Blue collar? Sorry, don't buy that one as a definitive
characteristic and neither would Dashiell Hammett from what
he wrote. Blue collar schmoes don't work for the DA or are
detectives. They might enter those professions, but those
professions are white collar by the very nature. They talk
the talk for their culture. If we're going to limit the
definition to a speech pattern a lot of dicks are going to
fall off the plate.
-- Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
Judas is looking for a few Femme Fatales for its next issue:
http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
-----Original Message----- From: JIM DOHERTY Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 11:14 PM
I'll allow that Holmes (and, for that matter, war vet Watson) are tough men. But they're not hard-boiled because toughness isn't all there is to it.
"Hard-boiled" means tough AND colloquial. It implies a certain "blue-collar" ethos that Holmes and Watson, staid Victorian gentlemen that they are, simply don't have.
In other words, though they may walk the walk, they don't talk the talk. And, to be hardboiled, talking the talk is almost as important as walking the walk.
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