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Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
- photochemsyn 4y agoFor the ultimate in retro digital calculator watches: https://watchranker.com/best-calculator-watches/ https://watchranker.com/best-calculator-watches/ 10-year battery life! Far superior to the Apple Watch and similar knockoffs.
- Digit-Al 4y agoI was amused by the praise at the end. The Monty Python team must have had a time machine because they managed to parody Nadine Dorries tweeting exactly the same thing as Boris Johnson decades before it actually happened lol
- archerx 4y agoFrom my experience in the media industry some producers/higher ups like making arbitrary changes to a work/show/whatever just so they can say they had an impact, or to say that they made that change at the end, most of the time it ends up making the final product worst.
- netsharc 4y agoI.e. "get rid of the duck": https://www.simplethread.com/looks-great-lose-the-duck/ https://www.simplethread.com/looks-great-lose-the-duck/
- worker_person 4y agoI've used that trick on Fortune 500 CEO's many times. Almost never had any of my designs changed beyond whatever "duck" I put in.
- bombcar 4y agoEvery once in awhile they fall in love with the duck, and it becomes the center piece - so it's not without risks!
- nemo44x 4y agoHappens in music. Producer will make arbitrary change and now they are a co-writer and qualify for royalties.
- bin_bash 4y agoNot quite the same thing. This phenomenon is how meddling managers like to make a decision simply so they feel useful, not for any material gain. What you’re describing is “taking credit”.
- wyclif 4y agoThe Black Keys talked about this on Joe Rogan's podcast. Pat Carney, the drummer, calls it "the guy with a degree from Pepperdine who wants to tweak the high hat."
- kingcharles 4y agoWhen I was in the biz we called it "write a word, take a third."
- Tenoke 4y agoI've been annoyed at this but some of the changes are based on focus groups and other data suggesting that it will appeal to a larger portion of the local public when changed.
- Melatonic 4y agoThere is a joke among audio engineers that they need to have a button specifically for this - I forget the exact name used ( I have heard several) but essentially it is a button that does nothing. The Exec or higher up asks for a very small tweak and the engineer obliges (by pressing the button) and then plays it back again. Nothing has changed but the Exec feels satisfied.
- jakub_g 4y agoThere's a HN classic for that: "Just remove the duck" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736
- ARandomerDude 4y agoOh wow – I remember battle chess! I played it as a kid and loved it. Thanks for sharing this.
- wice 4y agoThis reminds me of stories about directors intentionally putting ridiculously over-the-top violent or sexual scenes in their already quite violent or sexual movies for the rating board to focus on, and getting a PG-13 rating (instead of an R or NC-17) by removing it.
- CalRobert 4y agoThere's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.
- mcphage 4y agoRemoving all the Australian idioms from Bluey would have been a travesty!
- giancarlostoro 4y agoI don't care one direction or the other, but for example Doctor Who is just fine without having to be redone and loved by people in America regardless of the accents. Is there a reason you'd love to see it redone outside of just having the show have more exposure in America? I can understand the sentiment.
- CalRobert 4y agoOh, no I definitely do _not_ want it redone. It's better this way. I love Puffin Rock too (an Irish show) and can't fathom that with American accents.
- giancarlostoro 4y agoThank you for clarifying I just lost what you were conveying.
- astrange 4y agoSpeaking of Doctor Who, David Tennant is the same role in the American remake of Broadchurch and he has the worst American accent I've ever heard. It's set in California and he sounds like he's from everywhere else at the same time.
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- causi 4y ago‘Disused lavatory’ has been changed to ‘unused lavatory’ and I’m not sure why. As an American it baffles me that an American editor would change the word disused but not the word lavatory. One other thing. I’d rather have characters say ‘What do you mean?’ than ‘Whadd’ya mean?’ Again baffling. Whadd'ya mean is an accent, not a word choice. Changing it in text is as ridiculous as writing 50 as "fifdy" when it's an American character's dialogue.
- lbriner 4y agoWell I suppose they are called an Editor for a reason. They change the wording to reflect how they picture the character and might think that "What do you mean" is too formal, even in England we are more likey to say "What d'ya mean". I guess the main thing was that Douglas Adams had the chance to review it and gave helpful feedback.
