What is 'Historical Accuracy'?

A video exploring the nature of historical accuracy, and when it matters.
'Fly Trap': • Fly Trap | Full Short ...
Princess Diana video: • Friends shocked to lea...
Paul McCartney 'y'know': • How many times Paul Mc...
William Hartnell interview: • Surviving Footage of W...
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[@TristenHarris777]

Once you started discussing y'know, I realized how frequently you were using it in your sentence

[@JohnBrownsBody]

For a minute there, I had convinced myself he had started placing it in there intentionally when it wasn’t there before but after going back I saw that wasn’t the case. Really is interesting how much of speech our brain can filter out if it isn’t tuned in.

[@alexandersalter6686]

I noticed the same thing! It’s a bit like coughing, it’s socially contagious in our psychology.

[@jackmace6531]

It's insane and I don't know how he couldn't watch this and not notice that?

[@helenamcginty4920]

Such fillers are called phonemes. We each have a favourite.

[@georgielancaster1356]

In the same club. Thought maybe it was a joke, then thought, "I don't think so..." Plus I spent however long that start film clip went, trying to work out how to stop the advert. Then I was outside, feeding animals, and kept thinking I had jumped to a different video, as I was listening only, with phone in pocket. To be honest, if I knew it was about film or tv inaccuracies, I wouldn't have bothered listening

[@RebSike]

5:50 My favorite example of a film or show which doesn't have accurate accents, but preserves the relationships between people with different accents is _The Death of Stalin_ . The cast of the film didn't attempt Russian accents, instead mostly using their native accents. This created a diversity of accents among the characters which represented the diversity of sounds that one would've heard among the people of the USSR. Stalin, who spoke Russian with a thick Georgian accent, has a thick cockney accent in the film, Jason Isaacs picked a Yorkshire accent for Zhukov because of its "bluntness", which fit the character, and the Ukrainian characters had American accents.

[@dmitrykazakov2829]

Khrushchev had a distinctive South Russian accent, but he was not an ethnic Ukrainian. BTW, for a Russian viewer the film looks inauthentic and inaccurate because it fails to convey the dreary and gloomy style of the epoch, its so-called "Stalin's Empire style". Even for a farce it is way too colorful and too easygoing.

[@honved1]

@@dmitrykazakov2829 Would it have been as dreary and gloomy for the people in charge? Did they have luxuries that the ordinary citizen didn't have for example?

[@dmitrykazakov2829]

@@honved1 It was. Stalin enjoyed harassing his closest allies. Molotov's wife was in GULAG. One of Kaganovich's brothers committed suicide anticipating arrest. Right before his death Stalin prepared a new large cleaning. On the 19 Party Congress he accused in passing Molotov and Mikoyan of working for English secret services. As for luxuries. They had state flats, dachas and personal cars, but nothing we would call extravagant. Considering that many ordinary people lived in dugouts it was luxury. An interesting fact, when Khrushchev in 1959 visited an American supermarket he refused to believe it was real. No such abundance possible... 😎

[@shmoola]

@@dmitrykazakov2829 I am a Russian viewer, and I found the film to be great. Primarily because it didn't follow the miserable tropes of the society that is still unable to deal with its trauma. Oh well, I guess I didn't receive the memo for "Russian viewer" reminding us to take the dramatic stance.

[@dmitrykazakov2829]

@@shmoola I have nothing against it being a farce. After all, one of the greatest Russian satirists Evgeny Schwartz lived that time. I only commented that to me the movie did not quite reflect the epoch.

[@kotaowens6978]

It really is interesting how little I’ve heard about the progression of gestures over time

[@shryggur]

Unfortunately, they don't write books in gestures - hence, less material to work with. Although I'm pretty sure there are a few works that collect and analyze every mention of a gesture in literature. Would be interesting to look at the results

[@Ptaku93]

nice stubble lmao

[@AxelGage]

The first documented use of the high five is in the 70s, by baseball player Dusty Baker Jr. He's still working in baseball as a manager.

[@chrisball3778]

My go-to example of this phenomenon is the 2001 film 'A Knight's Tale'. It doesn't even try to be historically accurate in a lot of ways- it has modern music, anachronistic dialogue and even a product placement for Nike. But in other ways, it tries really hard to convey to its audience some of the social and political norms of the 14th century. It does a lot of this through deliberately encouraging comparisons between modern spots culture and medieval tournaments, then juxtaposing those scenes with ones that emphasise the societal differences between life today and 600 years ago, e.g. when the hero comes to London and is worshipped by adoring fans, then reunites with his father who he hasn't seen in over a decade and neither of them knew if the other was still alive. Plus its full of Easter eggs left for people who love medieval history and literature, especially for anyone who's ever read Chaucer. In my experience, people who only know a little bit about medieval history hate it, but people who know a little more generally love it. Maybe there's a point where true experts in the field cross over and start disliking it again, but I've not met anyone that applies to.

[@williampalmer8052]

Absolutely. I think some people miss a major intention of the movie, which I would have thought is very obvious. The anachronisms, especially the music, are very deliberate. For the attendees of the joust, the atmosphere would have been as electrifying as a Queen concert, and at the ball, the music and dance was as "hip" and modern to them as Bowie was for his own time. The intent is to inspire a historically-accurate mood in the modern viewer's mind, to make them feel how the people of that time would have felt, and not to merely deliver factually correct information.

[@bhami]

I'm a 69-year-old American, and I don't recall being annoyed by omnipresent "y'know" until perhaps the 1980's or 1990's. Looking at the older Paul McCartney and other British references you present here makes me think that omnipresent "y'know" came from Britain to America, not vice versa.

[@JohnSmith-oc3tc]

Where in America are you from? I ask because, though I'm not from New York and I wasn't around back then, I've heard that New Yorkers were using "y'know" as a discourse marker as far back as the Great Depression.

[@moxiebombshell]

I wonder if they weren't thinking of "like," not "y'know" ... I think of the overuse of "like" as a very 1960s-70s Americanism, but I honestly don't know if it ever really crossed the Atlantic as such.

[@Laura-kl7vi]

I thought"like" comes from 1980s California accent. Valley Girl.@@moxiebombshell

[@RaphaelBriand]

​@@moxiebombshell "Like" is omnipresent on both continents. Incidentally, it was one of the language predictions in A Clockwork Orange written in 1962, which I believe was long before it was popularised, and possibly the only prediction he got dead-on accurate.

[@moxiebombshell]

@@RaphaelBriand Hey thanks for sharing! I've read A Clockwork Orange a couple times, but it *has* been 20+ years (which I've only just realized and so now feel unexpectedly Old™). I don't remember catching the "like" thing at the time, that's really cool; mostly what stuck with me as far as the dialogue was realizing some of their slang was Russian.

[@michaelaaylott1686]

My mother was 8 when the Second World War started, so she didn’t understand all the implications at the time, but she did always remember the king’s speech on the declaration of war on the radio, because of the tense atmosphere in the room and her mother started crying. Maybe it was different then because there had been a terrible war in living memory which had left its scars on my grandma’s generation.

[@kimfleury]

Yes, that first world war left deep scars, as nearly everyone was impacted by death.

[@hughoxford8735]

WWII was to WW1 as 2002 is to us in 2023.

[@philroberts7238]

@@hughoxford8735 Chronologically, yes, but not psychologically. Some things have more of an impact than others.

