you think of this passage (below) from "How To Get Ahead in Advertising"? I've already posted the relevant clip from the film elsewhere, but thanks to the monologue site I have a printed transcription this time, and it's revelatory! What do you think?.........
Dennis Dimbleby Bagley: "Let me try and clarify some of this for you. Best Company Supermarkets are not interested in selling wholesome foods, they are not worried about the nation's health. What is concerning them, is that the nation appears to be getting worried about its health, and THAT is what's worrying BestCo, because BestCo wants to go on selling them what it always has, i.e. the white breads, baked beans, canned foods, and that suppurating, fat squirting little heart attack traditionally known as the British sausage. So, how can we help them with that? Clearly, we are looking for a label. We need a label brimming with health, and everything from a nosh pot to a white sliced will wear one with pride. And although I'm aware of the difficulties of coming to terms with this, it must be appreciated from the beginning that even the nosh pot must be low in something, and if it isn't, it must be high in something else, and that is it's health giving ingredient we will sell. Which brings me to my final question: Who are we trying to sell this to? Answer: We are trying to sell this to the archetypal average housewife, she who fills her basket. What you have here is a 22 year old pretty girl - what you need is a taut slob, something on foot deodorizers, in a brassiere." (laughter)
Student: "I'm not quite sure I can go along with that Mr Bagley, I mean if you look at, like, the market research..."
Bagley: "I don't need to look at the market research, I've lived with thirteen and a half million housewives for fifteen years and I know everything about them. She's 37 years old, she has 2.3 children, 1.6 of which will be girls. She uses 16 feet 6 inches of toilet tissue a week, and fucks no more than 4.2 times a month. She has 7 radiators, and is worried about her weight, which is why we have her on a diet. And because we have her on a diet, we also encourage her to reward herself with the little treats, and she deserves them, cause anyone existing on 1200 calories of artificial synthetic orange-flavoured waffle a day, deserves a little treat. We know it's naughty but you do deserve it, go on darling swallow a bun! And she does. And the instant she does, the guilt cuts in. So here we are again with our diet. It's a vicious but quite wonderful circle, and it adheres to only one rule: whatever it is, sell it. And if you want to stay in advertising, by God you'd better learn that!"
Bruce Robinson, the writer of these words, is clearly a genius. Of course, I have to say that this example sounds as gay as the Fry piece. Somehow gays managed to figure out how the language works while everyone else was struggling with it. How did that happen? My guess is that English works best when it's pushed and caricatured. Gays had a playful attitude toward the language and they reaped the benefits.
Here's a link to the YouTube version of the How to Get Ahead scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxVUsMsWLw
28 comments:
One of my favorite scenes that had taken advantage of the English Language was the film, The Great Dictator (1940)
At the climax of the film, the barber, whom been mistaken for the country’s Fuhrer, delivered an address in front of a large audience and over the radio to the nation, following the Tomainian take-over of Osterlich (an event that was referenced to the German Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1938.)
I remember my old High School teacher, who was a big Charlie Chaplin fan, had told me that this famous speech came from Chaplin’s own mouth. A personal plea, if you would.
"Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible. Jew, gentile, black man, white we all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aero plane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate, only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " The kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world: A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."
Coarse and honest, something you don’t see too much of now-a days.
In contrast to that, let’s take another approach that is light hearted, but is just as effective.
Benefits of Reading
The boys are sitting around outside Dan Murphy’s pub, having a few jars, when Will perks up with, “You know boys, my wife was reading A Tale of Two Cities and the next day she gave birth to twins.”
“Isn’t that odd,” chirps in Sean McNamara, “My wife was reading The Three Musketeers and the next day she presented me with triplets.”
Then up speaks Danno Mahoney with, “Well, my wife was reading The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and she gave birth to quads.”
At this point, Frankie Frawley looks at the others in a kind of stunned way and hurries to leave the table, leaving his beer behind. “And where are you off to?” asks Will.
“My wife,” says Frankie, “is just now finishing The Birth of a Nation.”
These two examples (as well with the ones you’ve posted) give a fine reason why this language can be so effective.
Thank you for sharing, Mr. Fitzgerald.
From an inspiring animator/ artist
I forgot about adding the video of the speech from The Great Dictator film, so here is the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNyvN2Av-6g
Fine examples all, but I like How To Get Ahead in Advertising the best because of it's sardonic, satiric quality. (Of course the Fry monologue was satiric, too. Unless he's really that conceited, which I hope not.)