- jimmaswell 4y agoThey have to make some minimum amount of changes to justify their job/importance. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736
- Strs2FillMyDrms 4y agoWhen I was younger I thought it was a smart move to be deceiptive and fool people above my paygrade to make them feel important and or smart, to allow them their foolishness. It is bad to do that as you just justify their behaviour, and allow them to keep behaving as such by giving them what they expect and want. Maybe my attitude could land me some enemies and prevent me opportunities, but I decided not to continue that vicious cycle. We need to surround ourselves with people we respect and respects us equally, somewhere were feedback is possible. Not only for the better of our minds but also for the better of the things we produce.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoSpeaking of the "disused" part: https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2018/06/disused.html https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2018/06/disu... (and yes, I am that Paul)
- jawns 4y agoHis argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." But a clock face is not really a pie chart. It does not indicate distribution among categories, as a pie chart does. The arms are not delimiters; they merely indicate position.
- _trackno5 4y agoFunny how we got downgraded into "smart watches" that barely hold a charge for a day and are good at everything other than telling the bloody time. Having an always on display is an actual feature nowadays lol
- llimos 4y agoWhy else would God have given you two wrists?
- _trackno5 4y agoI don't know what you're trying to get at with that comment.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoThe idea is you can wear a longer lasting watch on the other wrist.
- tomc1985 4y agoSo that people can look as ridiculous as possible, it would seem
- nradov 4y agoThere are smart watches that will go for weeks on a charge. They automatically set time based on the cell phone network and GPS so are always accurate to within 1 second. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/702797 https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/702797
- sillyquiet 4y agoe.g., Philosopher's stone -> sorcerer's stone. Science-fiction and fantasy UK book covers were better too, which is another example of the same weird parochialism of the U.S. publishing industry as it was. My probably unpopular opinion is that it's a reflection of a more general, largely un-self-aware New York City parochialism, which was where most of the big publishing firms were based, at least until the last decade or so.
- tallanvor 4y agoEh, it's something people sort of laugh about now, but in 1998 it was probably the right choice to change it to sorcerer. It made it much clearer to children (and adults, to be honest), that it was a book about magic. And 1998 was still a time when many families didn't have internet access, so you were more likely to run into it at the bookstore or library, so the title needed to be more descriptive.
- Intermernet 4y agoYeah, but it sold just fine with the original title in all other markets. If I were from the US I'd be offended that the publishers decided to dumb it down. That's literally an insult to the society.
- bombcar 4y agoPerhaps "philosopher's stone" wouldn't have triggered such a loud backlash - which was needed to spur sales even further. I doubt many people even know (or care) about the slight differences. As to covers, even Tolkien was complaining about Americanization decades ago: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_277 http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_277
- revertmean 4y agoFor anyone wondering what that bizarre cover might look like: https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-books/middle-earth/the-hobbit/the-hobbit-ballantine-2.jpg https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-books/middle-earth/th... I can't find the lion...
- skizm 4y agoIf you like Hitchhiker's, try "Year Zero" by Rob Reid. Very similar style IMO. Also "After On" by the same author is also fantastic.
- rendall 4y ago* Americanize
- Intermernet 4y agoSomeone had to say it ;-)
- mdp2021 4y agoThe '-ize' prefix is official International English - OED English. No partisanship (for example) necessary (in fact, '-ize' in OED is a Graecism, not, say, an Americanism). Trying anyway to link the idea to the context: there is no need to translate a Local Language work into an International Language transposition - no need already per se. But especially, it is most normal for works of arts to written using specific localisms, well in a deliberate concept from the author - it is normally the duty of a translator to try and convey those choices, which makes it below absurd to suppose to instead nullify those features in a standardized relative of the same language.
- JaceLightning 4y agoThe example of digital watches is interesting. I found the digital version exponentially easier to read than the watch hands one.
- bananabiscuit 4y agoDigital easier to read, but I personally think analog is easier to “feel”. I get a much larger sense of urgency when the minute hand approaches an anticipated position. And same goes for when the hour hand crawls downward to signal the end of the work day. Seeing it physically close the distance to the 6 o’clock position gives me a much better feel for how much of the day I have left than “3:24”. It really is like a pie chart in that sense.
- drewzero1 4y agoFor the past decade I've worn a series of watches that combine analog hands and a digital display, which I find to be the best compromise between anticipating the passage of time and getting a quick, accurate reading. Casio makes some pretty good combo watches, and there are a range of smartwatch faces that combine the analog movement with the digital readout. Edit: I noticed you (and the article) mentioned pie charts, and one of my favorite smart watch faces is "Old Fogies Can't See Worth S**" by m3tropolis[0]. It's a literal pie chart showing % of the hour elapsed vs. remaining, with the hour number in the middle. I find it extremely easy to understand, but tend to use other faces when I need to know exact minutes. [0] https://apps.rebble.io/en_US/application/558782c83ae5e507fc000081/ https://apps.rebble.io/en_US/application/558782c83ae5e507fc0...
