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DarthSkeptical
Registered: 03/11/06
Posts: 1129
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 Tuesday, August 14 2007 @ 09:28 PM EDT |
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Again, though, I think Jack's choice of pronunciation makes sense given how long he's been with the Brits. I pronounce all sorts of words completely wrong for my dialectical home, and I'm not terribly consistent about it. "Leisure", "basil", and a lot of words ending in -tory are ones for which I'll tend to choose the dominant British pronunciation.
And I mean tend. There are times where I'll flip back and forth within the space of a single conversation. A good example you guys can actually hear is the proper name, "Hartnell". I've always alternated between stressing the second syllable (which would be the American inclination) and the first (which is the "proper" British variant).
The more isolated a character is, the more standardized his or her accent should be. More cosmopolitan characters should have a mixture of pronunciations.
But laying all that to one side, I think the fact of the matter is that Barrowman probably didn't have to think about it very long to figure out how to say it. He probably said, "How am I pronouncing this word now?", realized he'd adopted the British way, and just went ahead with it. It's realistic, in other words, because that's what he does. Why shouldn't they do the same, since he and Jack share a similar Anglo-American background?
Now, of course, the real question is why Jack is American in settings where he doesn't need to be? The American thing was originally just a cover for that one job. Why—and really how—did he keep a 21st century American accent for a hundred years of British life after he transported to the 19th century from the yeat 100,000? Why, indeed, did he retain the accent when he went to join the TARDIS crew? So far, the only clue as to the personae is the episode "Captain Jack Harkness". And that, coming well after his hundred years of wandering, only muddies the waters more. He kept attached to a cover that really only made sense for one of those hundred or so winters? What sense does that make?
See the thing that bugs me about Jack's accent is not how he pronounces certain words, but why he, outside of the winter of the Blitz, has an American accent at all. The character, I think, would be far more interesting if we could answer that question. And, indeed, that might be the utility of his last line in "Last of the Time Lords". |
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"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986
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Tawm
Registered: 05/04/07
Posts: 49
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| Wednesday, August 15 2007 @ 12:22 AM EDT |
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| [Quote by: DarthSkeptical]Now, of course, the real question is why Jack is American in settings where he doesn't need to be? The American thing was originally just a cover for that one job. Why—and really how—did he keep a 21st century American accent for a hundred years of British life after he transported to the 19th century from the yeat 100,000? Why, indeed, did he retain the accent when he went to join the TARDIS crew? So far, the only clue as to the personae is the episode "Captain Jack Harkness". And that, coming well after his hundred years of wandering, only muddies the waters more. He kept attached to a cover that really only made sense for one of those hundred or so winters? What sense does that make? |
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A 21-st century American accent may well be his natural accent. Accents of the late-20th and early-21st century will persevere in ways that no other accent ever has before, owing to the fact that they will be extremely well-recorded. Because of this, they will not be forgotten and discarded very easily. I find it very plausible that a backwater village in y5k might speak y2K American English.
Even if this explanation doesn't work for you, the 21st century (being "where it all changes") would likely be a popular destination for Time Agents, and so it makes sense that the Time Agency would expect their Agents to speak at least one contemporary dialect of English. Why not American?
And perhaps Jack doesn't continue speaking American English after joining the TARDIS. He may simply be speaking his native tongue and the TARDIS could be translating it, letting Rose and the Doctor hear American English because that's the dialect they expect to hear from him.
Jack's American dialect does not really pose any problem with me. |
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tawm.net: read it. (please?)
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mad4plaid
Registered: 02/02/06
Posts: 880
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| Monday, August 20 2007 @ 05:02 PM EDT |
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POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE WHOLE OF SERIES THREE!!!!!
| [Quote by: DarthSkeptical] See the thing that bugs me about Jack's accent is not how he pronounces certain words, but why he, outside of the winter of the Blitz, has an American accent at all. The character, I think, would be far more interesting if we could answer that question. And, indeed, that might be the utility of his last line in "Last of the Time Lords". |
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I never thought of that. and of course, when we meet ..... him earlier in the series, as we found out we did in his last line in "LotTL" he has a British accent. So, 100 years in the Empire don't allow him to lose the American accent, but multiple millenia do. |
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supremacy is relative
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