M&D: Geordie, Andrew's slur on Macams!

[S Johnson]

I would like to object in the strongest possible terms to 
Mr Dinn's description of the people of Sunderland as Geordies.
Geordies! A greater insult could not be hurled at a Macam (the
true term for a native of Sunderland).  Let the great pynchon-list
Geordie flame-war commence. Jules Siegel, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Andrew then went on to say lots of flattering things (all true)
about the North East, and so I forgive him. It's an easy mistake.
And something everyone from the area lives with everytime they
open there mouth and are faced with blank stares at the accent and 
then the 'knowing' nods amongst the foreigners of 'argh a Geordie'.
Although we all sound the same to outsiders, there is strong
differences, and great rivalries between Tyneside, Wearside,
Teeside, and the other strange coal-stained rural-folk from around 
about.

I come from Ryhope a County Durham mining village, now nestling
in the southern suburbs of Sunderland. A city which post-WWII 
built half the worlds merchant shipping, a 600 hundred year old
tradition on Wearside, ended maliciously and without any
economic reason by Thatcherism (double celebrations are due
today, its been a long long eighteen years).

I haven't cracked a copy of M&D yet, so I don't know the details of
how Mason (and Pynchon) has applied Geordie to Dixon. Technically 
it is to be applied only to a native from Newcastle, no one from 
outside Newcastle takes kindly to being called it. The origin of the
word has never been convincingly explained to me. But one story
attributes it to "George's Men", a term applied in thanks by
King George for the bravery shown by Newcastle's finest examples
of manhood in repulsing a Scots attack on the city. Men with
the first name of George are also called Geordie throughout
the Northeast (without insult and without meaning they come from
Newcastle).

I looked forward to reading M&D even more now, hoping
Pynchon's handling of the accent is not going to be too
embarrassing or unreadable, as every other attempt at
capturing it on the page I've ever seen has been. 

stuart johnson

> >
> >Geordie? That's someone from the North East of England,
> >Northumberland, Teesdale, the Tyne and Wear Valleys and County Durham.
> >Major cities include Middlesboro, Sunderland and Newcastle. A
> >beautiful part of the country with a great history. The North East was
> >the traditional land of the Percy family (who are mentioned in Henry
> >IV and V and go back even further). Much of the area, particularly
> >that which reaches up towards the Scottish borders, was out of control
> >of both the English and Scottish thrones and was subject to repeated
> >raids from either side of the border (and between neighbouring
> >villages in the borders area) for the purpose of stealing sheep,
> >cattle, women and goods right up until the late 16th century - see
> >George McDonald Fraser's book `The Steel Bonnets' for a riveting
> >history of these Reevers (as the raiders were known). The North East
> >used to be the core of late C19th shipbuilding and coal mining. These
> >are the traditional industries which would have been reasonably active
> >even in M&D's time. The technologies of the Industrial Revolution were
> >being developed even as M&D were plotting their eponymous latitude but
> >they were deployed in Lancashire and South Yorkshire, passing the
> >North East by. Shipbuilding and coal mining peaked at the turn of this
> >century and have been in slow but now almost complete decline since.
> >The depression of the thirties hit the North East particularly hard as
> >did the depression of the late 80s (which closed one of the country's
> >biggest steel mills at Consett, County Durham. Things are looking up
> >now with many large industrial and retail developments being
> >concentrated around Newcastle/Gateshead. The people are utterly
> >lovely, brash and blunt sometimes but sharp, funny and generous. Oh
> >and my girlie comes from there. The best of England.
> >
> >
> >Andrew Dinn
> >-----------
> >And though Earthliness forget you,
> >To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
> >To the rushing water speak:  I am.
> >
> >
> 


Dr. S. T. Johnson	stj at holyrood.ed.ac.uk
			http://www.ed.ac.uk/~stj/homepage.html