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‘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 disus
by 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)
- rswail 4y agoWasn't there a joke about a "Zebra crossing" that didn't translate? "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.” Apparently that got changed from "zebra" to "pedestrian" which entirely loses the black/white joke.