Anachronisms!

Wilco, When, and my photos will be on my Facebook page.

Have a wonderful time Greatnan. Don't forget to tell us all about what you are doing and where you have visited.

Thanks very much - I didn't know it had been closed - the Swiss are usually so efficient! It is always the London end that worries me.

Ah - I heard a couple of hours ago that Geneva airport is open again so all should be well for your trip. Exciting.

I am sitting next to Juragran in Switzerland - tomorrow she will take me to the station to catch the train to Geneva airport, for the first leg of my 40-hour journey - Heathrow, Singapore, Auckland, Nelson. I will arrive on Thursday evening, local time, exhausted but happy!

greatnan I thought you would be thousands of kil-o-mets away by now. Must be later in the week then.

I live in France, so I pronounce it the way my neighbours do - keel - 0 - met.
Similarly, keel - o -gram.

Thank you, grumppa. My thoughts exactly. I always say kilometre with the stress on the third syllable, the same way as everyone says centimetre.

Don't get me started on kilometre with the stress on the second syllable. Nobody pronounces millimetre or centimetre like that. I wonder if there is confusion with words ending in meter in the sense of measure, like odometer, speedometer, etc. Or a throwback to gasometers?

I hadn't thought about the stress on a syllable containing a double letter before, but mistress and related words (temptress, seamstress, etc.) seem to disprove the rule rather as windlass does.

Talking of which, according to my SOD there are two different meanings for windlass with two different derivations, but I'll stop here.

Except to suggest, Gracesmum, that Brecht himself tended to abandon his Verfremdungseffekt in his best works, which are often the better for it.

And what about the womens' make up? I've seen so many period dramas where the men wear accurate costumes and have the correct hair styles, and then in comes the heroine with hair and makeup straight off the catwalk. Exhibit Number One - The Tudors. I believe that Sophia Loren was notorious for always appearing as herself no matter what period the film was set in. But I suppose if you looked like her why would you want to change?

I will also continue to be harassed as though I were being wrapped in Harris Tweed!

I shall continue with 'harass and 'harassment... probably while wearing a 'Harris tweed jacket!

It can work well on the stage as long as it is deliberate, but I don't think his Verfremdungseffekt is all that common on ITV (or even Beeb4)

Brecht would despair at our insistence on keeping up the illusion!

Phrases like "learning curve" seemed anachronistic in Downton Abbey.

I have raised this point in the past, anno - it really grates with me, too!

Never mind period dramas; what about all the sparkling white teeth in soaps? Would all those characters have the cash to have their gnashers bleached?

I learned something too, jane. Going to do some research about cross-bow terminology now. #lovegransnettalk

Bags wrote:
"Look it up in a dictionary, is what I meant"

Must confess I only consulted Wikipedia

Thank you

So twentieth/twenty-first century people will need to be shown as having ground down teeth, caused by irritability at pronunciations and the hat-ignorance of TV directors!

lily, OMG! I hadn't noticed that! More teeth grinding.

Look it up in a dictionary, is what I meant. Origin probably windas, according to Chambers, and possibly from old French wanlace.

But they don't really know.

So the 'lass' bit is just a wrong spelling that has stuck.

Bags derivation of windlass? [puzzled emoticon]
#feelingabitthickthismorning

And the men never take their hats off, even in church!

Thinking about teeth – period dramas don't get them right either. When Pasolini made The Decameron, not an especially wonderful film, he did use people with blackened teeth and gaps in their mouths for authenticity.

That would have affected pronunciation too.