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While Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess may not be addressing other characters as “dude” on Downton Abbey, are she and the other characters on the hit British TV series still speaking out of turn? More specifically, are they speaking as if they lived more in the 21st century rather than shortly after the turn of the 19th?
Yes, English students, it’s time for… anachronism watch.
Linguist Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus blog and a columnist on language for the Boston Globe, has posted a video highlighting words and phrases spoken by characters in Season Two of the Emmy-winning drama airing on PBS that seem more au courant than World War One-era.
He points out, for example, that when Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) instructs his chauffer “to step on it,” Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and his writers may be getting ahead of themselves.
“It’s possible to dig up examples of step on it from the 1910s as automotive slang for ‘go fast; step on the accelerator,’ but only in U.S. sources,” writes Zimmer. “Step on her and step on her tail were also possibilities at the time. But it’s hard to believe that Lord Grantham would be up on the latest American slang (despite having an American wife!), well before this expression became common in the U.K.”
Here’s Zimmer’s video (*spoiler alert* – it contains scenes near the end from episodes still to air on PBS this Sunday’s (February 12) show:
To read Zimmer’s full column explaining what’s anachronistic about each snippet of dialogue, click here:
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Does it bother you if Downtown Abbey characters verbally time-travel?
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7 Comments
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Ben Zimmer is having to work pretty hard here. These anachronisms are not exactly blatant. I think we shd go easy on Downton Abbey: it’s far better than most of these series/adaptations in that respect. The things Jane Austen’s characters say nowadays, dude!
By the way, “the turn of the 19th century” surely means the start of the 19th, not 20th century — what we used to call the 1800s before that came to mean any time from 1800 to 1899 as it seems to now. Are we living at the turn of the 20th century now, or the 21st?
Surprised not to find what has to be the most egregious anachronism from tonight’s episode: Lavinia and Mrs. Crawley talk about how one must “suck up” to one’s prospective mother-in-law. Am I wrong?
AH! Just watched this too see Downton again. Series two has finished (and I’ve even seen the christmas special). YOU MUST WATCH IT AMERICA! YOU MUST! Also, I feel that the language is appropriate for the time. Ethel was a common girl, who lived in a wroking class family and they would say things like that in England at the time. In Scotland the slang was worse (that’s where I live by the way, I’m not dissing Scotland). B
“Surprised not to find what has to be the most egregious anachronism from tonight’s episode: Lavinia and Mrs. Crawley talk about how one must ‘suck up’ to one’s prospective mother-in-law.”
That one jumped out at me too! I’m not an expert, and I haven’t researched it, but I never heard that expression until sometime within the last decade or two. I think it must be an anachronism.
Deborah and Lori B that one jumped right out at me too. Stuck out like a sore thumb.
I too was surprised at the ‘suck-up’ comments. I was so sure such a prestigious expensive show would have authenticated language, I did online searches for the origin of ‘to suck up’ just knowing some obscure Old English reference would show up. Afraid not. So are the writers just doing it for a joke? Very disappointing for this Downton Abbey addict.