[@renerpho]

@@philroberts7238 Maybe the comment would have made more sense with 2001 instead of 2002. 9/11 left a lot of scars, and people vividly remember how they reacted to it. It's not quite on the level of WW1, but close.

[@DanAndHoe]

That really reminds me of my memory of 9/11. I’m Dutch and was about 6 years old then. My mum picked me up from school and immediately turned on the tv when we got home, sitting in a chair close to the tv from which I’ve never seen her watch tv. She was crying as the footage of the attacks rolled. I didn’t understand exactly what was going on, and my mum was too emotional to explain. But it’s seared into my memory. Not even the exact footage, but just seeing my mum react to what was going on on the tele.

[@franticranter]

I also expect that part of it is that language in film and the like is already pretty inaccurate as it is. There’s often a lack of the sort of interruptions, false starts self-repair etc. that we find in everyday speech in film (even film set in today). So people are more willing to accept linguistic inauthenticity in film, whether that be in the accents that people use, or the exact way the speech is produced. I also expect that when you go so far back (e.g: if you were to set a film in the Tudor period) the language is so different that it’s basically infeasible to make a film with dialogue the way they spoke it at the time. In that case it’s more or less just a translation, which people are willing to accept as a necessity to be able to understand what they’re saying

[@JohnCallaghanMusic]

The Vincent episode of Doctor Who has a nice way of translating a period experience for modern (British) audiences: Vincent's 'Dutch outsider' status is conveyed by his Scottish accent (which he associates with Karen Gillan's character too); the locals have Mummerset accents to suggest it's a rural setting; and in the scenes in modern day Paris Bill Nighy uses a 'posher' accent (for want of a better term).

[@Kyusoath]

'a nice way' of pointlessly lying and misrepresenting ? so 'nice'

[@KorbentMarksman]

@@Kyusoath Do you have a masters degree in missing the point?

[@burendasan]

1) I just love those movies filmed in the 70s and 80s that take place in the 1800s. The women’s hairstyles scream “70s/80s” 2) The video of the men reacting to the news of Princess Diana’s death was interesting. The reactions to another event that would be interesting to look into are the reactions to the news of what happened on 9/11. The way I remember it (and from people’s anecdotes years later), many people did not react in shock initially because events were still developing and it wasn’t until they saw footage on TV that they understood the gravity of the situation. Sometimes they first learned about the attacks from seeing the footage on TV but they mistook it for a scene from a movie.

[@phildavison319]

With regards to 2) I remember my radio alarm turning on after Diana died after the news had been given so I first heard people going on about things she'd done which weren't totally complementary but weren't knocking her at all, rather than what had just happened, and my first thought was, "What's she done now?" It was only between five and ten minutes later they mentioned again that she'd died. At that point I do remember feeling genuinely shocked. As for 9/11, I was conditioned to it because I was working in a Canadian bank in London and we heard screams and crying from an office down the corridor - people were in a video call to a small building next to the World Trade Center - and then a colleague's aunt who lived in New York called to say, "Don't worry about us, we're all OK." so I already knew something bad had happened but didn't know the full extent for some time after.

[@renerpho]

@@phildavison319 The way people react to historical events very much depends on the circumstances, and you give two nice examples there. I guess some of the shock you describe wasn't so much about Diana's passing per se, but the jarring effect of the 5-10 minutes that preceded it. It's similar to how an unexpected resolution to a joke makes us laugh. The reaction is about the resolution, not about what's actually happened. I was in my early teens when 9/11 happened, and what I remember myself asking is "what's the world trade center". It was through a live ticker (text only) on some TV program. I didn't know it was in New York, I didn't know it was a building (or two), it didn't register as a concept at all. "Two planes flying into the world trade center" may just be "two planes crashing at an airport", for all I knew. It was maybe 5 or 10 minutes before I began realizing what was actually happening. Very strange feeling. Would I have been shocked if I had seen it unfold live on TV (with images and live commentary), like so many others did? I don't know.

[@dayalasingh5853]

I remember my dad told me he was in university at the time (he had me very young and soon after so I'm not a child) and he took the subway to campus and everyone was just kinda sad and somber and he was all confused and then he went to class and no one was sure if things were cancelled or not but no one was there and eventually he figured out what happened, and he went back to his shitty student apartment and he didn't have a TV so he just listened to the news on his radio. I wonder if he knew how much it would affect him specifically as a brown man at the time.

[@LordJazzly]

16:47 Oh my god, that takes me back to older male relatives speaking to each other way back when, (in Queensland, Australia,) and they said 'you know' as well, and it was the same sort of 'discourse marker' thing - but it wasn't formulaic or unconscious, it wasn't a verbal tic, because you'd also get extended forms of it. 'Don't you know', 'as you know', 'wouldn't you know', 'as you might know', 'you'd know this', 'you know him'; they all meant roughly the same thing, they were a verbal interjection to sort-of check if the person you were talking to was following what you'd said, but mostly to buy you a little more time to compose your next thought - but it was slightly more of a direct and conscious engagement with the other person, it wasn't quite yet something you just said as a verbal pause in speech; it wasn't the sort of thing you'd probably say into a tape recorder, but you might say it to a hall of people, who couldn't respond directly anyway. And that's almost half-way between using the phrase literally, to engage with the other person, and using the phrase as a speech marker or verbal tic.

[@menoconoces]

Changes in speech patterns regionally and on a decadal scale must be very difficult to track and reproduce. Thirty-five-ish years ago while lecturing in math at a college, I pointed to a theorem on the blackboard and said that it was “really neat.” The class laughed, then someone exclaimed “Twenty-three skiddoo!” whereupon they laughed hysterically. They were seriously amused and not trying to be derisive ot insulting. I, who had been an undergraduate in the 60's and did not feel ancient, was flabbergasted. You may well be laughing at the language I have used to describe the incident, for that matter. An interesting dimension of language and its incredible complexity beyond just grammar and morphology.

[@MarxismLilyism]

This specific example is really interesting to me too because as a young person (24) I would definitely describe something as “very neat” in a sort of half-ironic but still mostly genuine way. I’m not sure what the history of that phrase is, but it’s almost as though it’s come around for another pass

[@ChestersonJack]

I’m 21 and I say “really neat” with some regularity. In middle school I said “neat-o!” so often it was basically my catchphrase, and my best friend picked it up from me, so when when I had stopped using it, she was saying it well into high school. By that time I had started saying “rad” as both an adjective and exclamation, and that same friend picked that one up for use through to graduation, in 2020!

[@petrushka1611]

A guy at my old church would excessively use "Lord" as a filler word (is a filler word the same as a discourse marker?) when he was praying on prayer meeting night. One time I kept track and counted over 120 uses in about 10 minutes. At one point, he used it twice in a row with a short pause between, like a filler word for a filler word. Something like, "We just want to thank you, Lord...Lord." I don't know how well this story comes across in print, but in the moment it cracked me up.

[@jaojao1768]

that is very fascinating! Makes me wonder if for example mediaeval monks did the same

[@theJellyjoker]

Talking about being present for live broadcasts of important historical tragic events, I remember on 9/11/01. That morning My mother was at a Dr appointment, my sister was in the bathroom getting ready for work and I was eating breakfast. My mother called and told us that an airplane had crashed into a building in New York. My sister worked as a flight instructor at our local municipal airport in Central Florida. We turned the news on, and they were showing a live feed from one of the news helicopters. I noticed an airplane enter from the left of the screen and I said to my sister "Wouldn't it be funny if that other plane crashed into the other tower?" we both laughed at what we though was an absurd impossibility because we thought the first crash was an accident. And then the airplane I just joked about crashed into the other tower. We stopped laughing and stared at the TV in shock for the next few hours as the rest of the events unfolded. It took me days to get my sense of humor back.

