The-ATE-er

[William Ryan]

A good one! Probably facetious though, as often with Belloc's rhymes - 
cf. from another Cautionary Tale:

Now this was Jim's especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able
(this almost rhymes if spoken with a cockney accent)

But I think neither Matilda nor Belloc were likely to provide a 
prostonarodnyi translation for keatr!

Just to illustrate further the global possibilities of English 
pronunciation I see from a Canadian newspaper site that: 'Theatre People 
pronounce theatre not as "theeter," like ordinary Canadians, but as 
"Thee-uh-tuh," as in: "I'm in the [blow smoke in your face from 
cigarette elegantly poised between middle and third finger] Thee-uh-tuh.' 

Older thespians in England of Noel Coward vintage were likely to 
pronounce it 'thee-ah-tah', with cigarette similarly positioned, dear boy.

Will Ryan



Anna Reid wrote:
>  
>   I refer the group to Hilaire Belloc's immortal 'Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death', published 1907. The relevant lines are:
>    
>   It happened that a few weeks later
>   Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
>   To see that Interesting Play
>   The Second Mrs Tanqueray
>   She had refused to take her niece
>   To see this Entertaining Piece
>   A Deprivation Just and Wise 
>   To punish her for Telling Lies
>   That night a fire DID break out
>   You should have heard Matilda shout...
>
>   Anna Reid
>   
> Kim Braithwaite <kbtrans at COX.NET> wrote:
>   Tiny follow-up: -- the-AY-ter was a very common pronunciation, perhaps even 
> the most common, long before the mid c20. You can probably still hear it on 
> the lips of country folks.
>
> BTW, the song I referred to is "Strip Polka," by the immortal Johnny Mercer 
> and recorded by the Andrews Sisters. Still popular on the radio during WW2.
>
> Kim etc.....
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Helen Halva" 
> To: 
> Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 4:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Translation query
>
>
>   
>> I agree with Mr. Braithwaite's suggestion of "the-AY-ter", but my 
>> experience was in the mid-20th century and I can't say whether the 
>> pronunciation was also pertinent to the early 20th c.
>>
>> Helen Halva
>>
>>
>>
>> At 12:16 PM 4/21/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>>     
>>> Possibly the-AY-ter might work. In the prosto socioeconomic milieu of my 
>>> boyhood that's the way we pronounced it until Miss Fidditch corrected us 
>>> in the fifth grade, wielding her ruler across the knuckles. And there was 
>>> a semi-popular song about a burlesque show ("Take it off!") whose meter 
>>> required that pronunciation. Just a thought.
>>>
>>> Mr Kim Braithwaite, Translator
>>>
>>> "Good is better than Evil, because it's nicer" - Mammy Yokum (Al Capp)
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: 
>>> To: 
>>> Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 11:38 AM
>>> Subject: [SEELANGS] Translation query
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I am translating a review of an early futurist art exhibition for a 
>>>> publication. One of the dismissive descriptions that the author is using 
>>>> is "kiyater," which is the "prostonarodnoe" or criminal slang word for 
>>>> "teatr" (theater). It is used ironically obviously, and such use of 
>>>> "kiyater" can also be encountered in satirical pieces by Teffi or in the 
>>>> actual or stylized speech of Gilyarovsky's criminal characters. What 
>>>> would be a distorted English word that an uneducated person of that time 
>>>> (late 19th-early 20th century) might have used?
>>>>
>>>> Thank you,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Julia Trubikhina
>>>>
>>>> Assistant Professor of Russian
>>>> Russian Program Coordinator
>>>> Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
>>>> Montclair State University
>>>> Dickson Hall, Room 138
>>>> Montclair, NJ 07043
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>>> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free 
>>>>         
>>> >from AOL at AOL.com.
>>>       
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>
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-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emeritus Professor W. F. Ryan FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute
(School of Advanced Study, University of London)
Woburn Square
LONDON WC1H 0AB

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