4 ms·

Classic "English understatement."

psychphysic 3y ago
I was on a flight and after a rough turbulent half hour after take off, the English captain announced a technical issue that meant we must return to the airport. The plane had been acting bizarrely it bounced very hard on take off and then did not gain much altitude for the duration. There was another rough half an hour back to land in a terrible cross wind. Then a few moments on the tarmac before it was announced that it was because additional checks were required and the plane was running entirely fine. A bird strike meant they had to return as a precaution. I'd take the clear and transparent understatement over what I can only assume is a corporate line which covers things from entirely not worth mentioning and we're about to crash and burn.
eesmith 3y ago
In the US, it's "the Chuck Yeager voice" trope. The TVTropes entry is "Danger Deadpan" at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerDeadpan https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerDeadpan described as: > When a stereotypical airplane (or spaceship) pilot speaks over the radio, either to flight controllers on the ground or to his own passengers, he does so in a very soft, smooth register, just barely loud enough to pick up on the radio, probably with a faint American Southern accent (unless he's British, in which case it is an upper-class one). He uses radio jargon, even when he doesn't really need to. A true Danger Deadpan never loses his cool or changes his tone of voice under any circumstances whatsoever, a habit which is often Played for Laughs. ... > In Real Life, this makes a lot of sense. Even if your plane's lost two engines and half a wing, the last thing you need is a bunch of scared people in the back of the plane panicking and raising hell; you can't be screaming "OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" over the radio. Not to mention the fact that if you stay calm and actually tell Mission Control what the problem is, you won't throw away what may be your last chance to actually work out how to fix it or at least get to the ground in one piece. The "Real Life" section includes Yeager (with a long quote from The Right Stuff with an example of the voice) and Moody of BA Flight 9, plus many others, and comments: > Yeager is the most known example and the book "The Right Stuff" made a nice legend, he probably isn't the first who started to talk that way. For example, Mark Gallai (a Soviet test pilot who started his career in the 1930s) recounts just this way of reporting over radio about as soon as radio was introduced on airplanes. Let's just repeat: when you need to report your condition to ground crew, you are going to speak calmly and clearly, no matter what's happening with your plane.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
  "This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then - explode."
dredmorbius 3y ago
I'd wondered when "English understatement" and the similar "British understatement" came into being. Seems strongly correlated with the outbreak of WWII, : <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+understatement%2Cbritish+understatement&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders...> Though the behaviour predates that specific terminology: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement> Adding in "stiff upper lip", a similar notion, brings the date back to the 1830s: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+understatement%2CBritish+understatement%2Cstiff+upper+lip&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders...>
- cf100clunk 3y ago
  War historian Antony Beevor discussed that stereotype thusly: ''Patriotism also permeated those British war movies of the 1950s and 60s – The Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky, The Cruel Sea, The Heroes of Telemark, The Battle of the River Plate, Cockleshell Heroes. It camouflaged itself in self-deprecation, but the rousing march music in the finale always braced our belief in the rightness of our cause. We have long made fun of all the period cliches, unable to believe that anyone talked like that. But when researching my new book Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, I found that German officers really did say to the British paratroopers taken prisoner: “For you the war is over.” One of my favourite remarks, recorded at the time by a junior doctor, is the reaction of Colonel Marrable, the head of an improvised hospital in the Netherlands, when Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers seized the building. Still puffing gently on his pipe, he says to his medical staff: “Good show, chaps. Don’t take any notice of the Jerries. Carry on as if nothing has happened.” I have always been doubtful about the notion of “a national character”, but a national self-image certainly existed during the war and for some time afterwards.'' https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-the-greatest-war-movie-ever-and-the-ones-i-cant-bear https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-t...

I was on a flight and after a rough turbulent half hour after take off, the English captain announced a technical issue that meant we must return to the airport. The plane had been acting bizarrely it bounced very hard on take off and then did not gain much altitude for the duration. There was another rough half an hour back to land in a terrible cross wind. Then a few moments on the tarmac before it was announced that it was because additional checks were required and the plane was running entirely fine. A bird strike meant they had to return as a precaution. I'd take the clear and transparent understatement over what I can only assume is a corporate line which covers things from entirely not worth mentioning and we're about to crash and burn.

eesmith 3y ago

In the US, it's "the Chuck Yeager voice" trope. The TVTropes entry is "Danger Deadpan" at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerDeadpan https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerDeadpan described as: > When a stereotypical airplane (or spaceship) pilot speaks over the radio, either to flight controllers on the ground or to his own passengers, he does so in a very soft, smooth register, just barely loud enough to pick up on the radio, probably with a faint American Southern accent (unless he's British, in which case it is an upper-class one). He uses radio jargon, even when he doesn't really need to. A true Danger Deadpan never loses his cool or changes his tone of voice under any circumstances whatsoever, a habit which is often Played for Laughs. ... > In Real Life, this makes a lot of sense. Even if your plane's lost two engines and half a wing, the last thing you need is a bunch of scared people in the back of the plane panicking and raising hell; you can't be screaming "OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" over the radio. Not to mention the fact that if you stay calm and actually tell Mission Control what the problem is, you won't throw away what may be your last chance to actually work out how to fix it or at least get to the ground in one piece. The "Real Life" section includes Yeager (with a long quote from The Right Stuff with an example of the voice) and Moody of BA Flight 9, plus many others, and comments: > Yeager is the most known example and the book "The Right Stuff" made a nice legend, he probably isn't the first who started to talk that way. For example, Mark Gallai (a Soviet test pilot who started his career in the 1930s) recounts just this way of reporting over radio about as soon as radio was introduced on airplanes. Let's just repeat: when you need to report your condition to ground crew, you are going to speak calmly and clearly, no matter what's happening with your plane.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 3y ago
"This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then - explode."

dredmorbius 3y ago

I'd wondered when "English understatement" and the similar "British understatement" came into being. Seems strongly correlated with the outbreak of WWII, : <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+understatement%2Cbritish+understatement&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders...> Though the behaviour predates that specific terminology: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement> Adding in "stiff upper lip", a similar notion, brings the date back to the 1830s: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+understatement%2CBritish+understatement%2Cstiff+upper+lip&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=en-2012&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders...>

cf100clunk 3y ago
War historian Antony Beevor discussed that stereotype thusly: ''Patriotism also permeated those British war movies of the 1950s and 60s – The Dam Busters, Reach for the Sky, The Cruel Sea, The Heroes of Telemark, The Battle of the River Plate, Cockleshell Heroes. It camouflaged itself in self-deprecation, but the rousing march music in the finale always braced our belief in the rightness of our cause. We have long made fun of all the period cliches, unable to believe that anyone talked like that. But when researching my new book Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, I found that German officers really did say to the British paratroopers taken prisoner: “For you the war is over.” One of my favourite remarks, recorded at the time by a junior doctor, is the reaction of Colonel Marrable, the head of an improvised hospital in the Netherlands, when Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers seized the building. Still puffing gently on his pipe, he says to his medical staff: “Good show, chaps. Don’t take any notice of the Jerries. Carry on as if nothing has happened.” I have always been doubtful about the notion of “a national character”, but a national self-image certainly existed during the war and for some time afterwards.'' https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-the-greatest-war-movie-ever-and-the-ones-i-cant-bear https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-t...