Magenta's accent?
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Doc Brown wrote:I'd be interested to know whether whoever compiled Magenta's biography decided that he was Irish before or after the puppet was created. It was almost certainly afterwards, but if it was actually before, I take my hat off to the sculptors for being able to recreate such specific facial characteristics!
The lead times on the annuals appear to have drawn out a bit more than previously thought. I would have said the puppet existed - aren't all the regular Captains, Angels and Dr Fawn seen at the end of 'The Mysterons'? - when the annual features were being written at the start of 1967. But the character was probably not defined (indeed, were the characters of Magenta and Grey properly defined even by the series production end - a few months after the first annual went on sale?). I'm not even sure which was the earliest episode Magenta spoke in was...
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shaqui
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Marion wrote:Whilst I'm not conscious of writing him with an Irish 'accent', Sage - I do sometimes pepper his speech with an Irish phrase or two (or what I imagine is an Irish phrase)- such as he might've heard at home.... But that is the universal problem of writing any fiction - how do you write an accent? Especially one like Destiny's.... 'eeve you 'ave 'er talkin' like zees,... it sounds silly and looks worse and can be very tiresome to read as well...
Yeah it can be difficult. I do that too. Also add few little flaws in their speech (avoiding contractions, slightly off grammar etc) that's more for Destiny and Harmony though.
I am frequently being taken to task - by my beta-readers mostly - for having the American characters say words they wouldn't use... My only defence is: I'm not an American and whilst I try to be as true to life as I can in my dialogue - I'm bound to get some of it wrong...
Yeah I get that too. Have the same reasoning too.
I do know a few Americans, though other forums. So try to get a feel for the language.
Oh well at least I shall always get Scarlet just right, we're from roughly the same neck of the woods.
BTW - I get told off for using 'whilst' as well - even for the English. Apparantly it is a northern word and the English characters are all from south of the Trent... there's no winning, is there?
Strange, I'm Southampton born & raised, and almost everyone I know used that word. Never would have thought it northern.
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Sage
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Quote: (Marion wrote)
BTW - I get told off for using 'whilst' as well - even for the English. Apparantly it is a northern word and the English characters are all from south of the Trent... there's no winning, is there?
Sage replied
Strange, I'm Southampton born & raised, and almost everyone I know used that word. Never would have thought it northern.
Well, what do you know? I found this on-line:
while (N) prep conj :
until, “wait while Monday”. Because of this confusion (consider ‘do not cross track while lights are flashing’), apparently official documents, signs, and instructions (in the North), are supposed to always use whilst, but most style guides (produced in the South) encourage using while as it is clear and straightforward.
That's what led me to presume 'whilst' was more common 'up north'. I prefer to use it in speech myself - I'm glad to see I am not alone
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Marion
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Scarlet Lady
But we are talking about speech, which is a little more flexible.
On the American speech side of things - that's a knotty one. We have picked up words that were originally only used by Americans quite naturally by watching movies (there's one - I use that instead of 'films' sometimes), books, etc. But, it's reasonable to assume that given the right circumstances it would work in both directions. Americans and British working closely together the way they do in Spectrum could quite conceivably result in words and phrases being picked up from both nationalities. Plus, we are talking some years into the future - a time we can assume English from both sides of the Atlantic may well overlap much more than it does now. Did you know, for instance, that when Steely Dan brought out their CD 'The Royal Scam' in 1976, that the word 'scam' had to be explained for the British market? Everyday use here now as if it always had been.
But we are writing for readers now, and there's nothing worse than a sentence jarring and distracting you from the story. But I wonder if writers and beta readers might possibly be trying to be too 'American' or too 'British'? For instance, if Scarlet uses a word or phrase that he may well have heard Blue say a thousand times, or vice versa, can we not allow it? It may not be a typical phrase that he would have grown up with, but I think it's more than possible he could use it.
Just an idea
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Cerise
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Cerise writes:
I wonder if writers and beta readers might possibly be trying to be too 'American' or too 'British'? For instance, if Scarlet uses a word or phrase that he may well have heard Blue say a thousand times, or vice versa, can we not allow it? It may not be a typical phrase that he would have grown up with, but I think it's more than possible he could use it.
As ever, you are the voice of reason, Cerise! I couldn't agree more. But, however much I find the whole British/American English thing fascinating - this probably isn't the thread on the forum to discuss it... sorry folks for wandering off-topic...
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Marion
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It's so much more fun watching the show that way.
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The Secretive Bus
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Still he's quite endearing, in a way, much prefer him to Scarlet. As a fanfic writer Magenta is a challenge because he quite clearly isn't meant to be a bumbling idiot (having been a mobster and all). That's just part of the fun.
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Sage
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The Secretive Bus
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Parker Gabriel
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Parker Gabriel wrote:I think the failure to give Captain Magenta a distinctive accent, whether it was due to laziness in the recording studio on the late Paul Maxwell's part or poor instructions to the dialogue directors, was oine of the elements that could have been corrected if Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson had been given permission to expand the stories to one-hour duration.
Captain Magenta was voiced by Gary Files, not Paul Maxwell.
ADDED INFO: Paul Maxwell was the voice of Captain Grey and several incidental characters throughout the series. He was also Steve Zodiac in Fireball XL-5.
Gary Files was the voice of many, many characters throughout OCS, Joe 90 and the Secret Service, in which he also had a lead role as Matthew Harding.
Both men are particularly fine voice artistes, IMHO, indicated by the number of voices they provided.
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Captain Indigo
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As for NCS Magenta, he does speak in a couple of the episodes, and with an American accent. Given his name - Mario Moro- I assume he has an Italian American heritage.
The only one who sounds completely at odds with the published "bios" is NCS Black, who is supposed to come from a Greek American New York background, but who sounds like a double for Jason King. I personally think his accent and voice is sensational for the character, but a bit of a problem for fanfic writers. I have tried to get round it by suggesting he had a very nomadic education !
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Skybase Girl
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Skybase Girl wrote::grin: I don't have nearly such an extensive knowledge of OCS as you good people do - only what I remember from the annuals, TV21 and the books ( all sadly, thrown away by my sainted mother when I left home ). I'm just relying on memory and I recall thinking that Magenta was American with an Irish history.
Well, you get 10/10 for memory, Skybase Girl! Magenta was born in Ireland but raised in the States. And I always thought he sounded okay too, with that kind of displaced accent that people get when they move at an early age (not quite one or the other).
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Captain Indigo
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I think Magenta's accent is gloriously 'smudged' - it's his slightly quirky personality that really shines through.
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Elentari
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