The [Place] [Number] (was Re: A Texan jail)
Lynne Murphy
m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK
Wed Jul 12 10:28:02 UTC 2006
--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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