The Foreign Language of Mad Men

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Not saying I disagree with you points about Mad Men, Paul, but I found the article interesting for what it says about the subtle, imperceptible shifts in usage across decades.  One can see shifts over a longer period - "have you got" becomes "do you have" - but the shifts over smaller periods of time - "I have to" becomes "I need to" - are really hard to spot.  I was alive back then, but I'd never have caught that subtle (still in progress) shift.  Certainly can't blame the Mad Men writers for not catching it either.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>Sent: Mar 22, 2012 12:21 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: The Foreign Language of Mad Men
>
>On 3/22/2012 10:56 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>> How easy is it to recreate 60s language?  Not so easy, it turns out.
>
>It's not easy if the writers didn't experience the period first hand and 
>they probably wouldn't still be in so arduous a line of work if they 
>had. But to me anachronisms and mistakes in language usage aren't the 
>most glaring "problem." I'm a big fan of the show but am constantly 
>reminded of how impossible it is the give an adequate feel of the 
>past--even a past as recent as the 60s. To overcome the difficulty the 
>writers have to take simplistic short cuts. Some examples involve 
>smoking, drinking, and littering.  True, people did more of these bad 
>things back then than now, but to depict this seems to require ludicrous 
>exaggeration. This makes the show seem too self congratulatory, and of 
>course the result just doesn't feel like the 60s. We didn't think of our 
>behavior back then as quite so egregious, but we probably would have if 
>we'd have had Don and Betty Draper around to show us how silly we looked.
>
>P
>
>>
>>
>> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/the-foreign-language-of-mad-men/254668/
>>
>> LK
>>
>