No subject

[Mike Weaver]

Richard Romeo was read to say
>BTW, for the Brits--Mason's speech is not alterated in any way like 
>Dixon's is.  Is this the product of Mason living amongst the societal 
>elite at the academy, that BBC english, et al?

Alterated?  Multiple layers of meaning there, maybe?  Yes is my reply,
 Mason's accent of the cosmopolitan centre,  Dixon's of the regional periphery.

>Another sidebar:  Is Mason, the embodiment of the melancholic, citified, 
>industrial north  South in England), Dixon (North England), the sanguine, 
>countrified South?  When they first part in America, Mason goes N, Dixon 
>S. but that was just a coin toss.  they do reverse later on, thereby 
>taking on the attributes of the other, M witty, D depressive?

I think this is a simplification or even misconstrual of the rural/urban divide 
in England. The East Lancashire/West Yorkshire area,  birth place of the 
Industrial Revolution and nominally the North is a tangle of rural, urban and 
industrial areas whereas in many other parts of England the 
urban/industrial areas are far more discrete,  surrounded by countryside.  
Here its a few cities connected by threads and bands of towns and villages 
At night here in East Lancs it looks, with all the lights, like a vast urban 
sprawl yet by day you see towns and villages strung out along the valleys 
among the greens and browns of fields and moors.

That's not to dismiss Richard's general suggestion of North/South, town/country
 contrasts but 
this:  >I guess, this book really is about England, too.>,  I'm not too sure of.

 Dixon being from Durham is NOT a Geordie, making the use of the adjective
 a staightforward error.  This points to TP not having applied the same level
 of research to general English matters that he does to many things.  
Other UK residents, woddayasay?

Mike

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Humour is the oil of the soul - Lord Buckley
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^