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

It's the teeth. All the characters in period dramas have the teeth of someone who does regular dentist visits.

[@phillyphilly2095]

Exactly

[@AttilatheNun-xv6kc]

The honorable exception being, as far as I can see, the TV miniseries *John Adams* (2009), about the second President of the United States. As the main character aged his teeth were clearly seen to deteriorate. And in one scene the extras were made to apply stains to their teeth so that when they cheered (this was at George Washington's first inauguration in 1789) the viewers could plainly see many of them had unhealthy dentition.

[@TerryWaitesRadiator]

Funnily enough, when my dad watched legend. The thing that annoyed him most was the pub having draught Guinness which he said you couldn't get over in England in the 60s

[@DECODEDVFX]

There were 3,200 pubs and bars serving draught Guinness in the UK in 1962. By 1971 there was 40,000. So it's safe to say Guinness' draught popularity exploded in the 60s, probably due to the introduction of nitrokegs, which made serving Guinness much simpler. I imagine a lot of those pubs were situated in London and Liverpool though, so it's possible that your dad didn't encounter it, depending where he lived.

[@TerryWaitesRadiator]

@@DECODEDVFX in one of those very cities as it happens

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

On the hairstyle point - the director of the movie The Northman (which has an otherwise pretty good representation of old norse material culture) wanted at first to give the main character, Amleth, a historically accurate (to the best of our knowledge) haircut. Unfortunately, for the time, what would have been considered a fairly normal haircut for a prince was what we would today call a bowl cut. It was changed fairly early in the production to just modern, unkempt long hair, because the crew thought it wasn't "badass" enough.

[@Survivethejive]

Smdh people can't appreciate the power of the bowl cut

[@littlesnowflakepunk855]

I do frequently go back through my memories of that movie and think what it would have been like if Eggers had gotten his way, and if that movie had been super popular. Would we have seen a cult resurgence in the coconut head sphere? Would the bowl cut have been granted a third rise in popularity? Would large burly blond men be flocking to Great Clips to get "the Amleth?"

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Back in the hippy 1960s/70s, you couldn’t pay actors enough money to have their hair cut short in a historically correct military fashion. Just look at Michael Caine playing Lt Bromhead in “Zulu”.

[@DellDuckfan313]

As someone who's spent considerable time looking at animated movies based on their historical accuracy, I think there's an additional aspect that doesn't focus so much on the material culture or the language, but the general ethos of the period. It's easy to make something look physically authentic, now more than ever, but it's much harder to convey historical perspective. Interestingly, this is where adaptations often do best, because the original author managed to capture something of the culture they were writing in, rather than using the past as an allegory or something in the present. I'm reminded of a scene from the John Adams miniseries, where an elderly Adams stands before the painting of the Declaration of Independence and lectures the painter John Trumbull on historical accuracy. The catch? That scene never happened, it was completely made up. The real Adams loved the painting. But it satisfies our preconceived notions of John Adams as this crabby old man, ever the agitator, never at rest. And it's a great scene.

[@LordJazzly]

18:30 The only specific detail I remember about English in the 2010s is that I had friends who had watched _Mean Girls_ and they decided to make 'fetch' happen, ironically, as an ironic reference to the film... I'm fairly sure there had to have been several more layers of irony intended there, as it was the 2010s and making everyone have to try to guess how you actually felt about things was _extremely_ trendy.

[@Will-ip8ok]

Man, your stuff is so thought provoking and well produced. Keep up the incredible work

[@mytube001]

I love this sort of stuff! One aspect of how people spoke in the past is often overlooked, and that is the character of the voice. Women in particular spoke more softly, more breathy and often in a slightly higher register in the 60s and 70s and perhaps into the 80s compared to later.

[@pooroldnostradamus]

This channel is a cosy oasis in the desert of the interweb

[@paulworsley2757]

I grew up in the 60s/70s (born 1962), and can remember being corrected by my parents for using "y'know" in conversations.

[@victorpearson1418]

Two remarkably evocative films for me , are "Withnail and I " (60s Freak /Bohemian culture ) and "Red Riding " , concerning events around the early 70s "Yorkshire Ripper " Police investigation .I was born in 1948 and was in Leeds during those times , and found them scarily (and embarrassingly ) accurate in the small details as well as the ambience conjured up .

[@portialipton]

What do you think of the accuracy of actors not using contractions in historical films? They may not have been written (except perhaps in poetry) but surely they would have been used in spoken language, across the classes.

[@philroberts7238]

They feature in Dickens's conversations probably even more than they do today. And for all social classes (except perhaps for those in the very middle of the spectrum.)

[@iagas9]

I often think about regional accents in TV. Peggy Olson on Mad Men does not have a Brooklyn accent, even though someone born in the 1930s in south Brooklyn would. I think it would've been distracting to have Elisabeth Moss (from California, born in the 1980s) do this the whole time, but it would've completely changed the character.

[@moxiebombshell]

I live in Florida, a top retirement destination for New Yorkers. My across the street neighbor is 89 and has retained his classic Brooklyn accent. It's amazing, and every time I hear him I realize how rarely you hear that anymore, even in Brooklyn

[@TheLugiProductions]

Very interesting topic. Makes you realize just how little has been recorded of history, especially since the snippets that do servive, are just that, and may not give a fair representation of how people behaved in general, and how large the differences in behavior could have been.

[@nolanfultz3343]

The problem with these creative choices like with Gatsby appealing to 2013 youth is that in a few decades it will be outdated like the 1900s customs are outdated now. It will probably appear really strange to people who watch it in the 2060s or later.

[@LiquidSolidus9000]

On people of the time having a limited scope of their world, I remember a school assignment in 4th grade to ask our parents/grandparents their memories of getting radio/television, and other technologies, and one kid's grandpa remembered TV as coming before radio.

[@petermaling943]

Hi Simon and thanks for the video. Speaking firsthand, smoking was very big in the 1960s. Popular UK brands were Players, Capstan and Senior Service, all unfiltered, although filters were just nudging in, with the new Embassy brand featuring coupons, and the still current Benson and Hedges, which were slightly longer and called Kingsize. In a tube train of six carriages, four were smoking, and two nonsmoking. You could smoke almost everywhere, shops, restaurants, buses and of course pubs. Many photos of the time have had the cigs photoshopped out. All the Beatles and Stones smoked, and seemed determined to show that in every photo. John Lennon actually said they didn’t mind being photographed smoking as that made them seem more “normal”. Nowadays he would have probably said relatable. Historically it gets tricky. I remember someone making a fictional movie about Stephen Hawking saying he’d chosen to drop the mid century smoking, as people just wouldn’t accept that much. The world was one big ashtray!

[@moxiebombshell]

my dad got to see the mission control room for the Mercury space missions as a kid, and he told me that something missing in modern film recreations of early space missions was the massively overflowing ashtrays at every seat, and the perpetual haze of smoke filling the room

[@petermaling943]

@@moxiebombshellwow! What an experience for him! Those real control rooms were often televised during launches, and it seemed every person was clinging onto a cigar, cigarette or pipe.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

@@moxiebombshell- To be fair, the newest depiction of US mission control does indeed show those chain-smoking technicians. Thinking specifically of Apple TV’s “For All Mankind”.

