Call the whole thing off?

Moving from print to the mass media, I'm catching up with my commercial TV watching through the graces of my public library's excellent collection of series on DVD. I'm watching 2004's House M.D., which follows the exploits of the Chief of Diagnostics at a large New Jersey hospital. Those who know me will be amused to find me so absorbed by a hospital series - this is the same person who just wrote one of her law school application essays on her insistence on a homebirth (it was relevant, really!). We're drawn to what repels us, I guess.

Actually, House M.D. is not bad - it's essentially a medical mystery show. My chief complaint is that a job requirement for the two main female characters seems to be shirts unbuttoned to the point where I worry for their safety from protruding medical equipment. After many years of breastfeeding, I've suffered a severe reduction in my sense of modesty (if in nothing else) on that front. But I'm fairly sure that Drs. Cuddy and Cameron are not making themselves accessible in order to encourage compliance with World Health Organization recommendations for extended breastfeeding. These ladies are broadcasting another message entirely. I'm tempted to demand - if nothing else - parity for those of us who enjoy looking at men's bodies too, but that's another discussion.

The episode in question, "Poison," concerns a high school student suffering dire consequences as a result of his exposure to some unknown toxin. In the course of investigating probable causes, the team searches through the pantry at the boy's home. Cameron remarks, "Mom's not too careful with the homemade tomato sauce," and the jar is removed to the hospital to be tested for botulinum spores.

If I may digress for a moment, I was surprised that canned tomatoes would be considered a danger for causing botulism, since they are so acidic. My impression was that low-acid foods, such as a the fatal green beans in Carol Shields' wonderful novel, Larry's Party, were the greatest risk. However, I'm no expert, and I freely admit that taking health advice from someone who gets her information from fiction is probably less safe than other options.

Now - back to our tomato sauce. Such was my ignorance of all things TV, that I didn't realize until I had watched several episodes that Hugh Laurie, the (apparently quite famous) actor playing Dr. Gregory House, is in fact English, in spite of his excellent impersonation of an American on the show. But then, all of a sudden, a relatively subtle variation in pronunciation made me sit up straight.

House says to his team: "I send you out for exciting new designer drugs--you come back with tomato sauce." Such an accomplished actor would not make the obvious to-may-to vs. to-mah-to mistake (thank you, George and Ira Gershwin, for so many things!). But his word stress gives him away: instead of the American to-MAY-to sauce, Laurie says to-may-to SAUCE. It's just not plausible. I suppose a New Englander of a certain generation - think Julia Child - might conceivably use the British stress, but not combined with the American vowel. And House's character is in the middle of Jersey, where the Julias of speech do not commonly roam freely.

David Lodge - whose American I mercilessly dissected in an earlier post - had his scriptwriter in Therapy admit that TV shows might be nonsense, but they are perfect nonsense. If I believe that, I would find this tomato sauce problem to be a fatal flaw. A quick search online revealed another minutiae-obsessed blogger, who found a problem with Laurie's pronunciation of "sandwich." I'm inclined to be forgiving - generous of me, isn't it? - if only because the tomato sauce turned out not to be the culprit in the episode. The source was a pesticide-impregnated pair of pants the boy had purchased from a man in a truck. So, all previous warnings against taking safety advice from fiction notwithstanding, I encourage those of you who find new sweaters under the paper and ribbons this holiday season to wash before wearing.

There you go - TV has saved another life, somewhere. Happy holidays.