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Post by foxley on May 31, 2023 2:49:00 GMT -5
We all have a clear image of Superman's parents as quintessential farm people, but I've found that it's a fairly recent take on the characters. I read some pre-Crisis Superboy stories and Pa Kent runs (with Clark) some kind of general store in Smallville. In a dialogue they mention that they used to have a farm but then moved to the town. Does anyone have any details of how/when this happened? According dc.fandom.com the Kent General Store first appeared in Superboy #6 (January, 1950) in "Superboy Storekeeper!"
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Post by zaku on May 31, 2023 7:10:28 GMT -5
We all have a clear image of Superman's parents as quintessential farm people, but I've found that it's a fairly recent take on the characters. I read some pre-Crisis Superboy stories and Pa Kent runs (with Clark) some kind of general store in Smallville. In a dialogue they mention that they used to have a farm but then moved to the town. Does anyone have any details of how/when this happened? The Kents as storeowners came after their days as farmers. I don't have time to dig out a specific story, but it was explained somewhere--possibly in the '80s New Adventures of Superboy title, but don't quote me--that the Kents remained on the farm until Clark was ready for school (and understood the importance of keeping his powers secret) then moved into Smallville and opened their store. But they were farmers in the original syndicated strip, in the radio series, in the first movie serial, and in the 1942 Deorge Lowther novelization.
Cei-U! I summon the cash register!
I've just found this article on the Kent's General Store: in the comments Commander Benson says that the first time they explicitly said that Kents sold the farm and bought the store was in Superboy 78. I hope he doesn't mind I quote his comment
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 4:02:24 GMT -5
I wonder how much the movie influenced the Post-Crisis Reboot or simply they were similar because they both wanted to streamline the character. I think, in both cases, it was more to present the Hollywood idea of the Midwest as simply farm country and to present the idea that Clark grew up in good old fashioned wholesome farm country...traditional values, simple people, etc. I liked how Lois & Clark poked fun at that idea in an episode, where Lois is staying with the Kents and says she needs to send a fax and acts like the Kents wouldn't know what it is and Martha offers her theirs, telling her that a farm couldn't operate without one. It was the first time I saw anyone in Hollywood recognize that farms are filled with the latest technology, whether it is in their farming implements, communications, entertainment, or records-keeping. Farms are major operations; but what would city slickers know? You know what other element of the Superman mythos I glad they ditched in both the movie and the post-crisis reboot? The orphanage bit "Yes, let's leave this flying child in an orphanage hoping that no one adopts him before us! What can go wrong!" The whole concept is so silly that every Bronze Age recap of his origin that I've read to they sort of gloss over it, just a couple of panels. (if ever they mention it!). And usually the Kents realize after the adoption he has powers. Because, well, what the heck guys???
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 1, 2023 4:34:43 GMT -5
I never heard a small child say " me no like" .
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 4:41:50 GMT -5
I never heard a small child say " me no like" . But he is a Kryptonian baby. He is using Kryptonian grammar in his head!
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 1, 2023 4:49:42 GMT -5
I never heard a small child say " me no like" . But he is a Kryptonian baby. He is using Kryptonian grammar in his head! I wish. All the babies DC comics talked that way. I'm not sure if Marvel did it during the 60's-70's.
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 4:59:06 GMT -5
But he is a Kryptonian baby. He is using Kryptonian grammar in his head! I wish. All the babies DC comics talked that way. I'm not sure if Marvel did it during the 60's-70's. As you know, I'm not a native English speaker. But I never understood why stereotypically children and foreigners who don't know the language well are always represented using "me" instead of "I". I mean, "I" is like one of the first words you learn when you're taught English. If nothing else, we learn "me" later, since it's a pronoun so it's in theory a little more complicated to figure out how to use it. Can anyone enlighten "me" on this matter? shaxper? Aren't you a teacher?
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 5:14:35 GMT -5
But he is a Kryptonian baby. He is using Kryptonian grammar in his head! I wish. All the babies DC comics talked that way. I'm not sure if Marvel did it during the 60's-70's. You want to know the (sad) truth? DC comics in the 1950s and 60s were written by old white men who probably never interacted with their young children except for very little time on the weekends when they weren't engaged in "real man" hobbies. So all language education was their wives' job, because that was their role, house and children. So they probably didn't have a clue about how a small child really spoke. And they imagined this "baby talk" (and probably passed it on to each other) that had no correspondent in reality.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 1, 2023 5:26:58 GMT -5
I never heard a small child say " me no like" . Maybe it's actually Bizarrobaby!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,451
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Post by shaxper on Jun 1, 2023 5:28:03 GMT -5
I wish. All the babies DC comics talked that way. I'm not sure if Marvel did it during the 60's-70's. As you know, I'm not a native English speaker. But I never understood why stereotypically children and foreigners who don't know the language well are always represented using "me" instead of "I". I mean, "I" is like one of the first words you learn when you're taught English. If nothing else, we learn "me" later, since it's a pronoun so it's in theory a little more complicated to figure out how to use it. Can anyone enlighten "me" on this matter? shaxper? Aren't you a teacher? Yep. On my last week of school, no less! I'm guessing it stems from the popularity of Tarzan back in the 1930s. It's surprising how many tropes from that era still survive today without most people understanding the original cultural references. Folks are still doing Peter Lorre impersonations without even knowing who that is.
