silly and off-topic

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Thursday, June 13, 2002 10:18 am -0400 "James A. Landau"
<JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:

>>
>> I didn't know traditional English schoolboys played baseball....
>>
>> Lynne
>
> There is no implication that the English schoolboys play baseball, merely
> that they wear baseball caps,

Point taken, but I didn't know that baseball caps were traditional UK
schoolboy attire.  Billed caps, perhaps, but 'baseball' caps?

>  which leads to a serious question in
> non-verbal linguistics:
> In England, what does a man or boy communicate by wearing a baseball cap?
>
> In the English film "A Fish Named Wanda", there is one major character
> who is American, who is invariably shown wearing a baseball cap.  Is this
> an English stereotype of how Americans dress?

Yes, definitely.  And it's amazing how reliable it is.  The US exchange
students seem to stop wearing theirs (and their frat/sorority sweatshirts)
within about a month.

> If so, was it a shorthand
> convention to inform an English audience that the character was American?

And probably a certain kind of American.  i.e. not the Andie McDowell in
_Four Weddings and a Funeral_ kind of American.


> Also what is the significance of an English boy turning his baseball cap
> around?  (Girls cannot do this.  Their ponytails stick out through the
> gap between the cloth and the adjustment band.)

What I don't understand is why you'd want to turn it around (or 'turn it
rouind', to talk like a local) if you're going to need to aim at something
and therefore keep the sun out of your eyes.  Oh, except that this is
England.  I'm wearing wool in the middle of June and it's been raining for
two weeks.  Ok, to keep the glare from the clouds out of your eyes.


> P.S.  This being England, shouldn't that read "pease-shooting"?  As in
> "give pease a chance?"

There's a village near Gatwick named Pease Pottage, and I can't ride by it
without thinking "Pease Pottage hot, Pease Pottage cold".  Btw, Bill
Bryson's _Notes from a Small Island_ has a nice appreciation of weird UK
placenames.

Lynne



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320