Ask the Expert. (Page 2 of 3)

Murphy did have quite a career. In "To Hell and Back" he managed to play himself - something fairly rare in Hollywood.

~Tom

Thanks

The scene I'm writing is set during WWII in1994 in the Netherlands during a joint allied operation. It is a matter of historical record that; ‘For Operation Market Garden, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would be maintained from British stocks for all common items such as food and fuel.

I have spoken with a Grenadier Guards veteran who served in the British 30(XXX) Corps, 5th Guards Armoured Brigade during the operation. During our conversation he recalled a scene where behind the cover afforded by his parked tank, a small group of US, 82nd Airborne chaps without their familiar K-Rations were having a laugh, understanding and coming to terms with the British food items. For example, where a can of Pork Loaf was a staple meat/protein issue within their native ration packs, so tinned Corned-Beef (Bully) was a staple British meat/protein ration; and so on. Some of the soldiers in 1944 had never previously been out of their County or State, and without the information abundant internet and global media of today, the differing cultural aspects between inter-continental nations was obviously much wider (blind) and these guys were unfamiliar with each other’s field ration pack food items.

The US K-Ration was adjudged by diners of all nationalities to be far superior to the British ‘24-Hour Ration Pack’. The US version contained chocolate, cigarettes and coffee; whereas the British had hardtack biscuits, boiled sweets and tealeaves.

The almost irrelevant scene of these guys grappling to come to terms with alien bully beef and tealeaves during a cataclysmic conflict is an endearing one to me. It displays a human side during adversity. Although a part of the fiction within my story, it actually happened and I feel that detail like this adds to the credibility of a story – if I can get the words right!!

Cheers Dill

Tin cans as a description—accurate description, I might add—of cans sealed to protect the contents was used up until about the time I graduated from high school (1961). 

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can says it best:
No cans currently in wide use are composed primarily or wholly of tin;[citation needed] that term rather reflects the nearly exclusive use in cans, until the second half of the 20th century, of tinplate steel which combined the physical strength and relatively low price of steel with the corrosion resistance of tin. Depending on the contents and available coatings. Tin-free steel is also used.

After I graduated from high school, I study metallurgical engineering in college. During the 1960s my learned professors made a big thing—in front of everybody in class, no less—of correcting me for calling them tin cans. In my education as a Metallurgical Engineer, I can rightfully say, as Mark Twain so wisely said, "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned."

However, I am the poster child for what Mark Twain also wisely said—Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.—about those who don't unlearn their metallurgy fast enough: For years after the 1960s, long after tin cans went out of use, the highest compliment I could pay a pretty woman was "I'd pay 5 quid to listen to her piss in a tin can over the telephone."

Of course, it was said about the part of Appalachia I came from that we spoke the purest Elizabethan English still being spoken in the world. So there was that.

Memphis Trace

If my fuzzy memory serves, those are the words of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to the 'Ides of March' soothsayer.

Anant =Albion's Seed=, I think you'll enjoy the part about the 19th century bowdlerizing your maps.

I found "What would you with me?" in Much Ado about Nothing, Act III, Scene V:

What would you with me, honest neighbour?    
DOGBERRY  Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you    
    that decerns you nearly.    
LEONATO     Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.
DOGBERRY  Marry, this it is, sir.    
VERGES     Yes, in truth it is, sir.    
LEONATO     What is it, my good friends?     8    
DOGBERRY  Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the    
    matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so
    blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but,    
    in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

How would you translate it, njc? And what does anant mean?

Memphis

Yes!

Although what it means in context wasn't totally obvious to me, my translation guess seems spot on.  I guess I have Elizabethan English in my DNA.

My demure mountain paramour, unwilling to have filthy lucre as part of any possible liaison elided "pay to listen" from "What would you (pay to listen) with me?". Of course, since I stretch my phone sex budget at 5 quid to the breaking point, I will now have a wellworn rejoinder that should put a sparkle in a paramour's eyes: "Priceless!"

Memphis

That is as  I see it too.

In the UK, the use of 'can' is modern term. Language changes. My kids would say 'a can of Coke' whereas my father would say 'a tin of coke.'  Although, my kids still say, tinned peaches and a tin of creamed rice; a tin of sardines. It's strange because my Dad would say, a can of beer or beer can. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'tin of beer.'  I think that in the UK, non-draft beer came in bottles until aluminium was used, which was relatively recently i.e. 70's onward?

I'm talking about the language during WWII and I'm having the British saying 'a tin of...' and 'tinned' whilst the Americans will say 'a can of...' and 'canned'.

Having been around a long time, if you were setting your story in the USA in the 1940s, you would say :"tin can." Since the 50s, the cans have been made of aluminum or other compound so "tin" disappeared from the American lexicon. Can became the word of the day. In some places such as NYC or some sections of Philadelphia (not the section from which I emigrated) you might hear people say, "canna tuna." Many leave off the word can when it refers to a beverage. "Toss me a soda or beer."

I love English argot. It always has a base in reality ... the reality of 1774, just before the colonies rebelled!

Have a great day.

Thanks MT  ---   as long as they'd never say one, or the other, I'm safe

Cheers!

True... and strange that I'd never thought of it before. Adverb and preposition. Is it the word with the most meanings?

Round = rotund or circular shape
Round = circumnavigate -- round the world
Round = encirclement  -- a ring
Crowd = Gather round
Come Round = regain consciousness
Come Round = Realign an idea or concept, a persuaded change of POV or stance.
Come Round my house on Saturday for a barbeque
Round of drinks
Round = Boxing. Periods of fight between breaks.
Round = a stage of a competition - progress to the next round
Round of golf - complete game
Round up the sheep
Round  = ammunition / bullet/ shell /shot /cartridge
Round = to describe movement.. Spun round or wheels go round
to round a bend or corner.
Round trip -- a return journey
A trip round New York - a tour
Round = proximity -- I love the greenery round here.
Describes activity - sitting round doing nothing
Describes intent -- when I get round to it.
locates --- looks round the room for an ashtray
Locates - I rang round all the camera shops until I found the flashgun I wanted
Rearrange - move the furniture round
Approximate time -- round ten O'clock

Nuts. Now I'll never figure out what the title of Harper Lee's latest story, Go Set a Watchman, is all about. But that's the way it has always been with things coming from the Bible.

Memphis