steve
New Member
Posts: 8
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Post by steve on Aug 13, 2011 1:05:29 GMT
Hi there to everyone. I do not know if anyone has looked into this at all but I have noticed in a few new episodes some blatant errors that I was wondering if they are put there on purpose to get the fans talking. In one episode Murdoch is talking about the Canadian National Railway... but it did not come into being until 1926 I believe and he talks about being educated by Jesuits in Muncton New Brunswick. The Jesuits never had a school there. Are there any other errors people have found? With thanks
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Post by hannikan on Aug 13, 2011 2:45:22 GMT
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Post by rondetto on Aug 17, 2011 16:51:10 GMT
However Steve, well spotted. I really don't know whether Conan Doyle ever visited Canada, or some of the other events took place, but it makes for a good story and to me that's all that matters.
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Post by hannikan on Aug 18, 2011 5:30:26 GMT
However Steve, well spotted. I really don't know whether Conan Doyle ever visited Canada, or some of the other events took place, but it makes for a good story and to me that's all that matters. Yes and it's true that Doyle would have been younger than he was portrayed. They show him in his early 50's probably and he would have been mid 30's, like Murdoch himself. But I agree that the story is the most important part and sometime they have to bend the history a bit to fit it. |
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Post by shangas on Dec 3, 2011 14:47:53 GMT
There is a Canadian PACIFIC Railway, which started operation in 1881. Maybe Murdoch was referring to that?
As for historical inaccuracies, I believe this show was remarkbly free of such things. Everything looks pretty much bang-on.
Originating in India, Snakes & Ladders was introduced into England in 1892.
The Bell Telephone Co. of Canada was established in 1880.
Transatlantic telegraphic communication has been a reality since the 1860s.
The ONLY historical inaccuracy that I can really think of (and this may be stretching it a bit), is the audio-quality of the phonograph records.
I'm referring here, to the cylinder-records that are featured in the series (such as the ones on which Murdoch records eavesdropped messages and plays back later).
The clarity of the audio was never that good on accoustic cylinder-records, even when the recordings were done by professionals. For clarity of that level on a cylinder-record, you'd have to be almost shouting at the phonograph, or using a microphone. Everytime I hear one of those cylinder-records in the series, I just think: "I hope people don't honestly believe that audio playback was THAT good in 1895". Because for the most part, it wasn't.
---EDIT---
I just realised that there is another historical inaccuracy, albeit a small one.
Last episode of Season 4.
Crabtree is interviewing Ruby Ogden and he says: "For the love of...I bent my nib!"
No-one would've said that back in 1898.
Back then, you would've said that you bent your PEN. What we call a 'nib' today did not change meanings and terminology until the widespread use of fountain pens which didn't begin until the first decade of the 1900s. When you went to the stationer's shop, you didn't buy a box of 'nibs'. You bought a box of 'pens'. You didn't put a nib into your shaft. You put a 'pen' into your shaft, or 'holder' as it was called.
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Post by hannikan on Dec 3, 2011 23:30:46 GMT
Yeah, they may have had him say that so a modern audience wouldn't think he meant a modern pen. Sometimes they have to take the way a modern audience would interpret an older expression into account, too. And after rewatches I noticed William never mentions being educated in Moncton, just New Brunswick.
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Post by shangas on Dec 3, 2011 23:39:55 GMT
Possibly. Pen. Nib. Nib. Pen. But it's an inaccuracy nonetheless.
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