[Vwoolf] "Mrs. Dalloway" crux

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

My Irish speaking colleague (from Belfast but studied in Dublin) writes: 
"Well, the name doesn't sound Irish, even remotely. And if it's said 
humorously, could it not be a mock-Irish accent? But if I say it out 
loud, it definitely sounds North Dublin."

Watkiss is being humorous, so presumably may well be imitating someone 
or something. I can’t see why he would imitate a Black Country dialect, 
but he might well imitate posh, or a stage Irish (mock-Irish as my 
colleague has it) that was conventionally used for humorous effect.

Another friend says that "it’s a bit like Laurence Fox imitating a 
working-class accent." I think he means that VW is stepping outside her 
linguistic / social comfort zone here.

What about Watkiss's middle initial? Is this (a) Woolf or her narrator 
mocking his pretentious way of referring to himself, or (b) his wish to 
be known by a name that suggests importance, or (c) his own jokey way of 
referring to himself as if he were important (he knows he is not)?

Incidentally, are we to presume (given the end of the novel) that it IS 
the Prime Minister's car?

Jeremy H


On 22.11.2020 17:53, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf wrote:
> Edgar J. Watkiss, with his roll of lead piping round his arm, said 
> audibly, humorously of course: "The Proime Minister's kyar."
> Leaving aside the ramifications and peculiarities of his name, what is 
> his accent?  This has subconsciously bothered me for years.  It has 
> been suggested that it is Irish. “Proime” sounds Southern Irish; 
> alternatively, very Birmingham to me.  Is “kyar” Irish?   It doesn’t 
> sound like any accent I can readily think of.
> Woolf wrote in “Memories of a Working Women’s Guild” (1930):
> “to deride ladies and to imitate, as some of the speakers did,
> their mincing speech and little knowledge of what it pleases them to
> call ‘reality’ is not merely bad manners, but it gives away the whole
> purpose of the Congress, for if it is better to be a working woman
> by all means let them remain so and not claim their right to undergo
> the contamination of wealth and comfort.”  (E5 182)
> If he says it “humorously”, then is he perhaps parodying upper-class 
> speech?
> Stuart
>
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-- 
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway

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