Ghostly Media Talk

[Neptune]

https://www.tvinsider.com/gallery/ghosts-season-4-photos-behind-the-scenes/

[Neptune]

https://collider.com/ghosts-audition-amir-talai-pete/

[Neptune]

 

[Neptune]

https://screenrant.com/ghosts-show-crossover-uk-showrunner-response/

[Neptune]

https://screenrant.com/ghosts-thor-accent-unique/

[Skooma]

1 hour ago, Neptune said:

https://screenrant.com/ghosts-thor-accent-unique/

How dumb.  Thor speaking like a caveman is so endearing.  It's a comedy.  It is funny.  What is that author's problem?  Because it would be so boring if he talked in modern American form with proper  grammatical sentences.  Just roll with it and you will get a lot of laughs as a result.

Must be some annoying "grammar police" person on the rampage.  Or some "Scandinavians Having Thin Skin and Are Easily Offended" group behind the fuss.  That's SHTSAAEO for short.   🤣

[Chit Chat]

5 hours ago, Skooma said:

Just roll with it and you will get a lot of laughs as a result.

Exactly!  I don't want Thor to sound like everyone else.  I like him just the way he is!  Some dialects are "heavier" than others and stay with a person/ghost forever!

I suppose the writer never met any Americans whose accents from their country of origin are still very much with them even after being in the U.S. for years and years.  

 

[kathyk2]

8 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

Exactly!  I don't want Thor to sound like everyone else.  I like him just the way he is!  Some dialects are "heavier" than others and stay with a person/ghost forever!

I suppose the writer never met any Americans whose accents from their country of origin are still very much with them even after being in the U.S. for years and years.  

 

Thorfinn was alone for a long time so he had nobody to help him learn English. Sass speaks prefect English because Roman Zaragoza didn't want him to sound like Tonto.

[shapeshifter]

2 minutes ago, kathyk2 said:

Thorfinn was alone for a long time so he had nobody to help him learn English. Sass speaks prefect English because Roman Zaragoza didn't want him to sound like Tonto.

Yes, and wasn't there a line in which Pete or Trevor said he thought Thor called cars Land Ships on purpose because to tease Pete because he knew it bugged him?

[Chit Chat]

46 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Yes, and wasn't there a line in which Pete or Trevor said he thought Thor called cars Land Ships on purpose because to tease Pete because he knew it bugged him?

That's how I remember it!  I think that all of the ghosts like to mess with each other like that from time to time.  

[Annber03]

15 hours ago, Skooma said:

How dumb.  Thor speaking like a caveman is so endearing.  It's a comedy.  It is funny.  What is that author's problem?  Because it would be so boring if he talked in modern American form with proper  grammatical sentences.  Just roll with it and you will get a lot of laughs as a result.

Seriously, this kind of nitpicking with a show like ths gets me, 'cause...people, we are dealing with a premise in which a woman is able to see and communicate with ghosts from a variety of decades/centuries thanks to her falling down the stairs and hitting her head. We're already off in a land of unrealistic fantasy. If anyone is expecting super accurate/realistic aspects after that, then this may not be the show for them. 

[Lugal]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Yes, and wasn't there a line in which Pete or Trevor said he thought Thor called cars Land Ships on purpose because to tease Pete because he knew it bugged him?

It was when Thor referred to a landship with "seat made of cow" and Pete said he heard Thor say leather and wondered if he was messing with them. (Personally, I think it would be hilarious if Thor was actually extremely eloquent and really has been messing with them for a thousand years)

 

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

Seriously, this kind of nitpicking with a show like ths gets me, 'cause...people, we are dealing with a premise in which a woman is able to see and communicate with ghosts from a variety of decades/centuries thanks to her falling down the stairs and hitting her head. We're already off in a land of unrealistic fantasy. If anyone is expecting super accurate/realistic aspects after that, then this may not be the show for them. 

They need to remember the MST3K mantra.

[shapeshifter]

16 hours ago, Lugal said:

I think it would be hilarious if Thor was actually extremely eloquent and really has been messing with them for a thousand years)

It could come out when he's sleep-talking.

[iMonrey]

On 8/24/2024 at 2:00 AM, Skooma said:

How dumb.  Thor speaking like a caveman is so endearing.  It's a comedy.  It is funny.  What is that author's problem?  Because it would be so boring if he talked in modern American form with proper  grammatical sentences.  Just roll with it and you will get a lot of laughs as a result.

To be fair this is something fans of the show had to grapple with right out of the gate. It's clear that a decision was made not to make Sass sound like an outdated stereotype which would be considered offensive to Native Americans today. No such consideration was given to Thor since nobody is worried about offending Vikings. So the criticism is a valid one. It doesn't really make sense. I mean, it doesn't ruin the show for me or anything, but it's a fair point.

Sass is the youngest of the ghosts, in terms of how old he was when he died. So it's feasible he's been more adaptable and, let's face it, he's a bit smarter than Thor too. Thor potentially has less interest in adapting his manner of speech or learning new things.

I also think it's an interesting point to compare him to Robin, the caveman from the UK series, because the evolutionary development of the human brain might also dictate some of the limitations of speech and learning.