- Finnucane 4y agoThe irony of this is that by 1992 large numbers of Americans had already listened to the radio series, read the novels, watched the BBC show, etc., with all of their UK references and language in place. Why would anyone have thought the US audience wouldn't accept it? THey already had.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rob_c 4y agoAmen!
- mordechai9000 4y agoI've always been annoyed they replaced "Philosopher's Stone" with "Sorcerer's Stone" in the title of the Harry Potter novel, for American consumption. It feels kinda of insulting, frankly. I recently and randomly picked up a Japanese book, 1Q84. I was enjoying it quite a bit, when I started thinking about the cultural references it contained - it has numerous references to Western classical music and Sean Connery. It worried me that they might have actually replaced Japanese music and actors with western "equivalents". But of course, there has been a great deal of cultural cross pollination, so it is no more unusual for a Japanese person to be aware of Sean Connery or The Brothers Grimm than it is for me. I didn't want to spoil the book by reading reviews before I read the book itself, but I skimmed enough to gather the Sean Connery part, at least, seems to be original source material. Part of the attraction in reading a book like that is the fact that it is a Japanese book. It feels demeaning to have take that away because they worry the foreigness of it will be disturbing or unwelcomed by American readers.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago1Q84's author, Haruki Murakami, is a notable fan of both jazz and (Western) classical music. And Connery is well known in Japan, at least partly because his Bond classic You Only Live Twice was set there.
- tristam_shandy 4y agoHaruki Murakami is particular that way. Western culture references are the reason he gets "exported" so much. But that cultural cross pollination isn't as ubiquitous as one would think.
- mordechai9000 4y agoI wonder if the western cultural references are part of the attraction to Japanese readers, the same way I am attracted to reading a book with a Japanese setting.
- astrange 4y agoHe used to be an English-to-Japanese translator, so his books tend to read like they were translated from English. That might be another reason they're so popular outside the country. In fact they're so popular that everyone seems to have the idea he's going to get a Nobel Prize someday, but I don't see why they'd give a prize to a novelist who only writes "women are so mysterious, truly men will never understand them" novels like him.
- wowokay 4y agoI am young so take my answer with a grain of salt but a digital watch number is instantly recognizable to me, more so then an analog watch.
- fristechill 4y agoMy children would concur: they prefer digital time I think because that's what computers generally give. Also they prefer to have subtitles on but that's by the by. I enjoyed Douglas Adam's letter though I can't help thinking it was meant for publication.
- secondcoming 4y agoFor some reason, in Ireland and possibly the UK, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were instead called The Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. 'Ninja' may have been too violent
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoTo my recollection they were called Ninja in UK to start with but renamed. The mythology for the rename was that kids copied them and hurt themselves, but that seems an unlikely reason as changing the name wouldn't change kids copying from them??
- throwyawayyyy 4y agoI think that's right! Incidentally, I was recently very surprised to discover, via my young nephew, that the Turtles are still very much a thing. Who'd have thought of the Ninja Turtles as a piece of 90s culture that would endure?
- AlbertCory 4y agoI actually hosted Shaun Usher at Google [1]. We had an experiment, not sure if it was successful but it seemed like a good idea at the time, where Googlers read some of the letters. He courted his wife entirely by letters on paper. This was not pre-Internet days, either; it was around 2000. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg7LRg2NAfM&list=PL4ugKP-T4LYu0UyTzj3FeSDW1zSZUADju&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg7LRg2NAfM&list=PL4ugKP-T4L...
- MarkovChain242 4y agoMy personal favorite story in this genre is that the set-top box that my employer-at-the-time imported into the US called the schedule "TV Guide." PM: "TV Guide" is a Registered Trademark. You can't call it that! Non-US-folks: "Uhm, TV guide is just, ehhm, what it says" PM: "We'll be sued! We'll be wiped out" Non-US-folks: "Uhm, OK, so what about 'TV Listings'" PM: "Oh, yeah, that will be OK" How any of this makes any difference still eludes me, but yeah...
- oehpr 4y ago>So digital watches were mere technological toys rather than significant improvements on anything that went before. I don’t happen to think that’s true of cellular comms technology. I think it's funny how for a brief moment there the digital watches joke became a thing again when everyone started pushing smart watches. Funny enough, I kind of agree with adams that displaying a pictorial representation of time is better than it's numeric value, but honestly I find the classic representation too easy to trip up on. >Incidentally, I noticed a few years ago, when we still had £1 notes, that the Queen looked very severe on £1 notes, less severe on five pound notes, and so on, all the way up to £50 notes. If you had a £50 the queen smiled at you very broadly no way... https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknote... oh my god it's kinda there! Go to 1992, What the hell?!?! Edit: Oh I see. In 1992 they were rotating in new notes for 5 pound and above, but the series D pound notes were still in circulation, in those the queen was more demure, and in the new notes she's much happier.