[@austendw]

I think that modernizing language in films etc. so that that dialogue appears "natural" for modern speakers will work only as long as the hearer has never thought of a phrase as new. However, when someone remembers when a phrase came into use and knows in their bones that it's a "new" coinage, then it appears disturbingly anachronistic in an earlier context, jolts the hearer into an awareness of that disjunction and can wreck the sense of period. For me, if an actor in a scene set in the 18th Century were to say "Let's DO this!" and I know that I only started hearing this expression recently, and so it sounds like an emphatically modern expression, then the performer would no longer be the 18th century character who I could relate to as if I had been pulled back into the 18th century, but he/she suddenly becomes a 21st century character in fancy dress. I expect that someone young enough not to remember when this expression was new would not have this feeling and would find it unobjectionable.

[@CC-hx5fz]

On smoking- I started rolling cigarettes in the 80s, and was always told that it was something that people shouldn't openly do in public because this was a "skill" that would only be learned in borstal or prison. My stepfather smoked rollies and he'd only been in the merchant navy. So, maybe there was an associated stigma about having been institutionalised in some way. Also, the shop bought cigarettes, that you can buy now, are always kingsized or bigger. This is more than twice the size of mid century cigarettes even if the filters are larger. We used to refer to the ultra long cocktail cigarettes such as Sobriany and Moores as "tart's fags", but sometimes bought a packet to offer to the ladies, with a babycham, at Christmas.

[@stephanierehak1029]

Another example of contemporary cursing in a historical film can be seen in My Fair Lady. GBS shocked theatre- goers in Pygmalion when Eliza Doolittle said “walk, not bloody likely.” When they made My Fair Lady for the screen, “bloody” had lost its shock value, so they had her say “move your blooming arse” to the horse she bet on at Ascot.

[@Bob_the_Jedi]

It's always a pleasure to see one of your videos appear in my "feed".

[@chrisball3778]

Re: historical smoking- I smoked from the late 90's to the mid 2000's. I smoked mainly roll-ups (hand rolled), but it was because I was broke. They were much cheaper than pre-rolled cigarettes. But tobacco products overall were becoming ever more expensive due to taxes levied on them to discourage smoking. Back in the 60's, taxes on tobacco were much lower, so the cost of smoking relative to income was too. Pre-rolled cigarettes would have been comparatively more affordable at that point in time, and the savings from smoking roll-ups wouldn't have gone as far as they would have done when I was a smoker. The additional cost of smoking manufactured vs hand-rolled cigarettes varied over time, and the group of people willing to be seen smoking roll-ups would have done too. Pipe smoking was also something that generally declined in popularity over time, which had its own price structure attached. It's not surprising that different people, from different locations and different socio-economic backgrounds had different perceptions of what was 'normal'.

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

Do you remember being able to buy paper tubes with attached filters and a machine to stuff them with loose tobacco? We used to watch the TV while chatting and stuffing tomorrow's smokes.

[@philroberts7238]

@@AnnaAnna-uc2ff With tobacco and only tobacco, do you mean?

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

As a ten-year old in the early 1970s, I used to pinch cigarettes from my uncle’s bedroom in my gran’s house, while he was away. They were mainly unfiltered Senior Service, packed in a single large carton, I think of 300 ciggies. When he came home and smoked through his supply, he switched to roll-ups, mainly because he was skint and they were so much cheaper. He had a special metal gizmo, a hand-powered machine, that allowed him to make very neat roll-ups. Put all the components in, including a filter, turn the rollers, lick the glue at the edge of the rizla paper and … hey presto, one tidy roll-up.

[@chrisball3778]

@@sirrathersplendid4825 There's so much complicated lore attached to smoking. I'm really glad I don't smoke any more, and I hope my son never smokes, but I really hope some of this weird history survives because it says so much about the time it came from, and the people (like your uncle) who lived through it! Maybe there ought to be some kind of concerted effort to put together some sort of 'Smoker's Museum' to preserve evidence of tobacco culture before it dies out? It'd be better if it happened organically, rather than let one of the tobacco companies launch it as an attempt to carry on promoting their addictive poisons.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

@@chrisball3778 - There’s masses of ‘smoking lore’ preserved on film so I don’t see it ever being lost. Pretty sure that one or more of the great tobacco companies has a collection of smoking paraphernalia. Pleased to hear from my brother last week that he’s ditched smoking roll-ups and taken up vaping!

[@mch12311969]

As someone who has a degree in history, and an interest in language as well as dress (fashion) history, I tend to agree with your original thesis. I have had a number of friends tell me that they will not watch certain films or tv programs with me for this reason. Another interesting video Simon.

[@cameroncobb98]

Your videos are always so engaging and interesting, no matter the topic, from linguistics to the language of film, your videos are always very informative

[@mrjoe5661]

Having already (quite mildly!) criticised your video production, I've now watched the whole video, and felt compelled to praise your content once again. So many things you spoke about rang massive bells with me, not least your references to the Peter Jackson film "Get Back" which I found absolutely fascinating! That being said, as I was born in 1953, The Beatles were my "contemporary" music! Your comments about accents, dialect and discourse markers interested me a lot. Also the references to smoking habits. Today's version of "you know" would probably be "like" "right" or "yeah?". I would dearly love to discuss these topics one to one! I've long been a student of language, accents and dialect, and I'm something of a pedant when it comes to historical and/or technical accuracy in films/tv! Again, congrats on an excellent vid! PS I LOVE your references to the wartime "wireless"! That term relating to a radio set died out in the late 60s/ early 70s, and was resurrected in the 2000s referring to Bluetooth and WiFi!

[@helenamcginty4920]

No idea why but the old word 'wireless' is somehow warmer than 'radio'. I am only a few years older and recall Listen with Mother and Children's Hour. Loved Daphne Oxenford but there was something unpleasant about the voice of the man on Children's' hour. It was pretty boring as well I think. I was 6, so 1954, when one of our neighbours got a tv and invited the street to look at it. Adults inside and kids crowded round the window.

[@mrjoe5661]

@@helenamcginty4920 I still use it regularly, mainly in the company of my teen nephews and nieces, just to see their reaction! 🤣😅

[@fuckdefed]

@@mrjoe5661 My Nan still sometimes says it unironically but she’s in her 90s and sometimes says ‘radio’ instead. I suspect that and the use of ‘outdoors’ for off-licence, along with a few other traits like very posh or cockney people saying ‘nev-yoo’ for ‘nephew’ and old people in the West Midlands and Warwickshire saying ‘ar’ for ‘yes’ (though non-rhotically, not like pirates) will completely disappear in the next 10 to 20 years.

[@philroberts7238]

@@helenamcginty4920 Would that have been "Uncle Mac"?

[@helenamcginty4920]

I enjoy reading 18th and 19th century authors, esp Smollet, Peacock and Fielding, and am struck by the differences in both language and sensibilities. A favourite is Smollett's The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker for its humour, descriptions of towns, cities and people met on the peregrinations of Squire Bramble and his odd retinue around the Britain of his day. The mangling of English in the various letters of his sister and her maid, contrasting with that if Bramble and his friend back in Wales. Etc.

[@maiNmusica]

I love this. As someone who thoroughly enjoys a period drama, I find this topic so interesting! I have been known to chat about historical accuracy after watching a film, but I've never thought about all the different layers that you mentioned. Your content is always so thought-provoking.