[b4pjoe]

So the language of Vikings was Old Norse. Did Thor learn English before he died or as a ghost from the other ghosts in the house?

[Chit Chat]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Thor potentially has less interest in adapting his manner of speech or learning new things.

I think this is a lot of it, and I don't blame him!  Maybe he wants to stay somewhat true to what he knows. 

I've met several folks over the years who came here from Germany many years ago, and although they speak English (some better than others), their accents are still very much German - or as I say, it's a thick/heavy accent (like Thor's).  I don't see how one would get completely away from that!  It's actually weird to hear Devan speak in interviews.  I'm waiting on Thor's voice to come out! 

[Driad]

Long ago I heard part of an interview with Henry Kissinger's brother, that went something like this:
Interviewer: You have hardly any German accent, but your brother Henry has a strong accent. Why is that?
Brother K: Henry never listens to anybody.
 

I suspect that Thor could speak like the others, but doesn't want to.

[Skooma]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

No such consideration was given to Thor since nobody is worried about offending Vikings.

Except Saxons, Irish, Slavs and Franks.

[kathyk2]

8 hours ago, b4pjoe said:

So the language of Vikings was Old Norse. Did Thor learn English before he died or as a ghost from the other ghosts in the house?

I would love to see a flashback to see how Thorfinn and Sass met. They spoke different languages and there weren't many ghosts around to help them.

[Annber03]

14 minutes ago, kathyk2 said:

I would love to see a flashback to see how Thorfinn and Sass met. They spoke different languages and there weren't many ghosts around to help them.

I like to hope we'll get a scene like this whenever we find out how Sasappis died. Given how he's seemed to be present for so many of the other ghosts' deaths at some point, it would be rather fitting and touching to have Thor be there when he died. 

[iMonrey]

20 hours ago, b4pjoe said:

So the language of Vikings was Old Norse. Did Thor learn English before he died or as a ghost from the other ghosts in the house?

He would have to have learned it over the years, specifically the last 400 or so. Sass too.  Modern English didn't even exist yet when Thor died. 

[Lugal]

21 hours ago, b4pjoe said:

So the language of Vikings was Old Norse. Did Thor learn English before he died or as a ghost from the other ghosts in the house?

Even if he did, it would have been Old English and it would still be incomprehensible to us.

[PaulE]

11 hours ago, iMonrey said:

On 8/25/2024 at 3:00 PM, b4pjoe said:

So the language of Vikings was Old Norse. Did Thor learn English before he died or as a ghost from the other ghosts in the house?

He would have to have learned it over the years, specifically the last 400 or so. Sass too.  Modern English didn't even exist yet when Thor died. 

And when the first English-speaking people settled in that area in the 17th century), the English that Thor would first have heard would have sounded very different from modern American English--also, we don't know what an Old Norse-speaker's accent (or a caveman's, for that matter!) would have sounded like after learning English, so who's to say what's accurate or not?  And the first Europeans to occupy that part of New York State were the Dutch when it was part of New Netherland, so he'd have been confronted with Dutch as well.  I agree that this kind of nit-picking isn't really going to end well with a show like this.

We think of Sass's English as being anachronistic relative to when he lived, but Isaac's is, too, at least as far as we can tell from the writings of that period--I doubt any eighteenth-century American said "I kid you not" as he did when he was explaining the Eye-saac to his men, and it's likely that educated colonists still had some trace of a British accent at that time.  Nigel's speech sounds a little more era-appropriate but even he's used modern phrases such as "you guys."  The fact that some of these ghosts from other time periods talk like contemporary Americans is, I think, part of the humor--at least, it is for me.

[Skooma]

1 hour ago, PaulE said:

 Nigel's speech sounds a little more era-appropriate but even he's used modern phrases such as "you guys."  The fact that some of these ghosts from other time periods talk like contemporary Americans is, I think, part of the humor--at least, it is for me.

Yeah I agree though one other point is that Nigel's "accent" is wrong for his period.

PBS had a series long ago called "The Story of English" and in it they mentioned that the closest modern day accent to how the English upper class spoke in the time of King George III would have been "North Carolina Piedmont" aka the accent the late evangelist Billy Graham had.

They explained how "colonies" of a mother tongue stay closer to how it sounded when an area was settled thus the NC Piedmont area kind of petrified into the George III accent era.  It's the homeland of the mother tongue that tends to change the most they explained. 

(George III era and not Georgie himself who still spoke with a strong German accent being from the imported House of Hanover).

PS:  For those interested - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_English  Though made in the mid 1980's it is still a good history of English and can be googled on YouTube.  It was a McNeil-Lehrer (PBS) and BBC co-production.

Anyway, imagine if "Ghosts" wanted to be super correct about stuff like this and Nigel walked around sounding like Billy Graham, haha.

[Driad]

2 hours ago, PaulE said:

And the first Europeans to occupy that part of New York State were the Dutch when it was part of New Netherland, so he'd have been confronted with Dutch as well.

