It's not just London street slang, it's more widespread than that. I knew what he meant immediately and I'm from way up north in Manchester (where we also have gangs )

anjaH_alias wrote:

 Bro, surely. Same number of syllables and also "getto slang" here. Or "dude". Or "Schatz" .

Yeah, "Schatz" would be good. 

But to get a feel for the word; it'd have similar connotations had he said "bro", only this word is more local, am I correct? 

BTW, poor actor who has to dub Benedict in Sherlock. 

Is it actually possible that Gatiss put in the "blud" remark without being aware of the secondary meaning, that of an evil fairy in slavic mythology? The fairy, "blud," means "wanderer" - "an injurious fairy causing disorientation" - and leads people aimlessly round and round.

There is so much attention to detail and so many subtle references/double entendres in the Sherlock series, that I can't imagine Gatiss wasn't aware of the double meaning (or Sherlock, for that matter). In my opinion, it was a portmanteau-sort-of compliment-insult by Sherlock, meaning: 

a) English slang "blud" - meaning "bro," or "mate" - which, as someone pointed out, is in keeping with Sherlock's former use of street slang, "laters," which sounds so tongue-in-cheek coming from him.

b) The alternate sense of the slang word, "blood" - like, blood brother. Sherlock and Mycroft are blood. 

c) The evil slavic fairy causing disorientation and leading a person round and round aimlessly. Mycroft had said shortly before the "blud" comment that he had learnt Serbian, and that it has a Slavic root. Can the fact that there is a slavic fairy of the same name (and spelling) be coincidence? If so, it's a very lucky one. Mycroft is the master puppeteer and has a hand in everything. At the end of "A Study in Pink," Sherlock agrees with Watson's idea that Mycroft was a "criminal mastermind." And Sherlock hates being controlled by his brother (in previous episodes, he stubbornly refuses to help Mycroft). Mycroft hates "leg work," so he demands that Sherlock follow up on cases for him. As soon as he gets him shaved and cleaned up, he sends him off to uncover a terrorist network. Like an evil slavic fairy directing the actions of people around him.

In addition, I think it notable that Mycroft referred to Sherlock twice before as "brother" in the scenes leading up to the "blud." Mycroft had also told Sherlock that a "small thank you wouldn't go amiss." Sherlock refused to thank him. But right before Sherlock says "blud," that girl agent whose name I can't remember (Anthea? Not her real name) said, "welcome back, Mr. Holmes." But Sherlock said "thank you -" and turned to his brother to say, "blud." To me, it seems fairly conclusive that Sherlock was simultaneously thanking Anthea for her comment, and Mycroft for rescuing him; but at the same time as he is thanking him and referencing their blood relation, he can't resist inserting a little Slavic dig that only Mycroft would pick up on, IN ADDITION to the street-slang meaning of "bro."

So clever, I almost can't believe it. Even without the Slavic part, it is clever. Gatiss is a genius. I admire the heck out of him. And I absolutely love his posh-Eton-boy smug attitude. 

besleybean wrote:

Excuse me?
Do you mean Mycroft?
Mark went to a comprehensive school in Darlington, County Durham.

Yes, Google searches are a wonderful thing. But I was referring to Mycroft's on-screen persona. And as a pre-emptive strike, I'll just add that no, I did not mean Mycroft literally attended Eton. 

Oh, and to make things even more confusing, the subtitles on the Blu-ray say "blood" and not "blud". Hmmmmmm......

Chalotte wrote:

...So clever, I almost can't believe it. Even without the Slavic part, it is clever. Gatiss is a genius. I admire the heck out of him. And I absolutely love his posh-Eton-boy smug attitude. 

I don't know. IMO, there comes a point when someone can be too clever for the room. If 75%+ of the viewing audience either doesn't get it or thinks it's nonsense, what pray is the sense of writing it in the first place, having the actors act it, or not leaving it on the editing room floor?

 

Sadly, there are no DVD commentaries for season 3.

It could very well be that the "blood" in the DVD subtitles is a misspelling. As far as I know, the way this works, is that the DVD publisher hires a company to do subtitles for any given DVD release. They then pick whoever usually does the subtitling in their company to listen to the DVDs and write out the dialogue to the best of their ability. I don't think these subtitles usually get proofed by anyone involved in the writing of the show, so it may very well be that the writers meant to spell it "blud" (which seems to be a typically British term) but that the DVD subtitler figured it would be spelled "blood".

And going back through the answers in this thread, it seems Gatiss confirmed via Twitter that it should be spelled "blud", so I guess there we have our answer. The DVD subtitling people didn't know better, and just spelled it like they thought it would be spelled, namely "blood".

Last edited by TeeJay (January 23, 2014 12:26 pm)

dartmoordoggers wrote:

Gatiss confirmed it was 'blud' on his twitter account. Its spelt  blud on the BBC site; and most brits would be familiar with the term.

Thanks, I actually realized that and have since edited my post you quoted.

Do you happen to have a link to the Gatiss tweet?

besleybean wrote:

Well I don't know what circles Mark mixes in, but it ain't familiar to me!

Nor me, and I live in central London. Clearly I have a lot of work to do on updating my street cred...