October 9th, 2007

ockistamp

"Insufficient postage" in German and Slav

I’m writing a “Ruritanian” serial fic, set in several imaginary small East European states in the 1890s.

Somebody has sent a letter without enough stamps, and the post office have stomped a big black rubber stamp across it saying the local equivalent of “Insufficient postage: X crowns to pay”. Can anybody tell me how to write that in (a) German and (b) Slovak, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, or any other language from that corner of the Slav-speaking world?
VoH - Raiel

On stereotypical upper-class English accents

I don't know how to search this really, so I come to you guys for assistance.

So I've got this character who's essentially a walking British stereotype, like if you were American and looked at him he'd just justify everything you've ever thought about Englishmen. I need to know where he should be from to have your stereotypical upper-class sounding English accent. Like BBC English (I know nobody actually speaks BBC English but as close as you can get me), or I think it is also referred to as "The Queen's English." (Forgive me any ignorance, as I am quite American myself.)

Specific city/town names for searches would be great.

Setting: contemporary England, just so nobody feels a need to ask.

[Edit] What I'm looking for is pretty much exactly Stephen Fry's accent (example). Consensus seems to be that he should have attended a public school such as Cambridge or Oxford (correction, these are universities) in order to end up sounding like this.

[Edit2] Okay so basically what I'm going with is that he's from Charing Cross, London [Not Charing Cross then, where else?] (his wife is a London native and since where you're actually from doesn't seem to factor in much in this case I'm going with it for the sake of simplicity), and he attended Eton and later Oxford. Sound workable?

[Edit3] You guys have been beyond helpful, thank you all so very much! I think I'm going with either Bray or Kensington by birth (I can't decide atm), Winchester, and then Oxford (with direct reference to his specific college, which I will look up later).