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Old 09-14-2016, 05:00 AM   #41
Johan Larson
 
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Default Re: bending stereotypes

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
A second lieutenant who has served for twenty years paired with a sergeant who has served for six months.
That's a very unlikely situation, since second lieutenants are by definition beginner officers.

I suppose he could have served as an enlisted man for twenty years and then jumped tracks into the officer corps. But given up-or-out policies in the military, he would have been a very senior NCO. Transferring him to being the most junior of officers seems strange. You'd think if they were going to commission a staff sergeant, they'd make him at least a captain or a major.
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Old 09-14-2016, 05:45 AM   #42
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That's a very unlikely situation, since second lieutenants are by definition beginner officers.

I suppose he could have served as an enlisted man for twenty years and then jumped tracks into the officer corps.
Unlikely in current practice perhaps but historically?

Not really that difficult to sell in some 18th or 19th century contexts think for example of a veteran Sargent granted a commission as possible starting point. Now this sort of thing wasn't common but it did happen and could lead to some seriously 'over age' officers.

The other thing to remember is that our veteran of twenty years might easily only be in his mid thirties (which was not uncommon in an era with loose record keeping and no up or out) and (in the British army before the 1870's especialy) if he lacked money or political connections might be an Ensign (the equivalent British infantry rank at the time) for a number of years.

Last edited by Frost; 09-14-2016 at 06:11 AM.
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Old 09-14-2016, 09:43 AM   #43
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Default Re: bending stereotypes

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Originally Posted by Johan Larson View Post
I suppose he could have served as an enlisted man for twenty years and then jumped tracks into the officer corps. But given up-or-out policies in the military, he would have been a very senior NCO. Transferring him to being the most junior of officers seems strange. You'd think if they were going to commission a staff sergeant, they'd make him at least a captain or a major.
Maybe a long serving veteran of the peacetime army, given a field commission during a war? I wouldn't expect him to remain a 2LT for long, though.
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Old 09-17-2016, 04:40 PM   #44
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A pirate who talks in a lower class London accent.
Considering Limehouse and Wapping's population of sailors, I'm pretty sure that was fairly common.

According to Patrick O'Brien's historical fiction, even the Malay and Chinese sailors in a British man of war tended to develop a strong Limehouse accent from learning English from their fellow sailors.

As pirates were often sailors who had mutinied or deserted, I imagine most of the English-speaking ones spoke with a decided tinge of the London docks (overlaid on native Irish for many of them, of course).
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Old 09-17-2016, 04:47 PM   #45
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Considering Limehouse and Wapping's population of sailors, I'm pretty sure that was fairly common.

According to Patrick O'Brien's historical fiction, even the Malay and Chinese sailors in a British man of war tended to develop a strong Limehouse accent from learning English from their fellow sailors.

As pirates were often sailors who had mutinied or deserted, I imagine most of the English-speaking ones spoke with a decided tinge of the London docks (overlaid on native Irish for many of them, of course).
But the stereotype is that ridiculous accent from Treasure Island - an exaggerated form of British West Country, I've read, although not having been there I couldn't say for sure.
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Old 09-18-2016, 01:55 PM   #46
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an exaggerated form of British West Country, I've read, although not having been there I couldn't say for sure.
It is. But it's really quite exaggerated.
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Old 09-18-2016, 04:02 PM   #47
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Considering Limehouse and Wapping's population of sailors, I'm pretty sure that was fairly common.
.
That was what I was thinking. There should be plenty and yet they seem to be under represented. I mean the 2nd lieutenant who has been in the service for 20 years is legitimately rare. It requires him to be just jumped up from the ranks or to have been recently demoted for an offense so dire that he was that close to being dishonorably discharged. But pirates from lower class London? They had to be all over the place back in the day.
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Old 09-19-2016, 12:57 AM   #48
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Persecuting heretics isn't really a monk thing even in stereotype. But a Papal inquisitor who scrupulously investigates reports of assault and murder by witchcraft and only lays charges if he establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the accused really was trying to curse (or poison!) someone
Most of the inquisitors during the renaissance were diocesan clergy or Dominican Friars. It's become almost a default perception that inquisitors should be monastics... but friars are technically not monastics.

Friars aren't monks, but most people don't know (and some can't grasp) the difference between Friars, Monks, and Cenobites... So the popular misconception (helped by Connery in The Name of the Rose) is that they were monks.
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Old 09-19-2016, 07:08 AM   #49
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Friars aren't monks, but most people don't know (and some can't grasp) the difference between Friars, Monks, and Cenobites...
Ok, how is a cenobite different from a monk? A shallow search of the internet seems to indicate they are a style of monk rather than an alternative.
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Old 09-19-2016, 09:36 PM   #50
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A man commonly written off as a pathetic loser who attracts the desire of a kindly woman ten years his junior who is quite happy about the prospect of being the primary breadwinner.
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