For about a week and a half we’ve been trying to make our schedules mesh with Steve and Ruth’s so we could all see Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
I heard an interview yesterday on the BBC World Service program that WBEZ now runs at the time I have lunch… I’ve learned all kinds of odd and interesting things in the weeks since the program change, and now I’ve learned that in Portland (in Dorset, England) it’s such bad luck to say “rabbit” that advertisements and posters for the film had to be modified.
Locals prefer the term “underground mutton” or “furry thing.”
The interview was conducted with a local; his dialect sounded a lot like what happens when you talk like a pirate, but softer and with fewer colorful salty seagoing expressions.
He explained to the interviewer why the movie production company had to re-do all its posters and practically re-title the film – in Portland, “rabbit” is an extremely offensive and inauspicious word.
It all goes back to a tale of bad luck and a death at the local quarry back hundreds of years ago. It was decided that the Devil was behind the bad luck, and that teh evil must be burned out. As luck (or something) would have it, the first thing they saw when the flames were lit was an escaping bunny. Aha! It was the Devil! Never mention its name!
Over the years, the local fishermen also picked up the prejudice against little Peter Cottontail; since many local men worked in both industries it soon became common for sailors to refuse to go out in their boats if they saw a rabbit near the shore.
And so that’s why if you’re sitting in a pub in Portland with a few locals, do NOT ask them to adjust the rabbit ears on the telly. They’ll probably throw you out for uttering such a socially unacceptable and unlucky word.
So anyway maybe this weekend my husband David and I will finally get to see “Were-Rabbit.” Er, I mean “Were-BUNNY!”
