odd usages in _Mister Roberts_

[Jonathan Lighter]

Dan, the GB snippets don't turn them up in either the novel or the play, but
that isn't conclusive. Amazon won't even give me a look

If no one has a copy of the novel at their fingertips, I'll check in the
libe later this week.
JL
On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: odd usages in _Mister Roberts_
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Seventeen hundred fifty hours," rather. "1750" ("Seventeen fifty," I
> assume) sounds like the English translation of the time as given on
> German civilian radio. in the '60's.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      odd usages in _Mister Roberts_
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I noticed two very odd usages in the 1955 film _Mister Roberts_,
> screenplay
> > by Frank S. Nugent and Joshua Logan.
> >
> > The writers have a Navy officer in 1945 casually referring to 5:50 p.m.
> as
> > "eighteen hundred minus ten" instead of "seventeen fifty."
> >
> > And head nurse Lieut. Girard addresses her female staff as "Men!" Of
> course,
> > this may just be a joke.
> >
> > Both the movie and the play which preceded it are based on the novel by
> > Thomas Heggen (1918-1949).  Unlike Nugent and Logan, Heggen was a navy
> > veteran of WWII.
> >
> > When the film came out, the NYT described the play as a "cherished work."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org