you don’t say.

March 11th, 2010 // 1:17 pm @ andy // 2 Comments

Hello there. I’ve had a slightly odd few days this week. Jobs starting, then stopping. Madly urgent projects being put on hold. Plans suddenly changing. All in all most unsatisfactory. However, this has led to more time spent browsing the net, ( andy don’t surf. ), doing a bit of reading and, inevitably, watching the telly. All of these activities have brought me to the same conclusion. People everywhere are writing dialogue which includes things that people just don’t say anymore, anywhere, ever. Maybe it’s just me but I just don’t recall anyone saying such things to me in real life. Try these.

A soap staple seems to be the ” Slap up meal” If you’re a loveable cockernee Eastender apparently you go for these often. In fact, even on the cobbles of Weatherfield, the “slap up meal” is a right treat. Now the only people I can ever remember having a “slap up meal” or “feed”, ( We’ll leave out “nosh” ), are Billy Bunter the fat owl of the of the remove and Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. ( whose slap up meals were enjoyed at the Hotel de Posh ).

Another which grates, features in the ” Circulation Booster” TV ad, ( it does just what it says on the box you know, in a fine example of advertising eating itself ). Admittedly you need to be watching obscure digital channels in the wee small hours to catch this one but it’s there. Here, a woman refers to her mother, ( without a hint of irony ), as her “dear old mum“. Surely no-one calls their mum “dear old mum” these days. Well not while she’s alive anyway. Or is it just me? Do you call your mother “dear old mum”? If so, please let me know. You freak.

There are loads more I’ve seen that, for the moment, have escaped me. Probably because they’re things that I never say and nor does anyone else I’ve ever known. Is there perhaps a book of phrases that writers just dip into while preparing scripts? A kind of thesaurus of cliche to relate to the dumbed down society that an awful lot of writers seem to insist on catering for? If so, please don’t ever use it.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re not quite as dumb as they think we are.