Where are you, Deborah? I got a rerun of Ruby in Smoke.

I live in Northern California. There is one thing about this version, they took a liberty at the end that some might take offense to, that's all I'm saying for now.

deborah, was the version you just watched the one with Timothy and Raph Spall?
I caught the beginning of it when we saw it on TV a few months ago here in the UK.
The script was written by Andrew Davies who seems to add a great deal of sexual content where none was probably intended (remember the 'cooling off in the pond' scene from P & P?).
I know EM Forster is very 'in' at the moment, but I have never much enjoyed his work.

And if Deborah doesn't mind . . . one of the UK digital TV channels will be showing John Adams soon.
I understand it is up for several awards and wonder has anyone been watching it, is it good etc?

Here is a link that might be useful: ITV's Room With a View

Vee, I was the one who recommended you watch the John Adams series if ever it came your way. I was fortunate enough to catch most of the episodes and thought it brilliant. It certainly is the equivalent of the best of anything Masterpiece Theatre has ever done, IMHO. I am fairly certain that I posted a thread on this over at the Cinema Forum some time ago. If you catch this series you will truly get a feel for American Colonial History.

I saw Room With a View quite awhile ago. It didn't particularly strike me one way or the other, but nither did the book. Have any of you read the book? I read thru it online. It wasn't bad, but just ho-hum. It was dipicting the diffrences in people of opposite social classes (which is a subject I find quite interesting). Its about how the main character (Lucy) has to decide weather to stay in her own rank or step down a notch on the socal ladder for someone she loves. But I think Forster tried much too hard to make his point on it; he tried so hard that he forgot about the plot, which just seemed to flop to me. Usually I take something away from a book like this, but not this one. Tolstoy and the Brontes do a much better job in showing the diffrences of position in society.

-Veer, Im not sure I agree that the sexual parts were not intended (in the book). The pond occurence did happen in the book, its just more startling to see it on screen instead of reading about it ;-). The only other sexual part I remember is the one where they are 'rolling in the sheets'. In the book they were just in the hotel room looking out the window, but thats not a major thing.
I disliked the liberties they took with the ending of the movie. NONE of that happened in the book. The book ended with them in the hotel room.
CMK

I watched the first part of John Adams yesterday (we are receiving it in 7 episodes). A friend was spending the day with us and as it was shown at the much too early time of 5.30 I had to apologies and say she would have to watch it with me! We can't record on digital channels. I think I will need to watch it again to appreciate the language, especially the court-case scenes which I presume were taken from actual records. It certainly made a change to watch US history made without the benefit of Hollywood's heavy hand.
And weren't the 'accents' interesting?
Lots of 'genuine' West Country, Scots, Ulster etc. plus New Englanders who spoke slightly more 'English' English than they do now . . .if that makes sense. ;-)
I often wonder what the 'English' of my ancestors would have sounded like, would it have been what we now know as 'mid-Atlantic' or maybe slightly Australian?

-veer, you live in the UK right? Well im not an expert or anything, but I would imagine VERY old English would have a heavier sound. English is a language derived from Germanic oragin. If im not mistaken other languages with Germanic backgrounds are Islandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and naturally German. Of course us Americans speak a diffrent language all together. ;-)
CMK

Vee, glad you are able to watch the John Adams miniseries. Yes, I did notice the differing accents. Of course, the New England accents were always quite different from the accents in the deep south, e.g. South Carolina. I enjoyed the character of Benjamin Franklin as portrayed, especially, and thought they did very well with George Washington.

I hope you will watch the entire series. Why would 5:30 be a bad time, if I may ask? For me, it would be perfect -- just before dinner....

CMK, I was just wondering about the 'sound' of English as spoken in both England and the colonial US in the eighteenth century. As you say in very early times, say Anglo-Saxon, there would have been much Scandinavian influence but do you think by the time of Shakespeare for eg. we might have been able to understand each other if we could go back in time?
Equally interesting as Mary (woodnymph) says Southern US accents are quite different from New England. Those accents seem almost as 'different' as the English I speak v American.
Re the 5.30 time start. Over here 'serious' TV doesn't usually start until the evening. I'm generalising here, but kids programmes are on from about 3 ish to 5.30-6-7pm when the early evening news comes on. This is followed by 'Soaps' and then what I consider the better quality stuff.
In this family we tend to eat a 'main' meal at lunch time, but if we do eat in the evening 5-6 would be the time I'd be stuck in the kitchen cooking. ;-)
Your/our 'mini-series' are almost always shown in one hour per week episodes.

