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Question about De Bryn and Morse's first conversation in the pilot episode

posted 7 years ago by mrslivingston (22)
8 replies | jump to latest

De Bryn tells Morse "there's a word for people like you... necrophobic".
Morse responds that there's a word for people like DeBryn, but "Anglo-Saxon rather than Greek."

What was Morse implying?

[–] lemner (190) 6 years ago

Don't know about Anglo-Saxon, but how about "necrophiliac?"

[–] lennonforever (2453) 6 years ago

Quite interesting

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5956) 6 years ago

Virtually all *those* four-letter words are Anglo-Saxon.

[–] mrslivingston (22) 5 years ago

Thank you. So it was meant as a rude put-down. Excuse my denseness. I think I read too much fan fiction.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5956) 5 years ago

You're welcome. No worries. We all start out ignorant.
Too much fanfic? INFP?

[–] GlenEllyn (21089) 5 years ago

I thought it was Morse refusing to be "put down" by Max, so he fired right back.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Having a passing interesting in historical linguistics myself, I immediately recognized that Endeavour was implying that he would use a more vulgar/slang term to describe DeBryn.

In the English language, earthy and "common" terms have roots in the old Anglo-Saxon speech, while more polite, formal expressions tend to come from French, Latin or Greek. For instance, compare "pig" and "pork," or "s***" and "feces."

[–] jriley555 (7048) 3 years ago

exactly - it was an elegant rejoinder, a meta-putdown