Mind Your Language

Watched’ Django Unchained’ last night. Brilliant! I love Tarantino’s work and the Oscar winner Christoph Waltz is not only hugely talented but a great linguist as well -fluent in French, German and English. 

The cartoonish quality of the violence in Tarantino’s films makes it somehow more acceptable to watch. Quentin wrote the script himself and his use of language and wonderful turns of phrase always fascinate me. The bounty hunter, played by Waltz, speaks an almost Austenian language, with which he baffles the thicko cowboys and buys himself time. I wish I could show you excerpts of the film in this blog but I haven’t worked that one out yet, so here are some quotes-

Waltz, to the cowboy slave driver Ace ‘I wish to parley with you’. Ace replies ‘Speak English goddamit....last chance, fancy pants’. Waltz blows his brains out then addresses the stunned slave gang thus ‘...make your way to a more enlightened area of this country. On the off chance there are any astrological aficionados amongst you, the north star is that way!’He and the freed slave, played by Jamie Foxx, try and rescue Foxx’ wife, Broomhilda-because-’ she’s worth it’.Ha! There is the usual liberal peppering of the ‘f’ word but this is used to good effect. In this film Waltz gets the heroes out alive from sticky situations by his mastery of the English language – tells Foxx when they are surrounded by a hundred guns pointing at them – ‘Let me do the talking’ Great stuff . I’d love to be in that scriptwriting team – they must have such fun.

Read in the paper yesterday that maths geeks are employed as writers for the Simpsons and some episodes feature complex equations in the story line. I’ve never spotted them but, then again, the language of maths has always been rather indecipherable to me.

Where was I? Oh yes, expletives. I love Cee Lo Green’s song ‘FU’.Here‘s the opening stanzas –‘ I see you driving 'round town with the girl I love
and I'm like,
"F.. YOU!"
I guess the change in my pocket wasn't enough
I'm like,
"F.. YOU!
And f... her too."

It was named the number1 song of 2010 by Time.

I remember the time when my five year old lost his temper as we were going out of our front door. For some inexplicable reason his brother had hidden his shoes. ‘YOU F....ING F...’ he yelled as the workmen opposite laid down their tools and stared. Comes to something when a five year old tot can make the builders blush. I sometimes wonder if Tourette Syndrome is a family trait. At least on my side. Then again we are a musical family though not in the realms of Mozart whose obscene Tourette’s giggling is memorably portrayed in ‘Amadeus’, another film I love. Always makes me cry. Salieri, Mozart’s nemesis, addresses the other inmates of the lunatic asylum –‘Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you all.’ I hope I don’t end up like that, in a straightjacket somewhere reciting ‘Jabberwocky’ to myself...

I’ve been learning Mandarin recently and was amazed to discover that there are no tenses in Chinese. So if you’re referring to the past you have to put a word like ‘yesterday’ in your speech. I now understand why cartoon imitations of Chinese speech are always in the present tense. Also, their direct way of speaking, though perfectly normal to them, is sometimes construed as rudeness to the Western ear.

Language is a funny thing.

 Look how Orwell’s nightmarish vision of ‘Big Brother’ in Nineteen Eighty-Four is now an actual reality show on television. In his book the three slogans of the Party in his totalitarian state were:-

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Language can be a weapon. The pen is mightier than the sword.

Hitler’s rhetorical rants mobilised a whole army. The words written in the Quran have been twisted and interpreted by Al Qaeda fanatics for their own political end.

The recent massacre of the innocents in the Kenyan shopping mall was like a scene from a Tarantino film. The Islamic terrorists tested the veracity of those claiming to be Muslim by making them quote verses from the Quran. If they failed, they were shot.

In this case language was, quite literally, a matter of life and death.