October 16th, 2018
16 Oct 2018 · page 842 of 1306
Good job Knott
Cast: George Knott, Vincent Knott
Comments (37)
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At least the police aren't using that ghastly new spelling. :-)
Indeed. Wouldn't want to mistake the setting for someplace too awesome. ;)
(I kid, I kid.)
True, it does look like it was an afterthought however..."AND GAOL" is in awful small letters.
Listen. Listen carefully. Can you here that faint thumping sound? That’s the sound of Ms Ashwin beating her head on her desk. She writes a scene full of pathos, where Vincent has to chose between a course of action he considers morally wrong or breaking his Father’s heart, and most of the comments are about how you spell gaol. :-)
I know. Isn't it great how the comments section, like Vincent's father, recognizes what's important?
Hopefully she will not let this sort of thing bar her progress.
Not on Captain Barber's watch, they're not!
"and gaol" ? I assume this mean jail ?
Yep. And just to make it more confusing, both spellings are pronounced exactly the same way.
I believe the modern spelling was invented (or at least popularized) by the newspapers after they realized a more intuitive spelling would actually save a lot of money on ink in the long run (the fact that the spelling was more intuitive was just a neat bonus).
I found [https://www.spectator.co.uk...](https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/04/why-did-we-ever-spell-jail-gaol/ "https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/04/why-did-we-ever-spell-jail-gaol/") with an explanation.
Good find... and I am reminded of an old joke:
What's the difference between a jeweller and a jailer? - One sells watches, the other watches cells!
>:=)>
"Modern spelling" -- it still is acceptable spelling that isn't completely supplanted, you know. Brits flop about between "gaol" and "jail", still.
Well, it's certainly the more modern of the two.
I know, it's so weird how they seem to be obsessed with those bird aliens from Titan A.E.
G has had a long history of variation in written English. Including doing the Flemish-Dutch thing, sometimes... if rarely and lost by the Early Modern phase (the "gh" sound that's stronger than "ch" in "loch").
Geoffrey is an example. Although "Jeffrey" happens, it still looks like the weirder version to most English speakers.
I actually prefer "gaol", myself. But, I tend to use "jail" because there's less chance of an uncorrected typo. :/
Actually, I expect Jeffrey. Geoffrey is not the standard spelling in my dialect.
Weird... ;P
What about Geoffrey the Giraffe? He's essentially dead, but he used to exist.
Yeah, but he was associated with a company which spelled are as "'R". Why should I care about how they spelled anything?
That's a backwards "R". Funny that nobody in the 1950s objected to what's essentially a Russian letter.
You see both Geoffrey (or Geoff) and Jeffrey (or Jeff) in the USA, but Jeff(rey) has become much more common, especially among people born in the last 40 years. Geoffrey the Giraffe (may he rest in peace) dates from the 1950s, when the "G" spelling was much more common than it is now. Besides, Giraffe starts with a G.
Yes. It's a more old-fashioned variant of the word that's not really used in North American English but is in British English and the like.
While I appreciate the intention, I'm french. I just suck at english :)
I was just saying that it's a less common version of the word, is all?
In fact, the English "gaol" is an exact cognate of the French word "geôle".
The word "gaol" is pronounced exactly like "jail", but it is nowadays an obsolete spelling. It ceased to be used in the US by the beginning of the 19th century, in Canada by the 20th century, and in England the last important holdout was "The Guardian", who used it until 1980 or so.
However, the word survives as part of the name of historical prisons (like the famous "Rading Gaol" where Wilde was an inmate and which inspired "The Ballad of Reading Gaol").
/facedesk
/facedesk
/facedesk
When Vincent told Eliza that it was traditional to spend the night before the hanging in the jail, I assumed that meant both him and his dad, not Vincent all by himself. Poor kid. : (
But with that, he has a chance to talk with Sharpe and find the way to get his reprieve. Or, well, his escape.
Yes, that’s a big advantage!
Or for Sharpe to misapply magic and then escape without him.
Dad is being a bit delusional here!
Is anyone else nervous that Vincent is going to be alone with someone accused of mis-using magic?
I’m reserving my nervousness until we find out what exactly he did. “Misuse of magic” could mean any number of things, which might be dangerous to bystanders or might not.
"Crimes against magic", IIRC.
And he might be innocent and accused wrongly, after all.
Weenie-ing like the weenie he is.
Vincent does need to learn to stand up for himself, but "weenie" seems a bit harsh.
I'm almost sure Mr Knott knows what's up and is just waiting for his boy to tell him...