--- by J. L. Speranza
------- for the Grice Club.
"BRIDESHEAD revisited" opened in a local cinema, and I went to see it (for a third time, I had seen it when it opened last year) yesterday. The script is by Harwood, and based of course on Waugh.
EMMA THOMPSON: And where do you live, Mister Ryder?
MATTHEW GOODE: Paddington.
EMMA THOMPSON (in her expressive best -- she should have gotten this Oscar for this):
---- "You live in a railway station, Mister Ryder?
Now, what follows, is good for Gricean analysis.
GOODE sort of blushes -- this is a formal dining at Brideshead and he has already committed the gaffe of wearing the most inappropriate clothes -- when he KNEW he could have lent some from the Lord Flyte.
And then he mutters,
GOODE: Mmm. Sorry about that. [Or words to that effect].
PAUSE.
I thought he was going to provide the exact location, as I would, clumsily. Instead, he just goes:
"I live NEAR Paddington".
----
Or "Paddington Station", I forget.
NOW, anyone who KNOWS Paddington well -- I don't -- should HELP!
I know Waugh was such a snob, he would live in Islington, I think, but walk south all the way to Westminster W1 to deliver his correspondence from there, so that it would be marked W1, so I know what he meant!
Or not!
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I wouldn't say I knew Paddington well, but I do know that "Paddington" is a part of London.
ReplyDeleteSo does Google Maps, which says further.
Paddington is an area of the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddington station, designed by the celebrated engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened in 1847; St Mary's Hospital and Paddington Green police station (the most important high-security ...
So there are probably lots who live in Paddington, and the station is a mere landmark, among others.
RBJ
Yes. I took my mother to see "Brideshead Revisited" and she couldn't stand Emma Thompson, poor darling -- poor darling Emma I mean. My mother objected: "We've seen her in so many roles she is HARDLY credible as Lady Marchmain."
ReplyDelete(Perhaps my mother remembers Emma Thompson's unladylike manners in "A tall man")
I should check if this comes from Waugh or the mere scriptwriter for the film which opened last year I think. I saw it for the premiere, and I should revise whose the script is.
So I would assume that Lady Marchmain is displaying the typical attitude of SOME. If Paddington is a railway station. Bloomsbury would be, "So you live in a museum". "Knightsbridge" becomes, "So you live in a store?" (meaning "Harrods") and so on. Stereotypical!
On the other hand,
Grice:
--- A: Where does he live?
--- B: Somewhere in the South of France
projects OTHER types of implicatures. Or not!