Re: George Orwell died (21-1-1950)

On 1/21/2024 2:55 AM, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

   Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Eanair, scríobh Aidan Kehoe:
   >  Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:
  >
  >  > [...] Strange fact about Orwell which came to light in a previous
  >  > discussion: apparently there is no extant record of his voice. This
  >  > despite the fact that he broadcast many talks on the BBC over a period of
  >  > years. Perhaps he died too soon after the advent of the tape recorder.
  >
  > From his biography (boarding school in Sussex, empire-builder family
  > background) and from the lack of comment on his accent I imagine he spoke a
  > normal-for-the-time RP.
 And I’m wrong:
 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/no-g-men-frank-mcnally-on-the-politics-of-english-accents-1.4483443
    ‘It was the fashion then among Britain's upper classes to sound less posh
   than they were, something to which dropping Gs was vital. Not even the
   highest echelons of society were immune from the pretence. There was for a
   time an English accent known as "Duke of Windsor Cockney". And among the
   people accused of having occasional outbreaks of it was a man otherwise
   famously devoid of affectation, George Orwell.
    Mind you, Orwell’s accent seems to have been considered odd everywhere he
   went, including Eton and Oxford. It must have been a product of the
   empire-governing classes of which he was briefly a member before resigning to
   become a misfit in other walks of life instead.’
 

On 1/21/2024 2:55 AM, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
 > --
 > ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
 > How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
 > (C. Moore)
                 --------  what's so funny or clever about this quote???