[@gizzard3054]

Genuinely interesting take on the concept that I hadn't at all thought about before. Good video!

[@brooklybeli6970]

You talking about the 2010s reminds me of conversations I had with my own friends about how London slang has changed fairly quickly in under a decade. Things that were used fairly commonly among kids the same age had disappeared by the time we reached 16. Worth pursuing I reckon

[@helenamcginty4920]

There is now a new dialect? called Modern London English with offshoots in other large cities. This blends English Cockney, Jamaican amd various Asian languages, or at keast those bits favoured by "yoof" . I find it sad and jarring when middle aged people, often male once famous DJs, try and maintain their youth by using the language and pronunciation (eg f in place if th) of today's young. Verbal equivalent of botox and lip fillers. Sort of living historical inaccuracies. 😆

[@brooklybeli6970]

@@helenamcginty4920 I'm of the opinion that it's just cockney that developed differently once you had all the eastenders sell their council homes and move out. I guess in that sense it's a sister dialect of the modern "Essex accent". I guess it is a little cringe-inducing seeing older people trying to be "down with the kids" but that's a tale as old as time (there are several Simpsons episodes about that!) But I'm in my early 20s, if I tried to speak in slang to kids, I'd be immediately showing my age to kids not even that much younger P.S. I don't know if you're aware but jarring is pretty common in the modern London vernacular (used in a bit of a broader sense) so people aren't as distant to the speech of youth as they thing they are. I guess, like any language, you have to figure out the patterns of usage to reach that point of "authenticity" (I remember in French class, we'd teach out teacher slang and he learnt that "man" is basically the equivalent to the pronoun one or the french pronoun on)

[@brooklybeli6970]

@@techtutorvideos I'm sure there are nuances even among the south and sun belt. I think I read somewhere (or perhaps Simon might have said it) that the further west you head in the US the less distinct accents are because of how recently they were colonised. Plus they were populated by many people whpse own varieties of English levelled. Interesting though that there are distinct West American Englishes: Californian and Pacific Northwest. Both are showing vowel changes that are similar to a Canadian one. Within these there are urban and rural accents. Now this isnt surprising, these areas have large populations: rural and urban. What's interesting is that there appears to be accents developing around Utah, Hawaii and New Mexico based on different social changes. Hawaiian is being influenced by Hawaiian Creole, New Mexican American English is differentiating itself due to local changes within the Hispanic English sociolect and Utah is exhibiting some changes but the English of the Morman corridor is apparently more conservative to the changes occurring in West American English. There's differences all around, some just might not be noticeable due to the reasons Simon mentioned: we don't tend to notice them as we grow older. I do think though its fascinating that we can record and witness in real time the minute accent and dialect changes of American English (and others!) over the course of decades

[@revolution1237]

@@brooklybeli6970 As Eric Singer says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Time and isolation make an accent distinct." That's the key importance when we're talking about accent variety. As TTV said before, and as you said before, there are more accent varieties in the British Isles than in the rest of the English-speaking world because the locals there had, and have, the time and isolation to develop their own flavored drinks. And, from an American perspective, there are more accent varieties on the East Coast than on the West Coast. It's been settled there by English speakers longer. P.S. Yes, if you're wondering, I am entirely paraphrasing Eric Singer here.

[@brooklybeli6970]

@@revolution1237 I wouldn't say isolation is a huge factor per se. As I mentioned, Hispanic Americans are influencing the local vernaculars so I would say that dialects don't require isolation to develop

[@255ad]

the thing you said about wanting to set something in the early 2010s reminded me something interesting from the world of anime. I don't know if you ever watched Digimon as a kid, it was a pokemon like show about kids using colorful monster friends to fight other monsters, and it came out in the late 1990s. Well in 2020 they did a sequel movie where all the characters are like university age, but they decided to keep the timeline consistent with the original show so its set in 2010 because that's when people who were like preteen around the year 2000 would be going to university. Even though the time difference is only 10 years people have managed to spot some anachronisms in the film. Like for example all the characters in the film have smart phones and in 2010 that still wasn't quit the norm in Japan, flip phones remained the norm there a bit later than in America and Europe.

[@TheTedder]

There is a tv show called Carnivale set in America in the early 20th century and I always noticed while watching it that the actors spoke in an "old-fashioned way," but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what they were doing that gave that impression. I would be interested in hearing your take on how accurate the speech in that show is for the time period.

[@stephanieparker1250]

My FAVORITE Dr Who episode ❤ Cried buckets at the end.

[@violaillyria1]

Everything you do is brilliant!!!❤

[@dorteweber3682]

As a writer of historical romance, I am most interested in the sorts of worldviews that were possible for people in that period. I don't like when characters espouse ideas that were not in existence yet.

[@58andyr]

Thank you. All my life and every day, i've been constantly pondering just these things! and thinking I've been wasting my time!

[@implode573]

As always, excellent thoughts. I love to think about this stuff.

[@kjpcgaming9296]

I'm not sure if this is still relevant. But I was born in the late 60's. I was raised for the most part by my grandparents, I lived with my parents but my grandparents especially my grandfather had far more influence on me than my parents did. I can remember very clearly growing up with the knowledge of WWII and how that shaped who we were as a family. When 9/11 happened (I should say that I'm American) I was at once shocked, frightened, dismayed and I had immediate thoughts of what it must have been for my grandparents when Pearl Harbor happened. To me, having been raised that way it was no different. My thoughts went immediately to "we're going to war" "we're going to stop the bad thing because we're American and we stop the bad thing" whatever the bad thing is. Whether that is in fact a true statement has nothing to do with how i felt. i was raised by a generation of extraordinary patriotic people and I was extraordinary patriotic - at that time. It was "our war" much in the same way that WWII was my grandfather's war. Of course times had changed around that and circumstances were very different and in the end it proved to not be the same thing but that's not the point. The point is that while I was very modern then I was also very influenced by my grandparent's perspective on things.

[@alisonridout]

Great video Simon

[@stephenbenner4353]

I was a teenager in the 1990s, and now I couldn’t verify the accuracy of how people talked back then. My speech has changed, my vocabulary has changed, and the world is so much different now than it was then when the internet was some new-dangled thing that only a few people had, but my family didn’t.

[@WillThisLast]

Besides being interested in Simon’s videos and topics, I must admit that I love the moodiness I see in his eyes. I’m sorry, I had to admit it!

[@DellDuckfan313]

9:02 It's interesting that you chose to focus on the pronunciation of Auvers here, and not on Van Gogh ;)

[@DellDuckfan313]

20:30 There's also a political rewriting of these events going on, as there were plenty of people who were perhaps friendly to Germany or fascism in general at the time Chamberlain made his speech. We tend to think of the past as much more homogenous than it really was. The same is true for a remake of The Great Gatsby: it confirms our pre-conceived ideas of the 1920s as being this mad, frenzied party, which are partly shaped by the fact that The Great Gatsby is still in our collective memory.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Talking about remembering unique words and phrases, I went to a small boarding school in the 1970s where we had about 100 boarders from all around the world plus about 20 local “day-boys”. The school developed a unique slang, which incorporated words from half a dozen languages, plus a number of colourful local terms. Many of these words and phrases are unintelligible today to people who didn’t attend the school. Most of the words seem to have originated from just a handful of the more boisterous boys, who had a huge influence on the way we all spoke.

[@kotaowens6978]

Thanks for your videos!

[@arcanics1971]

I had no idea people have called Get Back boring. I have watched it several times- yes, all of it- and I am not particularly a Beatles fan! I found it fascinating.