-Vee, I think it would be incredibly difficult for most people to understand the English of olden times. But then again if people from olden times were to come to present time they wouldn't understand what we say. I wonder what the great diffrences are between Old and Middle English are?
Its just a guess, but wouldn't the English of Shakespere's time have had great influences from Latin and its offspring in the Romantic languages? I don't know at all though, just a wild guess.
Yes, it is very interesting the diversities in speech in the US. It is always very interestin to hear the diffrences between them. I rather like the southern accents, but find the accents of New Jersey etc. a bit grating. When I am thinking about this subject I wonder weather or not I have an accent. I suppose to someone from the other side of the country would say I did.
I would imagine though that there is a great diffrence in speeh sound in the UK too. Is there a significan diffrence between say, city speech and that of the country?
CMK

CMK, I know almost nothing about the development of language and English must be one of the most 'mixed' of any in the world . . . that's why crosswords in English can be so fiendishly difficult. :-)
If you have ever had to study Chaucer you will have read 'Middle English' but by Shakespeare's time, two hundred years later, the language has 'developed' rather than 'changed' so it is much easier for us to understand. Of course many of our words have Latin roots, but I think it owes more to it's N W European past rather than the Romantic languages of Italy etc.
The UK has a wide range of accents. In England it is easy to tell if someone comes from the North or the South, town or country, although with the universal growth of radio/TV it must have been much more marked even 70 years ago.
Also over here we are able to 'place' someone in the pecking order by the way he talks (I realise this is utterly non-PC as everyone should be deemed equal) which maybe you don't do in the US.
An eg. I was reading an article about the dreadful murder of a year or so ago that took place outside Boston when an English bloke murdered his wife and baby, then fled the scene, leaving for the UK. When the case came to court several local US people were called to give evidence and said how the man sounded like the 'perfect English gentleman'. The UK journalist pointed out that, far from it, to an 'English' person, he sounded anything but and had a heavy 'Midlands' accent which years of university hadn't removed.
This isn't to say that people with strong regional accents are necessarily less to be trusted, just that once someone has become successful/educated they tend to speak in what we call RP (Received Pronunciation). So doctors, lawyers, clergymen, bankers etc usually cannot be 'placed' as coming from a particular area of the country.
Perhaps it is why we have for too long trusted bankers, house-sellers etc in the UK. They speak 'posh' and we give them all our money. More fools us!
Of course many people speak in RP all the time. My Mother would have had a fit if she had heard us children speaking with the dull Midlands rhythms heard in my home town.
I'll stop now before your eyes glaze-over.

Adding on to what Vee wrote re the origins of the English language. Before William the Conqueror came over from Normandy in 1066 and defeated Harold, the language was predominantly Germanic, e.g. Anglo-Saxon. When the Normans conquered that part of Britain, the language changed. The French and Latin influence was felt and the Norman phrases became the language of the law and of the upper classes and of royalty. For the most part, the "common man" stayed with the Anglo Saxon influences, but gradually, more and more Latin or French words entered the language and became a part of it. It's a fascinating development, for this small island. Some of the Normans even went up to what is now Scotland and intermarried with landed gentry there and built Norman style castles and they changed that Celtic culture, also.

As for English in the time of Shakespere, I am only guessing, but I should imagine that we would be able to understand most of it, were we to time travel....

Veer. we do 'place' people by their accents, here in the US and we do 'judge' them; unfortunately. Jeff Foxworthy has made an entire comedic career on the redneck and their unique spin on the English language. We also have the 'Bronx" and the 'Southern' accent to name a few. I was born in Canada but have lived in the US for 34 of my 48 years and people still notice that I pronounce 'house' and 'about' differently.

I did read Chaucer, and boy was that tough, I even found Shakespeare tough at first. I believe if we were transported in time we would have a difficult time picking up the language. Also, from reading history as much as I do I'm not sure that any language hasn't been influenced by traveler's and/or conquerors. It seems we have been traveling and trading since we were cave people.

I rarely see any of these Masterpiece adaptations. People have to point them out so I rent them in order to watch.

As for Forster, there was a very interesting article in the New York Review of Books (see link below) about him.

Here is a link that might be useful: E.M. Forster, Middle Manager

A Room with a View--what a coincidence. I just walked in the door several hours ago from a long-planned trip to Florence. I stayed in the hotel where they filmed the Helena Bonham-Carter version and my room was right next to that room, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio. Memorable.

I bought the DVD some months ago and I do like that version. Read the book too tho it is more than a bit dated, IMHO. There seem to be quite a few books with the "repressed English/American upper-class man or woman" visits Italy and is set free from his/her inhibitions and rigid lifestyle.

It's a period issue, I think, judging by all the books, such as this one and "The Enchanted April". A veritable genre. Also recently saw "Up at the Villa", a film based on a Somerset Maugham story with a similar theme.

Ginny, I've never been to Italy so must only wonder on the effect it might have on me, but have noticed what you say re books of that period. I wonder if they hark back to the time of the 'Grand Tour' when wealthy young English men used to be sent with a tutor to study the antique classical landscapes of Italy and Greece?
Have any of you read My Cousin Rachael by Daphne du Maurier in which a young man becomes obsessed with jealousy and travels to Italy to find out the truth about an older woman's previous life. Highly recommended.

An influx of foreign words does not make much difference to the structure of a language. English is still a Germanic language although the vocabulary was influenced by the Romance (not Romantic) languages, first the Latin of Caesar and the early church, and later Norman French as well as the Old Norse of the Viking invaders. But these influences helped to break down the inflexional system of Old English grammar, the Old Norse perhaps most because it was so similar to the English of that time that it made speakers confused as to what was correct speech.

I find Beowulf almost impossible to understand although it is not too different from Old Norse which I have studied very briefly, but Chaucer is really easy to understand for a Scandinavian. Shakespeare is much more difficult for me and I definitely need a commented edition. Words have changed their meaning, there are difficult poetical conceits, etc.

I don't think, Vee, that Italy has the same liberating effect on present-day English and American visitors. We are already liberated!