Thread: Cellar Door
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Old 10-16-2004, 12:29 PM   #48
Mithalwen
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
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Mithalwen is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Mithalwen is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Mithalwen is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Mithalwen is lost in the dark paths of Moria.
I too have the Tolkiens' recordings and I was surprised, actually by JRR's slightly rural tinge ...and he speaks so fast! I am not surprised his students sometimes struggled to follow him! Christopher sound rather more patrician - maybe it was partly due to the subject matter, but it made me think of a certain type of Anglican clergyman declaiming from the pulpit. Nevertheless it is not untypical of his age and class.

Could we have that in IPA ? It looks quite Scottish the way you write it.... but surely the strangest Canadian accent is the Quebecois one - when I lived in France, I had a friend who hailed originally from Chicoutimi - we teased him unmercifully, telling him that a French-Canadian was someone who couldn't speak French OR English properly (Oh I'll get flamed for that,I know I will...).

From my early schoolbooks, I know I must have picked up a bit of the local "Hampshire burr" ( excessive "r"s all over the place) and my parents despaired of me ever learning to spell "water" correctly. I remember my mystified father saying it was spelt as it sounded. To me it sounded as if it had at least 3 "r"s just in the middle. The difference between the Hampshire accent and the better known, neighbouring West Country one is that we say Dorrrrrrrrrset and they say Daaaaaaaaaaaaaasset . Alas both are disappearing under the hideous slick of glottal stopping and the inability to sound "th" as anything other than "f". I have little hope of an improvement when the leader of Her Majesty's government, despite receiving his education at Fettes and Oxford, pronounces that word as gu'men. [For the record, I sound as if I could work for the World Service - unless I get overexcited or emotional when I sound like I am on Helium... or a banshee!]

Perhaps it is true that foreigners speak the best English - Once emerging from arrivals at Heathrow, my shoulder bag fell from the trolley and I was stopped by a young chinese man "Madam! You have dropped your reticule!".
I was instantly transported to the world of Jane Austen - quite delightful. So reticule is one of my "cellar doors" .

I wonderif the name of the "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" Production company 'Celador" was inspired by that comment of Tolkien?
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Last edited by Mithalwen; 10-17-2004 at 12:21 PM. Reason: puctuation
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