A question for our E members who are from the U.K.

Started by grdell, March 27, 2011, 12:14:12 PM

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grdell

March 27, 2011, 12:14:12 PM
Yes, I am an American. Please don't hold it against me!  ;D

I've been a Doctor Who fan for over 25 years - long before it was "popular" to be a Doctor Who fan (at least here in the U.S.), and love that it's back and better than ever. I'm currently re-watching it and ran into one of those little things that does sometimes happen not being British (although I am an Anglophile) - I speak of course of cultural references specific to England. Or at least, references that make little to no sense to us self-centered Americans.  ;)

In the episode The Shakespeare Code, when the Doctor tells Martha that she can tell everyone that she's seen Shakespeare, she replies with "Then I can get sectioned." What does that mean?

Please help an ignorant American...
"A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them." ~XKCD

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Lilias

#1
March 27, 2011, 12:20:46 PM
Committed to a mental facility. The connotation is not as serious as 'certifiable', since sectioning can be very temporary, but it does indicate the need to become a psychiatric inpatient.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
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grdell

#2
March 27, 2011, 12:34:12 PM
Not that I doubt you, but she says the line with a noticeable optimism. I had assumed it meant something good... I guess she was just being sarcastic.

Thank you, though. In context, it does make sense. If the Doctor had meant that she could tell everyone that she had seen a production of a Shakespeare play, but she misinterpreted it and understood him to mean that she could tell people that she had actually met the real Shakespeare, then yes, I suppose that would lead to some time in a psychiatric ward.
"A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them." ~XKCD

My Kinsey Scale rating: 4; and what that means in terms of my gender identity. My pronouns: he/him.

My Ons and Offs, current stories, story ideas, Apologies and Absences - Updated 28 Jan 2024.

Oniya

#3
March 27, 2011, 06:45:49 PM
Quote from: grdell on March 27, 2011, 12:34:12 PM
Not that I doubt you, but she says the line with a noticeable optimism. I had assumed it meant something good...

'And I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats...'  ;)
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