So maybe Thor and Sass learned to speak 1600s Dutch.  Maybe a B&B guest could be a linguist who demonstrates that language.  And/or Sass and Thor realize they both know a language that the others do not, which could be fun.

[PaulE]

9 hours ago, Skooma said:

PBS had a series long ago called "The Story of English" and in it they mentioned that the closest modern day accent to how the English upper class spoke in the time of King George III would have been "North Carolina Piedmont" aka the accent the late evangelist Billy Graham had.

Anyway, imagine if "Ghosts" wanted to be super correct about stuff like this and Nigel walked around sounding like Billy Graham, haha.

I remember watching that series when it was aired and it was fascinating, though obviously I didn't remember the info you mentioned so will need to revisit it.  It's available in its entirety on an educational resources site called InfoCoBuild.

Have to admit, it would be pretty hilarious if Nigel sounded like Billy Graham!

[kathyk2]

Danielle posted photos of herself and her husband at the Democratic Nation Convention. She posted a photo of herself with Mark Hamill. I bet she had a blast during the roll call.

[Annber03]

I think Asher was there, too :D. 

1 hour ago, kathyk2 said:

Danielle posted photos of herself and her husband at the Democratic Nation Convention. She posted a photo of herself with Mark Hamill. I bet she had a blast during the roll call.

It's so cute how much Hamil loves the show/cast :). 

[kathyk2]

On 8/27/2024 at 6:54 PM, Annber03 said:

I think Asher was there, too :D. 

It's so cute how much Hamil loves the show/cast :). 

Asher posted a photo of Danielle himself and Mark Hamill on Facebook. I saw a promo for Ghosts featuring scenes from the Travelling Agent.

[kathyk2]

Today is Devan's Birthday. There were photos of him on Facebook you can't realize how tall he is until you see him with his baby son.

[iMonrey]

On 8/26/2024 at 10:30 PM, PaulE said:

and it's likely that educated colonists still had some trace of a British accent at that time. 

There was a show on Netflix called "Frontier" that took place in 1700s Canada. It had characters from England, Ireland, Scotland and the American colonies, and it made me wonder when a "British" accent morphed into an "American" accent.

Turns out - it didn't. It's the other way around. It's the British accent that morphed into what it sounds like today. Aristocrats in England adopted a non-rhotic way of speaking (in which the hard "r" is not pronounced) as a way to distinguish themselves from the ex-pats and the lower classes. And as more of the commoners in Britain began to be educated by those who spoke that way, more and more people began speaking that way. 

So, in short, an "American" accent is actually the original way Brits spoke back then. Which means Isaac's accent wouldn't be all that much off the mark.

[Lugal]

I agree that Isaac's accent probably wouldn't have been that far off.

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Turns out - it didn't. It's the other way around. It's the British accent that morphed into what it sounds like today. Aristocrats in England adopted a non-rhotic way of speaking (in which the hard "r" is not pronounced) as a way to distinguish themselves from the ex-pats and the lower classes. And as more of the commoners in Britain began to be educated by those who spoke that way, more and more people began speaking that way.

The funny thing is, it even effected the American colonies.  All up and down the East Coast, R's were dropped which led to the stereotypical Boston "Pahked the cah in Hahvahd yahd." New York as "New Yawk" and Southern pronunciation of "sir" as "suh!"  The one place it did not effect was Philadelphia which became the General American Accent.  My personal theory was because the Quakers didn't care how upper class people talked, let alone trying to imitate it.

However both British and American have changed over the years.  To see how, here's Ben Crystal delivering Hamlet's soliloquy in the original pronunciation.

 

[Skooma]

On 9/1/2024 at 12:11 PM, iMonrey said:

There was a show on Netflix called "Frontier" that took place in 1700s Canada. It had characters from England, Ireland, Scotland and the American colonies, and it made me wonder when a "British" accent morphed into an "American" accent.

To add to this, "The Story of English" said the generic American accent we have today came from the Cornwall area of England.  It's at the southwest corner of the country and closest to the Atlantic voyages.

So many a Cornwall sailor manned the various vessels sailing to the New World.  And many a Cornwall sailor came back, packed up the family and came back over seeing a better opportunity in the colonies.  And/or told his friends back home about the new frontier.  Or just plan jumped ship and never returned to England.

They used some clips showing Cornishmen talking in modern times and they do not pronounce the tell tale long-sounding British "o" the way the rest of the county does but instead like modern day Americans do.

Edited September 3 by Skooma

[Neptune]

 

[AnimeMania]

Paramount to Launch Australian Adaptation of BBC Sitcom ‘Ghosts’

Australian Ghosts will be 8 episodes and will use characters that reflect Australian history and culture.

New lovebirds Kate and Sean are about to jump into the hellscape that is the inner-city rental market, until Kate inherits a huge mansion in the country. Moving in together for the first time the young couple are attempting domestic bliss, but unbeknown to them, the house is haunted by a collection of needy spirits who died in Ramshead Manor over the last 200 years. An optimistic go-getter, Kate wants to revamp the manor into a boutique hotel, but city boy Sean isn’t so sure. When a near-death experience gives Kate the power to see the ghosts, all their lives (and afterlives) will change forever.