- sarchertech 4y agoBy far the stupidest Americanization I've encountered is when Netflix changed "The Great British Bake Off" to "The Great British Baking Show". They are honestly recording 2 versions of every intro for this?
- enzoaquino 4y agoSadly, that's due to a trademark issue in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off
- jaimedario88 4y agoThis Captain Disillution video shows the lengths the producers went to apply that title change to the show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OEwbocwYF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OEwbocwYF8
- jetbooster 4y agoI saw a current events comedy show filmed live in the UK (The Last Leg), and they filmed two intros because the Australian network which bought the rights to rebroadcast couldn't afford the rights for the theme music. It was bizarre.
- pwinnski 4y agoA single version, with digital replacement of visuals. And that's due to a trademark issue in the US, unfortunately.
- sarchertech 4y agoIn the newer shows, the hosts actually say “The Great British Baking Show” during the intro.
- mdp2021 4y agoThis is shocking. To rewrite somebody's work should be immediately regarded as a fraud. I fear for those who died and cannot contrast such insanities.
- dionidium 4y agoOne of the things I like so much about the movie Rounders is that it respects its audience enough to drop unexplained references throughout without elaborate explanation (in a way you hardly ever see in mass media). Many about poker, but many other little gems, too. Consider the line, "Like Papa Wallenda said, 'Life is on the wire, the rest is just waiting." If you don't get the reference, you aren't missing much, but for those who do it's such a delightful little moment in the film, made better by its lack of supporting explanation. Thank god they didn't add clunky exposition to inform the viewer about the Wallendas. Another favorite: when Michael is walking back into KGB's place, the place where he previously lost all his money, he says: "I feel like Buckner walking back into Shea." Who is Bucker, what is Shea, and what does it have to do with KGB? The film takes the chance you'll get it. There are lots and lots of poker terms and references, too, most introduced without elaborate fanfare on the theory that a smart audience will pick them up as they go, but it's these random lines -- "In the legal sense, can fuckin' Steinbrenner move the Yankees?" -- that have always stuck with me.
- bitwize 4y agoI used to grow up watching Danger Mouse, one of the most British cartoon shows. I still have fond memories of it and the dialog holds up well, acquiring nuance that went over my head as a kid, that I can appreciate as an adult. I learned about London landmarks -- Baker Street, Willesden Green, the Tower of London -- through this show, and even things like what a pillarbox is. Britishisms like that were always namechecked, and everything seems to have been made with a sense of British pride. Danger Mouse got a "modern" reboot in 2015, and by comparison it's awful. It's more colorful and garish, the dialogue is more rapid fire and less funny, and though it sometimes features new landmarks like the Gherkin, it has less of a British identity. Later on I found out that the producers copped to making a more American style cartoon, which is what the market seems to want.
- throwyawayyyy 4y agoI LOVE Danger Mouse. It still totally holds up. Also Count Duckula! David Jason (who is very English) did an American accent in that. Which I don't recall finding odd at the time, as a child.
- ankaAr 4y agoI Don't understand why publishers localize a book, instead to add a footnote.. And translations are even worst.. .
- nestorD 4y agoAmericanising is building a language an accent bubble around the US. I am a non native speaker with an accent and I am often surprised to see that some US citizens have a very hard time with my accent while non native speakers have no problem understanding me. I suspect it is due to some US citizen not being used to dealing with a variety of sounds and inflexions.
- davesque 4y agoThere's an interesting meta phenomenon here I think. A lot of the language in this letter by Douglas Adams implies that it's Americans that are the problem. Whether or not he actually believes that is, I think, beside the point. What seems more likely is that the profit chasing publishers have created the problem by placing too much emphasis on the results of surveys and focus groups. In other words, Americans aren't really that stupid, it's just that big business executives think they are. And then they run their business accordingly in such a way that makes the whole world think Americans are stupid. Which is annoying because I'm an American and I know I'm not stupid. And I also feel weirdly inclined to give the average American the benefit of the doubt here. Sometimes, giving people a choice creates a dilemma out of thin air. They might choose one thing even if they would have been just as happy with the other. Update: Actually, upon reading Adams's letter again more carefully, I'm seeing that he's probably making this very point! So I'll just leave my original comment as a more general one about where I think the issue originates.
