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Douglas Adams also battled with this: > One general point. A thing I have had said to me over and over again whenever I’ve done public appearances and readings
by modernerd 3y ago
Douglas Adams also battled with this:
> One general point. A thing I have had said to me over and over again whenever I’ve done public appearances and readings and so on in the States is this: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it! We like it the way it is!
> There are some changes in the script that simply don’t make sense. Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every single manifestation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ever. The ‘Horse and Groom’ pub that Arthur and Ford go to is an English pub, the ‘pounds’ they pay with are English (but make it twenty pounds rather than five – inflation). So why suddenly ‘Newark’ instead of ‘Rickmansworth’? And ‘Bloomingdales’ instead of ‘Marks & Spencer’? The fact that Rickmansworth is not within the continental United States doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist! American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction.
https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/please-dont-let-anyone-americanise https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/please-dont-let-anyone-amer...
- mcv 3y agoSometimes it turns out great, though. Wasn't there a scene with an award for "best use of the word 'fuck'" that was changed to "best use of the word 'Belgium'"? That was an improvement.
- modernerd 3y agoYes! It was the “Rory Award” from Life, the Universe and Everything: https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Rory_Award https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Rory_Award Definitely funnier as “Belgium”.
- jimmygrapes 3y agoThis hampered me when playing the HHGTTG text adventure as a youth. My memory is fuzzy on the specifics, but one of the early things needed is to relieve a headache or similar, and a search of Arthur's home would reveal an "analgesic" eventually. Unfortunately you wouldn't be able to do something else until you consumed the analgesic, and eventually you'd lose the game because the home was demolished while you're in it. I did not know at the time what an analgesic was, despite having a fairly broad vocabulary. If anything, I assumed it was some dirty adult toy; certainly not a thing to be consumed as a remedy for pain. It was frustrating because I searched high and low for aspirin, Tylenol, pain-killer, etc. but never got past that section until I had a chance to search the Internet for a solution - many years after I really cared to play a text adventure again.
- brigandish 3y agoThe word you really needed to know was dictionary, not analgesic ;-)
- Taywee 3y agoAnalgesic isn't a British word, though. It's used plenty in American medicine.
- erhaetherth 3y agoNo, Americans only know brand names because #capitalism.
- smsm42 3y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CWGi1k1BHV0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CWGi1k1BHV0
- gerdesj 3y ago"So why suddenly ‘Newark’ instead of ‘Rickmansworth’? And ‘Bloomingdales’ instead of ‘Marks & Spencer’?" Newark (on Trent) is in Notts. Rickmansworth is pronounced "Rick-uth" (not really but it should be) and Bloomingdales would be pronounced something like "Blimmin'dolls", if it ever showed itself over here. The Adams quotes are from some time ago and we have all passed a lot of water since then. The entirety of en_* are now routinely bombarded with everyone else's TV/stream output in various guises. I might be a Brit but I am now (not really) intimately familiar with Australian and New Zealand police and "Border Force" etiquette and more. I can even hold my own when confronted with a particularly tricky issue in say Nunavut with the RCMPs. I am of course an expert in Texan rangering thanks to a bloke called Walker. You say tomato and I say fuck that: viva la difference!
- wlonkly 3y ago> The Adams quotes are from some time ago I would be surprised if they were recent, but I wouldn't put it past him, either.
- dallyo 3y agoThere's a Newark in England.