Bruce: That was indeed a beautiful speech, and Chaplin delivered it at a time when some other filmmakers were pulling their punches...maybe (just guessing) during the Hitler/Stalin pact when Russia discouraged criticism of Hitler.
Stephen Fry is indeed a very lovely man, although I'm sure he doesn't regard himself as highly as in that monologue. I think that was from the show "A Bit of Fry and Laurie", which is brilliant and I recommend it to all Americans, along with anything else Fry has ever done.
One of the greatest most brilliant speeches written for television in the last 10 years (at least) was Don Draper's pitch to Kodak in MAD MEN. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY&feature=related
Speaking of gay people and language, I once read a screenplay that had almost two pages of a speech that comprised entirely of derogitory words for gay people.
As offensive as it would have been had it been made, it just got funnier and funnier.
I wish I had a copy of that.
bruce is just trying to get Eddie going on hippies.
Hi Eddie! I'm glad to stumble across your blog just in time to read about language. Your insights are poking at my brain.
I started a blog a few months ago, mostly musings on philosophy, social rants, and of course, language praise and complaints. I'm off to grad school for English lit. next year to become -- get this -- an English professor.
Come say Hi some time! I hope you are well!
http://www.astudentofenglish.blogspot.com
--Robyn
Best use of English? New York slang of the early 20th Century.
None of this is truly literary, really. Just a bunch of anticomsumerism, cloying narcissm sentiments, pat yourself on the back type of writing. Nothing special.
To Pappy:
Actually, I'm not.
I was simply replying to Eddie's post by sharing one of my favorite speaches that had a powerful impact on me.
I never have a bad word to say against anyone - unless they were bad - but never because the colour of their skin, their lifestyle, orgins, their religion and so on.
Remember that popular idiom that you should think carefully about the possible results or consequences before doing/ saying something?
Just a thought.
From an inspiring animator/ artist
bruce:
Oh, Margaret! That was just a gag, of course. I was just ragging Eddie.
Chaplin may indeed have been disobeying orders from Moscow by making fun of Hitler. Perhaps he was motivated by an anachronistic "patriotism" (in 1940 his country (UK) was already in WWII) or to support his politically expedient fiction that he was a member of the Hebrew race. In any case it's common knowledge that Hollywood was run by a cabal of what HUAC in later years would term "premature anti-fascists".
But the Party never forgets & the Comintern would have its revenge through its pinko puppet, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Chaplin had faced a paternity suit in 1944. Blood tests proved he was not the father but, this being California, the judge ruled that evidence inadmissible & dinged him for child support. During the trial, it emerged that in 1942, Chaplin had paid the train fare from California for his 23-year-old girlfriend to join him in New York; a cut & dried violation of the federal Mann Act (transporting women across state lines for immoral puposes). The nation was outraged at his acquittal by a jury packed with "little people".
In the early 50's, in the grey halls of the Kremlin, a new long-range master plan was hatching involving the discovery by a "neutral" Swiss scientist of LSD25,later to be known by the street name, "acid". Chaplin's Communist masters now considered him irrelevant & would not lift a finger in his aid when in 1952, that great public servant, J. Edgar Hoover had him banned permanently from American soil.
You know, since we're sharing, one of the things I love the most about English is that it is, I believe, the only language whose writers use nonsense words.
Case in point: you know how you wake up some mornings with a song in your head? Well, that happens to me every day, but on this particular morning, I found that I had a poem stuck there. More specifically, a repeated stanza:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
As most of you know, this is from Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky'.
Now, that's clearly English, and as absurdist and abstract as it is at first glance, the best thing about this is it seems to be about something.
'Brillig' is clearly an adjective, "slithy" an adverb and 'toves' a noun. This goes on in each line, each part of speech coming up, ending with the verb 'outgrabe'.
I can't tell you what the words mean, but I definitely know what the forest felt like that day when the son slain the Jabberwocky with his vorpal blade!
The writers I love the most ( Lewis Carroll, George Carlin, Mark Twain, etc. ) all have one thing in common, and that's a propensity for language born out of the fact that they don't hold the same prejudices toward words that everyone else does.