- kuang_eleven 4y agoIt's interesting, I actually do think there is value in regionalizing media to an extent, primarily low-level word change between dialects. For example, changing "Go throw the wellies in the boot of the car parked on the pavement before we get petrol" to "Go throw the rainboots in the trunk of the car parked on the sidewalk before we get gas" for an American audience. Higher-level changes are less justifiable, like the potential of changing landmarks, etc. That being said, "disused lavatory" is reasonable to change, although "unused lavatory" is entirely the wrong way to do it! That translation both changes the meaning of the phrase and doesn't even get rid of the obvious Britishism. I would have gone for "derelict bathroom" maybe? Maybe "dilapidated"?
- Symbiote 4y agoThis would be reasonable if the audience is under 12 years old. I expect any American older than this to cope with a few less familiar words.
- jawilson2 4y ago> Go throw the wellies in the boot of the car parked on the pavement before we get petrol When I first read HGTTG in 5th-6th grade, it was exactly this kind of language that drew me to it. It enhanced the humor for me, and it would feel dead to regionalize it, and lose an integral part of the character.
- dwringer 4y agoMy thoughts exactly. The Britishisms add extra color and absurdity while simultaneously bringing the characters more to life. Besides, archaic and excessively formal language is almost a hallmark of British humor as I interpret it.
- dragontamer 4y agoA lot of "Americanization" sucks. But I want to point out some counter-examples. 1. Digimon Season 1 English Dub is far superior to the Japanese original. Many people choose Cowboy Bebop as the "Better in English" anime, but... Digimon S1 is night-and-day. Stronger script with better jokes/puns, cooler attack names (English "Pepper Breath" vs the Japanese "Baby Flame"), everything is straight up better in English. 2. Cowboy Bebop is probably the better known example in anime community. 3. Final Fantasy VII -- Perhaps it is more obvious that "Cloud" and "Earth" would have a doomed romantic relationship if we stuck to the original Japanese. But "Earth" was chosen as a name for the Japanese audience because English sounds exotic. To return that feeling of "exoticness", they transliterated it into "Aeris", and suddenly we return back to the original exotic feeling name. 4. Power Rangers -- Okay, I don't know how to think of this one. Power Rangers took the original Japanese stuff and changed it so much, it no longer looked anything like the original Super Sentai. ------ Saban Entertainment knew how to do dubs / Americanizations. (Digimon S1, Power Rangers, Samurai Pizza Cats, Dragonball Z '96). Just because other companies failed where Saban succeeded doesn't mean that "Americanization" is bad. Its that "bad Americanization" is bad.
- junar 4y ago> 3. Final Fantasy VII エアリス (earisu) is not how Japanese speakers would pronounce "Earth". That would be アース (aasu), which sounds quite different. And you may be aware, but "Aeris" is not the preferred rendering today, which is "Aerith". Don't have an opinion on your examples in general, just wanted to correct a misconception.
- wetpaws 4y agoThat's not americanisation, that's translation.
- dragontamer 4y agoThe Yellow Ranger was a man in the original Japanese, but a woman in the American version. Power Rangers is probably the weirdest East/West thing to ever happen, yet still work out. The amount of "translation" that occurred is nearly nil, it was pretty much a wholesale reinvention of the entire plot.
- m463 4y agoThis line makes me recall Roger Ebert talking about the transformers, which seems to me to epitomize american cgi-heavy movie producing: https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-fall-of-the-revengers https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-fall-of-the-reven... "The movie is pretty much all climax. The Autobots® and Decepticons® must not have read the warning label on their Viagra. At last we see what a four-hour erection looks like."
- megablast 4y agoMarks and Spencer’s is such a dumb name for a supermarket though. The Uk is full of dumb nonsensical names. Curries is an electric store. Oh yes, perfect sense.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoYou're not alone. In Australia we have Bunnings:a pallet-shelving style hardware(paints/tools/wood/whatever else) store. WTF is a bunning anyway? With no proper definition the Urban Dictionary definition(NSFW) makes shopping much more amusing...
- M2Ys4U 4y ago> Marks and Spencer’s is such a dumb name for a supermarket though. It's named after its founders (Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer). Doesn't the US have a supermarket called Trader Joe's, also named after its founder?
- sgustard 4y agoAdams was brilliant, of course, but to me part of the appeal of Hitchhiker's was its deep Britishness. Absurdity is funnier against a backdrop of English inhibition. Monty Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" is only funny because it's so English. Spinal Tap took on fake English accents because it's funnier that way. Comedy is about contrasts you see.
- musicale 4y ago> Please don’t let anyone Americanize it TFTFY
- wyclif 4y agoI liked the movie, but Adams wasn't around to prevent the filmmakers from Americanising it, casting Ford Prefect and Trillian with American actors. If I remember correctly, Trillian is supposed to be Arabic in the book.