[@0palheart]

I recently watched Twin Peaks which is only from 30 years ago but even so I could hear a lot of differences in the way characters spoke compared to today, of course some of that is it being a scripted drama it won't always sound natural even in its own time, but just a lot of subtle stuff like word choice and tone. And considering some of the younger characters/actors in it would be like around my parents' age, I wonder what my parents sounded like back then because now they sound very modern of course but you pick up new stuff throughout your life. It makes me want to record videos of myself and my friends speaking naturally, to look back on in 30 or so years, it will probably be really striking

[@baerlauchstal]

A writer who always attended to--indeed, delighted in--the language of his chosen period was Patrick O'Brian, and to a certain extent this comes across in the movie Master and Commander. I'm of course not expert enough to know how authentic it is, but it has the *ring* of authenticity; and I love the way he draws distinctions among the varieties of English spoken by no-nonsense Tory gentry, foremast jacks, educated Irish speakers (I don't mean speakers of Irish; the main Irish character has largely forgotten his childhood Irish).

[@philroberts7238]

Listening to Peter Weir describe the making of that movie is fascinating and bears out what you say. You can find it on KZbin.

[@lynnjohansen5734]

My mom, born in Chicago Illinois in 1921, disliked the movie Titanic very much. It didn’t seem of the time to her in characters and how they spoke. It might have been her having romantic ideas about how things were in that period, but I too found the dialogue too modern to be convincing. Interesting topic, thanks for the video.

[@kidsea13]

20:53 There was a video somewhere on youtube that was essentially just an online group chat reacting to the 2011 Indycar race where Dan Wheldon was killed in a crash, and I can't help but wonder how many of those sorts of things will wind up getting preserved and how valuable they might be for future historians if they do

[@mrjoe5661]

I'm not yet halfway through your video but I have a major criticism already, not of the content (which I find fascinating and riveting!) but of your video production. Several times you place written text on screen over which you talk, but your spoken script is complete different to the text on screen. It's physically impossible for the (average) human brain to take in and comprehend 2 such differing inputs simultaneously, the result being that I had to pause the video to read the on-screen text, then separately listen to your spoken narrative. You're not alone in this, I find it in many KZbin videos, but as your subject matter includes acute and minute observation, I thought it necessary to bring this to your attention. Content-wise I LOVE the video!

[@Finkelthusiast]

Fantastic discussion on how we perceive history, how we remember it and how it was. This seems analogous to how VFX and SFX are used in film where it is more important to make sure it looks real in camera rather than to the eye. Similarly, it is more important to evoke certain periods and attitudes rather than to present it like a documentary as that may alienate the audience. I would love to see a study with a film like the Godfather which is set in the 50s but filmed in the 70s and having the benefit of hindsight for both eras to see how 70s sensibilities are reflected in the story. I remember watching Manhattan (dir. Woody Allen) and being amazed by how modern the presentation seemed. I wonder how a film set in the 70s which presented similarly would perform with audiences today.

[@flannerypedley840]

thinking about Simon remarking on people sitting around staring at the radio at the declaration of war. I thought, my father who grew up with the radio but not the TV NEVER looked at the radio when it was on regardless of how intently he was listening, whereas people of my generation who grew up with TV tend to look at the radio or whatever is producing the noise.

[@simonroper9218]

This is the kind of thing that wouldn't have occurred to me! Thanks for your informative comment :)

[@SouthPark333Gaming]

Brilliant video!

[@richarddyasonihc]

You have covered a rather broad range of language related subjects in this video. I have been fascinated by your videos for some time,now, because although history is probably one of my strongest interests, I am also very interested in the English language & how it has always been changing with time. However, of course Thais is only one factor which applies to to the language as a whole - aas you have often pointed out, region of origin & immigration has has an enormous impact, as have conquests, acquisitions and even changes in government and religion. I was born in 1952, and attended both Preparity and Public schools - in addition to which my father was a Master Mariner, so I was also fairly well travelled both around Britain & to some extent overseas, by the time I was 21. I don’t usually watch films & have. Ever played a video game (apart from ‘pong’ on my parent’s TV). I have. Read The Great Gatsby, and I wouldn’t have seen those. Characters as anymore youthful than those of Antic Hay, by Aldous Huxley - but they were probably older than I was when I read the books. I woulhave liked to have been able to listen to the conversations had by Rupert Brook & his Cambridge friends, as many of the went on to form the Bloomsbury Group. For some obscure reason, I am still critical of those who ignore grammatical rules when speaking - fine, if it is part and parcel of regional dialect, but rather inexcusable coming from well educated people. As you may imagine, I speak with what is regarded as RP; however, I have toned it down a lot from my younger days. History is not just about facts, dates and period detail; in reality (or in my opinion), it is more about the factors, causes, people & beliefs. Largely speaking most historical events which are of interest to the historian, are also driven by economic circumstances - either internal or international. It would be interesting to sit down and have a long chat with you regarding many of the subjects which you raise, but I’m about three generation older than you. . . . . not that this should be relevant, however, to many it is.

[@nyckolaus]

always fascinating!

[@jimsimm7144]

I love that you made a connection with Jackson. I'm a KZbin fan of both of you.

[@full_time_motorhome]

You did use you know and Ermm a lot. I think people are worried about losing identity for example using the words like. Tick-tock is probably where this is more prevalent due to American and global influence. I like my geordie accent but I don’t like hearing it on tv. It’s a bit weird. Walking around Newcastle city centre it’s very genuinely hard to hear a northern or geordie accent being spoken. Sometimes this observation is categorised as being racist but far from it. It’s about losing regional identity. A friend of mine who passed away in 2018 , an Irish citizen, could identify the Irish village or town they were from by their accent or surname. My point is that Irish civilisation was built around local clans and for good or bad this is being erroded. Enjoying your in depth videos!

[@Sky-bx9mn]

That was a really interesting video and had a lot of perspectives I hadn't considered before. For my own experiences, I write a series that's all period pieces of a period I actually lived through--starts in 1999 and it's up through the mid-2000s now--and doing the research for them feels so odd. My mind doesn't have a neat timeline of when things came out or when this or that changed. It's further complicated by that just being /such/ a time of change. Just looking at music, my characters go from taking half an hour to download a single song on Napster to, just a couple of years later, having a whole playlist on their iPod. In terms of communication /methods/, you're going from just getting used to AIM being a thing to MySpace to Facebook and Skype and Twitter and... so much explosion of just, everything. I'm still one year before the iPhone comes out, so texting is becoming a more popular thing but it's still in the T9 era, and nobody has a smartphone. Especially because I am writing stories about queer characters, I have to think about what rights were like when, what the social atmosphere was like, what the characters would be more or less closeted about. Linguistically, I often have to look up terms--especially queer identity terms--to see whether a word had been invented yet, and think about things like "okay, this word first appeared on this social media site, which of my characters would actually have engaged with that site?" It's quite a ride, and that's just going back two decades.

[@braedentalkington1893]

I'd be interested in hearing what you think of the film The Witch (2015). It's a fantastic folk horror film that I as a Historian geek out about. Because I love it so much, I watched all of the bonus features on the Blu-Ray where they went into how all of the lines basically were pulled from documents written at the time that the story is set (along with also getting the clothing and set to be as "historically accurate" as they could). A lot of people thought the film was boring because of it but I thought it was BRILLIANT. I'm always telling people that it's like someone gave a history professor a budget to make a film.

