I always enjoy reading articles or seeing TV spots on movies that incorporate items from the wrong era in scenes. Some are pretty sophisticated, like hat styles, but some are glaringly obvious, like a Coke can (can you say product placement?!). 

There are, however, many accents within England. Add in the rest of Great Britain, and there are many, many more. I always laugh when a US news channel interviews someone from Yorkshire (near my old stomping grounds), parts of Scotland, or a Cockney, and they use subtitles. 

If I recall correctly from my colleage linguistics classes, the English accent went through a great divergence in the 18th century or so. So it's the English who have changed -- we Yanks still talk like we always have!

mhhfive - The same blog looks at MAD MEN when that's on the air. 

Fiercesome - I recall a good deal of lively discussion about all the swearing on DEADWOOD. It was unclear how realistic that was, because people were less likely to put that kind of thing in writing. 

One of the more interesting observations was that people back then were more likely to blaspheme than swear. The foul language would have been about God -- today considered somewhat mild -- rather than bathroom functions and sex. 

I think it's interesting, but of course it's hard to distinguish when writers are blundering from when writers are simply making a popular product intelligible to its audience.  I can readily imagine viewers saying to themselves "What's 'contraband'?"

Personally, I appreciate accuracy, but I'm a pedant.  I was overjoyed, for example, when the Fouding Fathers were given English accents in the TV mini-series John Adams.  :D

I think, this kind of analyses has nothing in common with the Linguistics as a science and its target is to be noticed to make Linguistics popular may be. How can anyone percieve a language in a Mass Media product seriously?

Movie language and  book language are different, and they can't be compared.So I don't think that this kind of research can be reliable.

I seem to recall a similar analysis done for Mad Men... and they found phrases like "I'll put you on hold" shouldn't be in that show b/c "hold" didn't exist for phones during the 60s.

It's pretty hard for writers to be historically accurate... and still make sense to the viewers!

Fascinating...   too bad "Deadwood" isn't still on the air.  I wonder if Benjamin could go back and analyze that show.  In fact, the strange language in it (from what I heard) and the audience's inability to understand it or relate to it is what got the show cancelled.

How often does a person get to mention big-data, analytics, Downton Abbey, Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and Abraham Lincoln and the Zombies in a single blog post?