This 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.
Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
151–160 of 326 posts
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#152I'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…
It loses a lot of connotation, too. Philosopher's implies abstract, referring to the stone's elusive, impossible nature: having never been discovered, only theorized.
In a story where everyone is a sorcerer, it dumbs that down a lot. It could be one of their kidney stones for all it matters.
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, some people in the US/Canada struggle to understand a British accent and this might be one reason to dub it into another accent. My brother tried to order an apple pie fritter in Canada and the woman didn't understand what he was asking for. When he proncounced it fridder, she did :-) I understood both ways perfectly well but hey!
I had this too when I was in the US. A waitress didn't understand "bottle of water" so I had to point to it, to which she replied "Oh you mean a boddle of warder"
That’s unfortunate… variations in American accents can differ as much or more than that, so it’s a little surprising she struggled. I hope you don’t judge all Americans by that experience :)
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#154There'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.
And you get to learn new words like dunny and dobber.
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, 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.
Perhaps "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
For anyone wondering what that bizarre cover might look like: https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-books/middle-earth/th...
I can't find the lion...
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#156* Americanize
Someone had to say it ;-)
The '-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.
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#157I'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…
It loses a lot of connotation, too. Philosopher's implies abstract, referring to the stone's elusive, impossible nature: having never been discovered, only theorized. In a story where everyone is a sorcerer, it dumbs that down a lot. It could be one of their kidney stones for all it matters.
To be fair, everybody in that world is a wizard, not a sorcerer.
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#158There'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.
It's fascinating to see the number of Bluey fans. My kids love it too. Making it American would just ruin it.
I grew up reading Paddington books, and about 90% of what I know about British money came from those books. Re-interpreting it to American dollars would have ruined the immersion into the story, IMO. I was very glad when the Paddington movies were unapologetically British.
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#159There'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.
In my experience, some people in the US/Canada struggle to understand a British accent and this might be one reason to dub it into another accent. My brother tried to order an apple pie fritter in Canada and the woman didn't understand what he was asking for. When he proncounced it fridder, she did :-) I understood both ways perfectly well but hey!
If we're going to be using eye dialect, did he order an "fritter" or a "fri'uh"?
Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)
#160There'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.
Bluey runs on repeat in our (American) house and I'm sure I've seen each episode a half-dozen times now. I find the Australian accents and cultural references to be a charming and fundamental part of the show. The wildlife, the fauna, the building designs—it all screams "Australian" at you, so hearing a bunch of American accents in that setting would be jarring and out-of-place. The Aussie themes have even led to som…
I know a lot of American children and families that have similar associations with Wallace and Gromit. I think even for relatively young children, the fact that something is "international" can make it more entertaining and interesting.