Carlin spoke eloquently and peppered his speech with words that could be considered offensive ( as did Harold Pinter in his plays ), but the only people who got caught up in those things were superficial and unconsciously give certain words more power than they ought to. These same people might not open a Christmas present because they dislike the wrapping paper.
Mark Twain referred to words as his 'darlings' and would 'murder them' unceremoniously to make his points. And in the case of Carroll, he could make up a word if he knew it felt right.
But, half the battle is writing them. If you don't have a Daniel Day Lewis to deliver the speech, or a Vincent Price to read 'The Raven', then it's more or less a lost cause, isn't it?
I hated poetry in middle school because the teacher would have the class read aloud, and none of my classmates appreciated what they were reading, mainly because, to them, it wasn't fundamental. They made fun of Jabberwocky, and wrote their own gibberish to show that anyone could do it.
But since it was unreadable, that started my thinking that gobbledegook was not something to be taken lightly, and that meaning is often stronger than the words themselves.
That's also when I stopped caring about people's feelings when I fucking swear.
- trevor.
PS: Did you know that they're doing research to find out if people who are offended by swear words are mildly retarded? It's true. The theory is that it shows a low level of mental health to get upset not at sentiments, but words alone.
"Bruce: That was indeed a beautiful speech, and Chaplin delivered it at a time when some other filmmakers were pulling their punches...maybe (just guessing) during the Hitler/Stalin pact when Russia discouraged criticism of Hitler."
Eddie,
Did you hear the anecdote about MGM cartoon producer Fred Quimby and Blitz Wolf? He told director Tex Avery to be careful about the insulting caricature of Hitler since "we don't know who's going to win the war." Why insult a potential foreign market for MGM films, was his thinking.
Robyn: An English major!!! Congratulations, that's great! Hey, let me know if you come across any good English lit sites!
Oppo: Yikes! That's a harsh judgemnt! Well, time will tell.
Hunsecker: Quimby was clueless.
Bruce: Chaplin certainly was mistreated here. Even so, what I said about Russia and its influence is probably true, or at least part of the truth.
Trevor; Most people I know use cuss words and probably share your belief about them. I find them indispensable when I bang my knee against something, but I don't really think it's a good idea in general.
Half the people who talk like that do so to announce that they're worldly wise and not to be messed with. I can see doing that if you live in a violent neighborhood, but It seems odd when normal people obsess over that.
I
HOLY CRAP, THIS IS A GREAT POST!!
Eddie, trust me, if you ever work at a grocery night crew, the word "fuck" will become your best friend. I've seen meek milquetoasts turn into sailors within days of starting to work aty my store. Incidentally, I went from swearing excessively to needlessly quoting from my favourite movies and tv shows at innapropriate times.
My favourite show of the moment is "Mad Men," and I am absolutely obsessed with it. I hate to quote this monologue since it was the climax of the season finale and in fact the entire show, and probably can't be appreciated without context, but I can't resist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY
Here's another about hunting and primal urges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p6KC0Yd6TY
And another amazing speech about advertising:
"Don: It's okay, Kenny. I don't think there's much else to do here but call it a day. [Rises and extends his hand.] Gentlemen, thank you for your time.
Client: [Baffled.] Is that all?
Don: You're a nonbeliever. Why should we waste time on kabuki?
Client: I don't know what that means.
Don: It means that you've already tried your plan, and you're number four. You've enlisted my expertise and you've rejected it to go on the way you've been going. I'm not interested in that. You can understand.
Client: I don't think your three months or however many thousands of dollars entitles you to refocus the core of our business --
Don: Listen. I'm not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus. He either lives in your heart or He doesn't. [Cut to Don's colleagues, who look alarmed. Don bears down with his argument. He never raises his voice.] Every woman wants choices. But in the end, none wants to be one of a hundred in a box. She's unique. She makes the choices and she's chosen him. She wants to tell the world, he's mine. He belongs to me, not you. She marks her man with her lips. He is her possession. You've given every girl that wears your lipstick the gift of total ownership."
Half the people who talk like that do so to announce that they're worldly wise and not to be messed with. I can see doing that if you live in a violent neighborhood, but It seems odd when normal people obsess over that.
I remember as a kid that swearing was something you did to show, falsely I might add, that you were adult.
But now, with kids having sex, getting pregnant and turning to cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, youthful swearing seems positively quaint.
