GRGR(1): Pirate's voice

LBernier at tribune.com LBernier at tribune.com
Fri Sep 27 15:24:29 CDT 1996


     
Well, I realise this is coming a bit late but . . .

In response to Andrew saying
        
     `"I haven't even done me morning push-ups yet."'. Pirate, like 
     any nouveau, social climber from Tooting or elsewhere, would 
     never drop into Cockney-speak in front of Bloat, who went to 
     Oxford, or indeed anyone with whom he was not intimate. So, 
     impressed as I am by our boy's knowledge of the argot, this use 
     of `me' for `my' jars every time I read it.
     
This never struck me as Pirate's true voice, but an imitation, meant 
to disguise his complaint as "kidding," even though he is probably 
annoyed at having to leave so early.  So he uses a voice that would, 
via prejudice, be thought of as typically complaining and lazy.   If 
he had been an American, he would have used a rural accent, or, even 
more bigoted, a black one.

Of course, if he is cockney (is he?  I can't remember) the sarcasm's 
more subtle - U.S. southerners can use this to great advantage when 
dealing with uppity yanks by actually playing to their prejudices. 

Jean.

P.S.  Re, the batman joke - I like to read that as "A corpor(e)al 
Wayne" - the word made flesh made word, so to speak.






More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list