THE TYRANNY OF SLANG

World Book Day this week was an ‘event’ designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading for the enjoyment of all. Children especially are encouraged to explore the pleasures of books and reading, and so build up a love of words. Writing narratives in any novel often relies on the use of slang to add an air of authenticity to the story, depending on the characters and where they are placed in society. Frank Reynolds (1876-1953) cartoon highlights the pitfalls of the use of slang in everyday life!

Transcript below:

MISTRESS TO NEW MAID: "Mary, you haven't half dusted the drawing-room."
MARY: (highly gratified). "Ah, not 'alf I 'aven't."

BURNS NIGHT - 25 JANUARY

This weeks cartoon has a very tenuous link to events due to take place on the 25 January this year. Apart from the largest Fire Festival in Europe it also happens to be Burns Night, a celebration of the life and poetry of the Scots poet Robert Burns, born on the 25th January 1759.

The cartoon displayed below by Lancelot Speed (186o-1931) is set in Scotland during the deer stalking season, and there lies the tenuous link – Robert Burns's poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands” which includes the verse:

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

It also made me laugh, which of course is the main reason for including it.

Transcript below:

 
NEW SPORTSMAN: (who imagines himself to be invisible to the quarry). "They can't see us, can they ?"
STALKER: "I'm thinkin' they'll be awa'. There's naethin scares them sae much as an ostrich."

LOST IN TRANSLATION

This week the announcement that Scottish Opera will perform Carmen in the Orkney Arts Centre, Kirkwall highlights an extensive touring calendar which will take the Company the length and breadth of Scotland. Beautiful gypsies, bullfighting, obsession and some of the liveliest rhythms in opera, this new production is set in 1960’s Spain. Leading operatic celebrities have enchanted audiences with the likes of Bizet’s rousing “Toreador’s Song” for years. James H Thorpe’s cartoon depicts such a celebrity in a moment of crisis.

Transcript below:

 

OPERATIC CELEBRITY: "I tell your fool reporter I haf been starring for six months in Nooyork."

SUB-EDITOR: "Quite so."

OPERATIC CELEBRITY: "Well, the idiot he say 'starving.' "

THE ARTS

As Shetland’s annual Film Festival ‘Screenplay’ gets underway this week together with the Book Festival ‘Wordplay’ following on closely behind, I thought we would look at how the cartoons of around 100 years ago depicted The Arts and Theatricals. The advent of sound in films was really only introduced in the mid 1920’s but by 1930 Hollywood was almost all ‘talkies’. The world of the celebrity was just about to begin as illustrated in this A. Wallis Mills (1878-1940) cartoon.

Transcript below:

FRIEND: (to Film Star), "Say, there's a bunch of guys outside waiting to be presented to you. Among 'em is a bishop, who says he married you some time since."
FILM STAR: "Gee! I'm practically certain I never married a bishop."

FAVOURITES

These ones have no relation to any current events as such and are just random choices simply because they make me smile and you might like them too.  This one by Norman Kay from 1921.

Transcript below:

THEATRICAL BOOKING AGENT (to Contortionist). "Have you ever done your stunt for the Radio?"