I have a rowdy soul. I'm harmless, but appreciate a little rough-and-tumble in my life. Dirt bikes, singlehanded sailing, landing light aircraft in gusty crosswinds, that sort of thing. Naturally, the Amazon Prime Sons of Liberty series resonated with me - sort of. All was well until two glaring anachronisms stuck out. Three, actually. I'm not sure if "sh*ts" would have been a plural perjorative in the 1700's. I'm almost certain "batsh*t crazy" wouldn't have been heard, and I'm absolutely certain "a bridge too far" was not in the colonial vernacular. Tolkien described fireworks at Bilbo's birthday party as charging around like a freight train. He got away with it. Whoever wrote the screenplay for Sons of Liberty didn't sneak their time-slips in with quite Tolkien's style, though. They stuck out like outboard motors on barques. Not one to sweat the small stuff, I kept binging on despite questions about historical accuracy. And then discovered season one is where the series ends, at least for the moment. If the scripts had been written with a little more care, I bet I wouldn't be waiting another year or two for the possible release of season two. By then I'll have to re-binge through season one, enduring the rough edges anew. Sigh. On a more positive note, I think I want to add Boston to my bucket list. I've eaten at Philadelphia's City Tavern. It would be a hoot to visit The Green Dragon in Boston, see the Old North Church, find the site of the tea party, and generally breathe air laden with history.
They probably could have made use of The Slang Dictionary (first published in 1873) - which you can read online for free Wondering - how are the Sons of Liberty portrayed in the series?
In my humble opinion, if an infinite number of monkeys can hammer out the complete works of Shakespeare on a typewriter, then Bilbo Baggins can become confused and string the words freight and train together!!!!! Trev-
Ooo, Louanne, thank you. I spent an awful lot of time looking up the etymology of words to make sure they'd fit into the 1830s.
Some Australian mathematicians apparently "proved" that an infinite number of monkeys would not actually do this, based on the number of monkeys there are and the lifetime of the universe. They apparently missed the point that it is an *infinite* number of monkeys, not "all the available monkeys". Given an infinite amount of either time or monkeys, then anything that can happen will happen, regardless of how small the probability (as long as it is not zero).
Went to look up "a bridge too far." The origins of this idiom can be traced back to World War II, specifically the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944. https://crossidiomas.com/a-bridge-too-far/
Samuel Adams is rash and hard drinking. John Adams is initially willing to bargain with the King. John Hancock is initially self-serving and weak. British troops are brutal, which I believe is a correct portrayal, as were colonists. It was the times. No grudges, please. Even though significant differences between our nations remain, we live in far friendlier times. Much of the plot is fictionalized. Dr. Joseph Warren's death is tied to a love triangle with Thomas Gage's wife, for example. But I get caught up in anything with a patina of real history and I am very much an American. And German. I've got that in my bloodline. When I was a kid, my parents took me to Philadelphia. We ate at City Tavern where Continental Congress delegates met. Back then, the docent attending the Liberty Bell not only allowed guests to touch the bell, it was encouraged. When I hesitated, the attendant told me to go ahead. It was, he said, as much my Liberty Bell as any other citizen's. One one level, it felt like cold, lifeless bronze. On a much more important level, the touch of the metal was electric. I was a kid with imagination. I keenly felt 200 years of commitment in both battle and humanitarian missions. I touched a bell George Washington heard ring. History is amazing stuff. My wife's family has verified genealogy back to the time of Charlemagne. One of my customers at a business I started 30 years ago was a direct descendent of Colonel Burwell of the revolutionary war. Which isn't remarkable. We're all just a few connections separated.
If that is true, then will we ever find that particular universe where the Discworld is a reality? I'm tired of this reality. I'd like to go and live in Ankh-Morpork, please. In Ankh-Morpork, no matter how tough life is, at least some things -- like the smell of the Ankh, the deadliness of CMOT Dibbler's sausages-inna-bun, and the fact that you will mugged on arrival -- are certain (although under Lord Vetinari's benevolent despotism and Commander Vimes's jealous regard for the law, the chances of your being mugged have been reduced from 'certain' to merely 'highly probable'). And if I can't go to Discworld, I'd prefer to go to Pinky's Planet. NARF! What? Oh, yeah. Digressing again. Sorry...
Consider for a moment, what bringing the luggage back from Discworld would be like. It could follow you through the airport. What kind of chaos would you have checking it at the ticket counter? What would the survival rate of TSA inspectors be?
I've always considered Americans to be our close cousins. I grew up (and still live) a short drive to the border. Trips "over the river" are a very common thing here.
A Canadian acquaintance once remarked that Alberta and Wyoming have more in common than they do with states and provinces on the east coast. My husband is from North Dakota and lived most of his early life a hop, skip, and a jump from Manitoba. While teaching school, he risked falling into Canada every time he stumbled.
Answers ... 1. What kind of chaos would you have checking it at the ticket counter? A high chance of chaos. The Luggage would resist being loaded onto the luggage hold. It would follow you and look after itself. If anyone tried any nonsense, like sitting in your seat, the Luggage would stamp on their foot or, in extreme cases, eat them alive. 2. What would the survival rate of TSA inspectors be? Slim to nil, I'd say. Having said that, IIRC, Sir Terry wrote (before the start of his book Sourcery) that he got the idea for the Luggage when he saw a tartan suitcase with dozens of little wheels moving, as though it had a mind of its own, while an American tourist pulled it along. He concluded by offering many thanks to that lady. He has also stated, however, that the airport story and several others were fabricated for the benefit of interviewers, and quite frankly he couldn't remember the precise origin of the Luggage. He had earlier used a similar idea when designing role-playing games for friends, a walking trunk which could carry all the players' possessions and would follow any instructions given to it but only the instructions given to it (rather like a golem), which inevitably led it to absentmindedly walking off the edge of a cliff as soon as the quest party got distracted. (Source: The Pratchett Portfolio).
