no spoilers here

[fox]

Following PotC:DMC, I've been rather gorging myself on piratefic.  Granted, most of this was written following the first movie by people other than yourselves, but I must nevertheless make the following plea:

For the LOVE OF GOD, please don't call Norrington a 'teetotaller'.  I don't mean to get into a discussion of whether he is or isn't one -- that's not the point.  The point is, the word 'teetotaller' is thought to have originated with the temperance movement of the 1830's.  1830's.  We (at least I) don't know precisely when PotC:tCotBP is supposed to have taken place, but listen, y'all, for sure it's not as late as the damn nineteenth century.  The wigs! the frock coats! the buckle shoes! the freakin' tricorn hats!  [ETA:  Also:  the flag flying at Norrington's promotion ceremony is the Union Flag in the pre-1801 design which lacked the St Patrick's cross representing Ireland.]

Memo to the writers, Gore Verbinski, and Lucinda Dryzek (who gets less blame because she was only eleven or so at the time):  you all committed a similar anachronism when wee!Elizabeth told wee!Will, "It's okay".

Thank you.

Comments

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

I had assumed that PotC took place during the golden age of piracy, which would have been the late 17th and early 18th century.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I don't know historical dress well enough to guess whether the costumes in the film are appropriate to the 17th century more than the 18th -- but you're probably right, because dig it: Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692. (Though I suppose if that doesn't line up with the costumes we'll have to just chuck every semblance of historical verisimilitude right out the window, and then the anachronistic dialogue will be back in. [g])