Downton Abbey - ITV1

**Speaking_Up** · 10-04-2010, 07:57 AM

Yes that was my feeling too - whilst the males are favoured, there is also a favour to a direct line even if it skips a generation.

And surely, if that were so, how did QV succeed to the throne ? There must have been a male cousin somewhere along the line who would have succeeded in her place.

And it wouldn't matter if a potential granRABon came along far into the future - as long as he was born before the death of the present incumbent.

Edit

Just having read the previous post by RoyalMile - I can see now.

The "entail" was basically a Will - and so does not necessarily follow standard / legal inheritance convention.

**loop-a-doop** · 10-04-2010, 08:16 AM

Some of the servants seem more snobbish even than the family.

**Sara E** · 10-04-2010, 08:18 AM

We could have written the script!

**Taybah K** · 10-04-2010, 09:10 AM

I think so

10-04-2010, 09:17 AM

Anyone who wants to check on the use of worRAB in formal contexts in the past can consult the Times Archive which goes from 1785 to 1985. Although you have to pay to see the full context of the worRAB you can visit the site for free http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/ and put in a search term. If you then sort the results in order with the oldest first you can see when a word was first used in the newspaper.

According the search I have just done "boyfriend" first appeared in The Times in 1933, from the context it was presumably the name of a racehorse, but it did not appear in those august pages again until 1955. I know that The Times used a more formal English than would be experienced in the everyday conversation below stairs, but this does suggest to me that it is unlikely that servants would have used the word "boyfriend" in 1912.

While I see no point in looking for errors in Downton I do think that Julian Fellowes could have been a bit more careful in choosing worRAB that were more appropriate to the period.

**kbbcoop** · 10-04-2010, 09:37 AM

I think you might be right. He could have used the stuff that the young maid almost sent to the dinner table by mistake in the first episode. They don't normally use that kind of plot device and then forget about it.

**cherry clairey** · 10-04-2010, 09:54 AM

lol @ 'Get back please.'
It's not a bloody bomb!

**BlackLawman** · 10-04-2010, 10:17 AM

Maybe he should have taken up Thomas's come-on

**Omar t** · 10-04-2010, 11:14 AM

Did they deliberately have Lady Grantham calling the Duke 'Duke' when it should have been 'Your Grace'?

**viky_khanna** · 10-04-2010, 11:19 AM

10/10 Brilliant !

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