[@leod-sigefast]

Is that the one with Anya Taylor-Joy? Yes, I thought it was a good psychological 'terror' kind of film, very atmospheric and gave you the feeling of really being on the edge of civilisation, which I imagine the writers/director really wanted to portray. I was struck with the language they used though but not for the reasons most people thought of it, namely as being very accurate for the period. I thought they went over into the realm of hyper-correction with the English used at the time (about 1600-1640s). The heavy usage of thou, thee, ye, you was, I think, an attempt to give it an authentic sound but being a bit of a linguistics geek (amateur) it was quite jarring. I was quite sure that thou, thee, ye, you usage was antiquated even by Shakespeares day at the end of the 1500s. I think it was dying out as early as the late 1400s. It did linger on in certain religious communities, such as the Quakers, so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a northern English family in early colonial (1600s) America were using thou, thee, ye, you but it is not likely, and it would have sounded antiquated even then.

[@revolution1237]

@@leod-sigefast Even now, I associate thou, thee, and ye (excluding you) with religion because the King James Bible kinda solidified 'em as such.

[@philroberts7238]

@@leod-sigefast I'd disagree with you here. The 2nd Person singular (thou, thee etc) continued far longer than you imagine and it still survives in some contexts and in some places to this day, even in everyday speech. Shakespeare was quite consistent in this regard and it is clear that his audience would have been highly aware of the implications when speakers switched from one second person form to the other. Put simply, its usage was precisely the same as the "tu" versus "vous" forms in modern French - i.e. 'you' was not only used for addressing more than one person, of course, but also as the polite form of address to someone else, whereas 'thou' was the informal address, used not only for family, lovers and close friends, but also to children, animals and social inferiors. So if someone shifts from calling you 'you' to calling you 'thou', they are either being super friendly or else they are deliberately insulting you and it's fairly sure you (and the audience) would know from the context the reason why they had chosen to do so. 'Ye', so far as I know, was the informal plural form of 'thou'. (Pluralising for the sake of aggrandisement extended to the 1st Person as well, which is why the kings in Shakespeare refer to themselves as 'We'. Strangely, God, who is reputed to be much grander still, is always referred to as 'Thou' even today in episcopalian churches amongst others.)

[@buckbell7784]

Popping in to share an example that came to mind - Michael Mann’s 2009 film Public Enemies. The historical discrepancy in this film is not one of content, but of form - it takes place in 1930s America, but it was shot digitally. The digital cinematography creates a sense of immersive verisimilitude, but it also acts as the thematic fulcrum of the story, which is more or less about the inexorable march of time and the way John Dillinger and outlaws like him were isolated to an older era, out of place in the new American modernity. The disparity between the movie’s period setting and (then) contemporary digital format projects this theme into the viewer, who picks up on it, consciously or not. (Interesting how Mann’s use of digital is usually a point of negative criticism, never really engaged with as a deliberate choice or aesthetic feature.)

[@TerryDowne]

As to Chamberlain's speech and the declaration of war, I recall one British veteran saying that when the news hit he thought that many people were "tired of this giving up business," i.e. the policy of appeasement, and so met the declaration with a sense of resolve. A regular officer of the Royal Irish Fusiliers said that in his outfit the declaration was taken quite calmly. War was their trade, and there were even some toasts in the mess--"bloody war and quick promotion."

[@jimrodarmel8512]

To your question about "y'know" in American English: I grew up in Southern California through the 60's and 70's. I remember noticing "y'know" being used as a space-filling sound ever since I was old enough to make conscious note of it. Pretty equivalent to "um", it was a way of not yielding the floor while gathering one's thoughts, or interjected by habit. I remember it being criticized by teachers and in popular culture mostly in the late 60's and early 70's, being characterized as a feature of awkward young people's speech, or of people groping for the right thing to say in public speaking. I still notice it being used this way today, and being joined by other fill-words or phrases such as "like", "so ... yeah", "they're all...", etc.

[@philroberts7238]

Evidently, your teachers in Southern California and my mother in Southeast England would have had a high old time tut-tutting about the young people of the day, not to mention how inarticulate the members of all those 'pop groups' were and how, you know, they couldn't find two words to string together. (Apart from 'you' and 'know', of course)!

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

The bit about reactions at the end reminded me of an episode of the “Well There’s Your Problem” podcast in which news of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death reached the hosts in the middle of recording. One of the hosts had gone to the bathroom and upon returning was informed what had happened and he broke into wild laughter.

[@loquacity4765]

Thanks, Simon. This is really interesting and thoughtful as always. Your blue shirt here is also gorgeous - do you know where you got it?

[@bygone1]

This reminds me that in The Death of Stalin, the characters don't speak even with Russian accents, but rather (especially in the case of Stalin himself) with thick British accents, because it would capture the same experience for a Russian hearing a thick Russian accent, except for an English-speaking audience.

[@geocyclist]

Had to watch the video a second time, the first time I was too distracted counting how many times Simon said "y'know".

[@amycollins8832]

Fascinating. Our perspective of historical accuracy can be influenced by our specialties. It couldn't really be done without some kind of full sensory immersion that has been checked by every specialist imagineable. Another aspect would be a person's state of health at the time which could vary day to day. Scents and the reactions to them are a forgotten sensory channel. Certain areas of a room or building might have been avoided if they smelled moldy, for instance.

[@ShiningBlueCircle]

The meaning and dramatic effect of swear words have also changed over time. Take “ bastard” as an example. I understand that in WWI, in the trenches, to call a man a bastard was the worse thing you could do. “Bastard” had a definite legal meaning. You were essentially calling a man’s mother a whore. The last words of dying men are often for their “mother”, and maybe in the trenches, a man’s mother was his last memory of purity and comfort. Calling a man with a rifle and a bayonet, a bastard would not end well. Now it would be laughed off.

[@philroberts7238]

I suspect that wouldn't have been the case in the Australian trenches somehow!

[@ShiningBlueCircle]

Could be right there. During the infamous “bodyline” tour, the third test, one of the Australian team called Jardine, the England Captain, a "bastard". He went to the Australian dressing room during the Test to demand an apology. The Australian vice-captain Vic Richardson who answered the door, turned to his team and asked, "OK, which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

[@EyeLean5280]

2:42 Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio played Rimbaud in a film and no effort seemed to have been made at all to make his performance feel French. His walk, his hand gestures, the inflection of his voice... all of it was so late 20th century America that it actually distracted me, whereas David Thewlis's Verlaine seemed really authentic.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Reminds me of the debate about soldiers in WW2 movies holding their guns in an anachronistic manner not used until the Gulf Wars.

[@grungus935]

The 2010s idea is interesting - as someone in their mid-30s, I get the sense that the period from 2013-2023 was more historically transformative than, say, 1993-2003. It's one thing to imagine all the stuff we used to say back in 2013 that we no longer do, but when you consider all the terms and phrases that are in common usage that would be incomprehensible to our 2013 selves, we get the sense of just how much things have changed in our social world, and how much languages has evolved to deal with that. Fake news, Brexit, lockdown, me too'd, cancel culture, social distancing - all these terms would have been incomprehensible (at least in the contemporary sense) to 2013 me.

