Lord Grantham accuses Tom of being a "hater" in one episode and Lady Grantham used "to parent" as a verb in another. No one talked like this in the early 20th century. I'm sure there are many other such verbal anachronisms, but those are the ones that I just noticed. I found it irritating and it threw me out of the story world completely. I don't want to hear the Granthams talking like Dr. Phil.
Here's some more. In season 1 alone, Mary tells Edith she's too busy living a life, when Edith asks her if she ever reads the newspaper. And, Bates tells Carson it's not his place to judge, when Carson's past is revealed.
shareThe way that very proper British aristocrats unburden themselves of family secrets at the drop of a hat. Case in point: Shrimpy telling Robert about his marital troubles over a game of billiards in the Highland episode. Come **on**.
shareAS IF!
Mrs Bates channeling her inner Vally girl!?
That expression coming from Anna threw me off entirely!
share"As if!" is a very old expression... first usage is circa 1903 or so.
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/52166/how-old-is-the-expression-as-if
"The OED dates it to circa 1903, from the book The Pit: A Story of Chicago by Frank Norris, with this citation:
'Maybe he'll come up and speak to us.’ ‘Oh, as if!’ contradicted Laura.
I know a lot of words and phrases are recycled, as it were, and also, people of the present age, believe they coined the usage of such things first.
shareYes, people ignorantly assume such expressions are modern when they aren't.
shareI noticed a couple anachronisms, I think. There was one episode, where Lavinia was going along with something Isobel wanted to do, and Matthew said she was "sucking up." Edith also used the term when talking to Robert about one of Mary's beaus. Did they say "sucking up," in the 1920's? Sounds like a more recent slang term. Also, there is a season six episode where Denker says "Que sera, sera," in response to something that Sprat said. I know its Spanish for what will be, will be and could have been said during any time frame, but I believe it was popularized by the song of the same name that Doris Day sang in the 50's.
"sucking up" has been around sinc the 1800's
"Matthew Crawley’s light-hearted use of 'sucking up to' is documented first in 1860."
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/11/the-language-of-downton-abbey/
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I don't remember when used, but I heard the term "gone missing." Even within my lifetime, that is new. When I was young, we always said "is missing."
What about "stealing thunder?" When did that come into usage I wonder?
"gone missing" is also an old expression, it was in use in British English in the 1800's.
"It's British English, and not new. ''I was obliged to return to Adrianople to get some supplies,'' wrote a naval correspondent for The Times of London on Aug. 10, 1877, in a dispatch about the Turkish armies in the Balkans, ''as a box which should have reached me at Tirnova had gone missing."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-6-27-04-on-language-gone-missing.html
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Interesting to know. I just know in the U.S. as a child they never used it. Thanks.
share