At the end of the day, I just don't believe any one word should have more power over another; my approach to the dictionary is communistic. 'Holy cow' and 'Holy shit' are both in my lexicon, and I say either when the sentiment is 'Woah!'.
I think in 100 years swearing will still be looked down on, but you'll be able to say shit and fuck because there will be a whole new bundle of bad words. Humbug used to be as bad as bullshit, and was a very offensive word. Now, it seems antiquated and old fashioned. A word you might see in a museum.
Faggot used to mean a bundle of sticks. We all know what gay used to mean.
I think curbing your speech is wrong, simply because it's attacking the problem at it's surface, not it's root. But, I've been alone on this theory for many, many years.
- trevor.
Well, I suppose that the scripts will survive because of the films theselves, but I don't really see them as high art.
I'm late, But I must commend Trevor for his marvelous comment, and as I have become familiar with his usual commentary, He reveals here new dimensions of being.
The All-American prudence of being "pre-maturely anti-fascist" is truly terrifying! There's a guy named Conlon Nancarrow, (an American Avant-Garde composer) who joined the Red Brigade to fight Franco in Spain. Upon returning, he was so harassed by Hoover's F.B.I. that he emigrated to Mexico City and spent the duration of his life there composing experimental pieces strictly for Player Piano, (cutting-out the scroll-codes by hand!!) He died one day in 1997, that very day my '71 Dodge Challenger lost compression and broke down in the middle of the mid-west...
Oppo: Yikes! That's a harsh judgemnt! Well, time will tell.
Bruce: Chaplin certainly was mistreated here. Even so, what I said about Russia and its influence is probably true, or at least part of the truth.
Eddie,
What Oppo wrote was a joke, a sublime piece of satire that ridicules a right wing take on Hollywood.
Although there were a few Communists in Hollywood during the 30's, (as there were throughout America, because the Great Depression made capitalism look like a failure) there were also many conservatives in the film biz. None of the latter made anti-Nazi films, either. (There was also a pro-fascism party in the U.S. -- The German/American Bund.) Many conservatives also believed in isolationism, and didn't want the USA to get involved in WWII.
The lack of anti-Nazi films had nothing to do with Russia joining a pact with Hitler. (Notice that most studios didn't make anti-fascist films before the Stalin/Hitler pact, either.) In fact many Party faithfuls were disillusioned by Stalin's decision, and dropped out of the American Communist Party. (You are right that Russia did try to exert pressure on it's members in the USA to follow the party line, though.)
Most likely Hollywood's temerity was because the executives at the major studios didn't want to alienate a portion of its audience by taking a side in a controversial subject. They also didn't want to lose the German distribution market. Many Jewish movie moguls feared an anti-semitic backlash from certain parts of the U.S. populace, too.
Outside of The Great Dictator, there were a handful of other anti-nazi films before America's involvement in the war. WB released Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, for instance. But they were the exception, not the rule.
Also, Chaplin was liberal, but not a Communist.
j.j.: what I said had nothing to do with Nazis or facism, just my opinion that these really aren't "prime examples of language as an instument,... just as effective now as in Shakespeare's Time", as Eddie suggested.
Oppo, my apologies. I meant to refer to Pappy D's post about Chaplin and the Communists, not yours. It was his post that I thought was satiric. Sorry for the confusion!
Also, Chaplin was liberal, but not a Communist.
Like Hoover, all good Americans know those are the same thing.
-And we keep our cross-dressing in the closet!
IDRC: Hoover was never a cross-dresser, at least that's the opinion expressed in a biography I read.
The author didn't like Hoover and clearly wished the story had been true. When he tried to track down the origins of the story he came up with two sources: one was Truman Capote who admitted that he made it up, and was actually proud of the fabrication. When other people attributed the story to someone else he would loudly correct them. Capote is quoted in the book.
The other was a socialite whose husband had lost his job, maybe his career because of Hoover. The author quoted people who knew her as saying that she was a really extreme flake, who was in no way a reliable source.
I can't remember the name of the book but I got it from the LA library. Don't take my word for it, rent it yourself.
The "There Will Be Blood" excerpt is a magnificent example, and a phenomenal film!
Eddie - great post! Check out the Haircut Sketch that Stephen Fry did with Hugh Laurie in the eighties. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivVb8YUR7Lc
"I sneak myself towards the suspicion that sir has cast me as the mouse in his ever-popular cat drama..."
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