[@arthurfarrow]

I was born in 1950 and people used 'you know' from my childhood in the Fifties through to the Seventies,. It was through to be 'common' but not American

[@jbtownsend9535]

Our own memories of things like this that are in slow and gradual flux are, I suspect, very misleading. If we were shown films of memories we’ve had and swore they occurred a certain way, I think we’d very often be surprised. There are very subtle but total inflection and song differences in the way people speak - I would say- every ten years we could draw comparisons- the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and so forth.

[@captainkev2870]

Enjoyed this. I will mention that Emile Zola's books are available as audiobooks and the entire Les Rougon-Macquart series which take place in France...are narrated in a variety of Yorkshire accents. Odd but very entertaining anyway.

[@RichardDCook]

At 9:52 there are times when the casting choices made regarding "attractiveness" seem to work at cross-purposes with telling the story in an accurate or clear way. A perfect example is the casting of Claire Foy and Matt Smith in The Crown.

[@jeanfrancoisnelson]

What’s your opinion on The Gallows Pole by Shane Meadows? If you haven’t seen it, it’s set in late 18th century Yorkshire and they use contemporary language in it.

[@Yrrzy]

Adapting language, accent, and even fashion/appearances seems a lot like a kind of temporal Localisation to me. We already adapt a lot of those things when bringing stuff from foreign cultures to make sure they convey the Vibe correctly rather than the literal reality and, as they say, the past is a foreign country.

[@watleythewizard2381]

You’ve added a new dimension to the critique of historical shows. I’m usually very suspicious when modern filmmakers go historical, largely because of a long held tradition of making things historical as long as it’s trendy and sells, which is about as genuine as a golden fart in a jar. For example, Legend overdid the souf lundun accent, well and truly overplayed the style of the krays and as a film played to an audience of violent antisocial psychopaths. This is typical of film and tv industry.

[@Peter_Schiavo]

A Hard Day's Night is a fascinating movie to me. The dialogue is period and obviously artificial to move the plot, but the people, the girl's, the fashion people, the music people, people on streets, the cops are beyond authentic. The original Dirty Harry is the same for it's time period.

[@richardhannay4253]

You can still get Woodbines, though only in packs of twenty (as is the case for all UK cigarettes) as opposed to the old packs of ten (or even five at one point). An era appropriate pipe would have been a good choice, with any number of pipe tobaccos still available. My guess would probably be down to St Bruno (a good working class tobacco from Liverpool).

[@CatchmeIfucan-fo2hf]

Historical accuracy in art is incredibly complex because in addition to the complexities of actual history there are the complexities of art and its media and limits. If one were to dramatise the news of WW2 breaking out, if you represent reactions in a complex and naturalistic way then your depiction will be *about that complexity of human response.* That’s not a problem if that’s the aim, but would be a distraction in most movies about the war. More often than not what the filmmaker is trying to communicate about a general social mood, or even the artist’s own historical response to events, would be overwhelmed by the specificities of the characters’ emotions and interactions. It’s a question of what the artist is aiming for. More often than not artists don’t get things right, they get them not wrong.

[@ChestersonJack]

I very much enjoy this video, and am enjoying catching up on your channel after a period of a few years where I remained a follower but admittedly didn’t keep up with uploads. For the past few years, I was writing a book set in 1969-1970 (plot happens over the course of a year) and more recently something set in 1992. It’s fascinating because, obviously 1992 was just 31 years ago, hardly feels “historical.” But when I ask people I know who were adults back then, I find the things they can remember are hardly relevant to my research, their memories are often about major world events or personal anecdotes from lifestyles highly contrasting the ones I wish to write about. I often question how to capture the accurate feeling of a time that might not be so different from the now, but I wasn’t there to remember. Or to put it another way, how accurate is lived experience?

[@Laura-kl7vi]

Lived experience is way more accurate than what you can read on the internet. People can tell you what the times felt like. People who are older than young who lived through a time period in history or a series of events can grope for words to express the sentiment, but if you ask them pointed questions or get the vibe wrong, they will instantly know.

[@ChestersonJack]

@@Laura-kl7vi I guess I’m not asking the right questions then.

[@RichardDCook]

At 10:54 especially female hair styles have nearly always reflected the current ones from when the film was made, watch some of the videos by historical clothing and hairstyles experts contrasting historical films with the often bizarre hairstyles of the period. In men's clothing (what I know a bit about) films traditionally slap period details onto clothes that are cut in the fashion of the time the film was made. (You'll never see an ACW jacket cut correctly).

[@frankharr9466]

I think it's easier to be critical of physical things because because we have some of them but we don't have words or behavior from anything before recordings took place besides descriptions. We do language and culture automatically, and so dont' really think about it. As an example, there's a movie set in the sixties or close to it with the line Drama Queen. One reviewer knew that he wouldn't have said it and it wasn't recorded even in the gay community at the time, but he had no idea what he would have said instead of that. People just don't think about it. They just do it.

[@terrycunningham8118]

Thinking about my dad (a smoker) back when we lived in the south of England in the 1960s, I do recall that he smoked Players cigarettes, because that box still retains a strong memory in my mind. But I would also note that when he was skint then he would just buy tobacco and roll his own.

[@momiji8731]

Considering an aspect or detail of a film, historical accuracy can only be taken into consideration when there is a solid source for comparison. As for films, games and so on, details to work on for adaptation are numerous- it's exhaustive and even impossible to have all required sources available to do so. So if someone says a media product is historically accurate, I believe he/she means the detail work has been adapted relatively well in quantity OR those aspects which have been adapted for historical accuracy is quite impressive for him/her.

[@blakewinter1657]

I think I don't mind the language so much because, well, first, I don't notice it so easily, and second, because we usually expect films to be in English even if the original people would have spoken something else, because that's what we understand. The Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who might be my favorite, even though the Tenth Doctor is my favorite Doctor. I think the types of historical accuracy that are important in media depends on the intent of the media. What exactly are you trying to portray? There might be certain historical liberties that work very well in one context but not another. For example, I think that A Knight's Tale is a really good movie, and the historical liberties they took really work well, but only because it's not trying to be a very historical film. One other thing, I think when we look at the past, we sometimes want to make a very specific statement about very general/broad topics. A good example was the smoking mentioned in this video. I genuinely question whether it is possible to make a blanket statement about smoking habits of different generations. There may have been trends, but there were probably many exceptions to all of them.

[@hieronymus1432]

I've watched movies with people who complained that some character or another had an English accent, when really they oughtta be speaking Italian or whatever it may be, but who don't tend to pick up on it when that character has an accent close to their own. I spoke to an American friend who thought it was hilarious that there were English accents in the 2015 Star Wars movie, but who didn't think the American accents were out of place. I think having a rarely-heard accent makes it easier to pick up on this -- I've got the accent that people think of as being a Canadian accent (which is a hilarious concept in a country this big), so while I've heard a few native speakers and plenty of parodies, I've never actually seen a genuine attempt. Mine is on the milder side, so I can pass as American if I force myself to say [əbaʊt] instead of [əboʊt] and so on, but I still hear both English and American accents as being different from my own.

[@JontyLevine]

Simon, you praise (or at least attempt to justify) the use of less-than-fully-accurate historical details for the sake of an audience's enjoyment, and I quite agree! ...which makes your decision to remove my two favourite videos on your channel seem a tad hypocritical. I am referring of course to the Old English interviews with your Anglo-Saxon character, which I can only assume were removed due to lack of historical accuracy. I understand that you have every right as a creator to destroy one or more of your own creations. But, to some extent, I feel the people who know and love a creative work do have a stake in what happens to it, and I can't imagine that any one of us would be pleased to see those videos go.