SHERLOCK AND GRAMMAR

Transcription:

[A clip from the beginning of episode 3, series 1 of Sherlock, “The Great Game.” The video opens with a black screen and a variation of the Sherlock theme music. White text appears at the bottom of the screen reading “Minsk, Belarus.” The text disappears and the shot pans around a wall into a large, mostly-empty prison visiting room. Sherlock and an inmate in orange prison garb sit across from each other at one of the tables.]

Sherlock: Just tell me what happened from the beginning.

Inmate: We had been to a bar, a nice place, and I got chattin’ with one of the waitresses, and Karen weren’t happy with that, so…we get back to the hotel, we end up having a bit of a ding-dong, don’t we?

Sherlock sighs loudly.

Inmate: She’s always getting at me, saying I weren’t a real man.

Sherlock: Wasn’t a real man.

Inmate: What?

Sherlock: It’s not weren’t, it’s wasn’t.

Inmate: Oh.

Sherlock, exasperated: Go on.

Inmate: Well… then I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly there’s a knife in my hands. And, you know, me old man was a butcher, so I know how to handle knives. He learned us how to cut up a beast—

Sherlock: Taught

Inmate: What?

Sherlock: Taught you how to cut up a beast.

Inmate: Yeah, well, then I done it.

Sherlock: Did it.

Inmate: Did it! STABBED her, over and over and over, and I looked down, and she weren’t—

Sherlock sighs and looks away.

Inmate: …wasn’t…moving no more.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and looks away.

Inmate: Any more. God help me, I dunno how it happened, but it was an accident, I swear.

Sherlock stands and starts to walk away.

Inmate: Hey, you’ve got to help me, Mr Holmes! Everyone says you’re the best. Without you, I’ll get hung for this.

Sherlock: No, no, Mr. Bewick; not at all. Hanged, yes.

[Sherlock walks away as the theme music variation starts up again.]