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 5:44:53 GMT -5
As you know, I'm not a native English speaker. But I never understood why stereotypically children and foreigners who don't know the language well are always represented using "me" instead of "I". I mean, "I" is like one of the first words you learn when you're taught English. If nothing else, we learn "me" later, since it's a pronoun so it's in theory a little more complicated to figure out how to use it. Can anyone enlighten "me" on this matter? shaxper ? Aren't you a teacher? Yep. On my last week of school, no less! I'm guessing it stems from the popularity of Tarzan back in the 1930s. It's surprising how many tropes from that era still survive today without most people understanding the original cultural references. Folks are still doing Peter Lorre impersonations without even knowing who that is. Oh, I didn't know that! In Italy he was dubbed that he used the word "I" instead of "me". I found just now thanks to you that in the original version he used "me" when he spoke in the first person singular! So, the famose quote "Me Tarzan, you Jane", in Italian becomes "Io Tarzan, tu Jane" (I Tarzan, you Jane).
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Post by foxley on Jun 1, 2023 6:26:13 GMT -5
Yep. On my last week of school, no less! I'm guessing it stems from the popularity of Tarzan back in the 1930s. It's surprising how many tropes from that era still survive today without most people understanding the original cultural references. Folks are still doing Peter Lorre impersonations without even knowing who that is. Oh, I didn't know that! In Italy he was dubbed that he used the word "I" instead of "me". I found just now thanks to you that in the original version he used "me" when he spoke in the first person singular! So, the famose quote "Me Tarzan, you Jane", in Italian becomes "Io Tarzan, tu Jane" (I Tarzan, you Jane). Of course that is only in the movies. He never says that in the novels.
On the broader subject, pronouns are one of the more difficult aspects of a language for a non-native speaker to grasp as their expression can vary greatly across different languages. It is not unusual for speakers of some eastern European languages to confuse 'he' and 'she'.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,451
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Post by shaxper on Jun 1, 2023 6:50:44 GMT -5
So, the famose quote "Me Tarzan, you Jane", in Italian becomes "Io Tarzan, tu Jane" (I Tarzan, you Jane). Which would have seemed so much more realistic, I think. There's also the old Native American stereotype where they would say things like, "Me thinkum" before every statement. I see it all the time in comics from the 1950s, but the stereotype may have predated the Johny Weissmuller Tarzan.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 1, 2023 6:57:26 GMT -5
As you know, I'm not a native English speaker. But I never understood why stereotypically children and foreigners who don't know the language well are always represented using "me" instead of "I". I mean, "I" is like one of the first words you learn when you're taught English. If nothing else, we learn "me" later, since it's a pronoun so it's in theory a little more complicated to figure out how to use it. (...) Yeah, the 'me' instead of 'I' thing is really puzzling, but when I saw it in comics I just accepted it as the style in the medium and never gave it much thought until you mentioned it.
Otherwise, I'm a native English speaker, but one who grew up around non-native speakers (in fact, the first language I recall hearing/being spoken to me was Croatian, not English), so I can attest to the fact that yes, I never heard anybody say "me" when they should have used "I". The bigger problem was verb forms and tenses, so a lot of them would say something like, e.g., "I go shopping" instead of "I'm going shopping," etc. And, of course, definite and indefinite articles were particularly confounding for them, so to build on that preceding example, they'd say "I go to store" instead of "I'm going to the store."
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Post by zaku on Jun 1, 2023 7:15:40 GMT -5
As you know, I'm not a native English speaker. But I never understood why stereotypically children and foreigners who don't know the language well are always represented using "me" instead of "I". I mean, "I" is like one of the first words you learn when you're taught English. If nothing else, we learn "me" later, since it's a pronoun so it's in theory a little more complicated to figure out how to use it. (...) Yeah, the 'me' instead of 'I' thing is really puzzling, but when I saw it in comics I just accepted it as the style in the medium and never gave it much thought until you mentioned it.
Otherwise, I'm a native English speaker, but one who grew up around non-native speakers (in fact, the first language I recall hearing/being spoken to me was Croatian, not English), so I can attest to the fact that yes, I never heard anybody say "me" when they should have used "I". The bigger problem was verb forms and tenses, so a lot of them would say something like, e.g., "I go shopping" instead of "I'm going shopping," etc. And, of course, definite and indefinite articles were particularly confounding for them, so to build on that preceding example, they'd say "I go to store" instead of "I'm going to the store."
Exactly. Confusing "me" with "I" makes absolutely no sense, and I'm sure it would be the first thing that would be corrected by a native English speaker (I guess they would be more tolerant of "I'm going" versus "I go")
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