The [Place] [Number] (was Re: A Texan jail)

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Tuesday, July 11, 2006 5:00 pm -0700 "James A. Landau"
<JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM> wrote:

I was under the impression that "NatWest Three"
> and similar names were restricted to the US (didn't they arise in the
> later stages of the Civil Rights Movement?)

There are lots of 'threes' and 'fives' and 'sevens' in Britain--and, of
course, Ireland.

The Guildford Four:  imprisoned in 1975--the film In the Name of the Father
is about part of their story.

The Tipton Three:  Britons held at Guantanamo, about which the film The
Road to Guantanamo was made

The Birmingham Six:  imprisoned for a 1974 IRA bombing

My partner also remembers a bunch of runaway(?) pigs that were due for
"execution" that were called The ???? Three (he thinks it was three), but
the details of that are a bit shaky.

I also remember this construction being used in South Africa--though now I
can't think of the actual groups...

What is interesting about the NatWest example is that it's a bank, rather
than a town that the people are identified with.  Shows the changing nature
of punished crimes?

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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