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Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

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Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#241
This 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-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."

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#242
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't just change the title from Philosopher's Stone. It was lightly edited throughout to nix Briticisms. You'd think they were translating it from the Ancient Greek edition and wanted to smooth over the culture gap. (A real translation, by the way!) All the more amusingly (or insultingly?) the Canadian release was the UK edition. Canadian English is much, much closer to American than British in its spoken form…

Canadian English is closer to American English, but Canadians (at least up until recently) 'get' Britishisms, or at least, the tone if not all of the specific vocabulary, to a great extent. Edit: excluding Quebec where cultural references are completely different.

This is false. Incredibly so in the western provinces.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#243
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian English is closer to American English, but Canadians (at least up until recently) 'get' Britishisms, or at least, the tone if not all of the specific vocabulary, to a great extent. Edit: excluding Quebec where cultural references are completely different.

As an American that grew up reading Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett, I don't think there's any difficulty in understanding Britishisms, even at a very young age. Even unbowdlerized Shakespeare isn't very difficult, it's mostly phonetically similar and the speech patterns are still present.

Your personal experience is likely not representative of 'America'.

America is a vast, vast place with very large numbers of people who have no cultural connection to 'English' culture. I mean - because America is an English colony, everyone does to some extent, but it's much deeper in some places (and groups) than others. Even those with continental European background, the further S. and E. you go, the less the resonance. And of course people with European backgrounds ... that's only part of America. Huge swaths of kids speak a language other than English at home, there's going to be no direct resonance with an 'Alternative English' (i.e. beyond American) in those cases.

Also, most children do not have any resonance with anything but their immediate culture - it takes a lot to get kinds beyond what's on TV, and/or what's in their immediate family environment.

I have utterly no idea why my OP is being downvoted. Usually, going against the grain on something will get you downvoted, or saying something silly but I can't fathom either this case.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#244

I'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…

Murakami's work is chock full of western media references. It's like his _thing_. At first I found it lazy and pretentious à la Sorkin, but with some distance I see it is generally pretty well done, so credit where credit is due I suppose. He also writes in a much more western style than most Japanese literary greats, so it works on that level as well.

If you want more _Japanese_ Japanese literature, try Kawabata or Akutagawa. Though understanding the various cultural references is going to be a whole endeavor if you're not already familiar.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian English is closer to American English, but Canadians (at least up until recently) 'get' Britishisms, or at least, the tone if not all of the specific vocabulary, to a great extent. Edit: excluding Quebec where cultural references are completely different.

This is false. Incredibly so in the western provinces.

It's absolutely correct, though it varies by province.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#246
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American that grew up reading Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett, I don't think there's any difficulty in understanding Britishisms, even at a very young age. Even unbowdlerized Shakespeare isn't very difficult, it's mostly phonetically similar and the speech patterns are still present.

Your personal experience is likely not representative of 'America'. America is a vast, vast place with very large numbers of people who have no cultural connection to 'English' culture. I mean - because America is an English colony, everyone does to some extent, but it's much deeper in some places (and groups) than others. Even those with continental European background, the further S. and E. you go, the less the res…

> because America is an English colony

I thought we settled that particular dispute a while back.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#247
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American that grew up reading Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett, I don't think there's any difficulty in understanding Britishisms, even at a very young age. Even unbowdlerized Shakespeare isn't very difficult, it's mostly phonetically similar and the speech patterns are still present.

Your personal experience is likely not representative of 'America'. America is a vast, vast place with very large numbers of people who have no cultural connection to 'English' culture. I mean - because America is an English colony, everyone does to some extent, but it's much deeper in some places (and groups) than others. Even those with continental European background, the further S. and E. you go, the less the res…

I have no cultural or genetic connection to England or western Europe outside of growing up in an English speaking country. Might have helped that I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child though!

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There 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.

There's a HN classic for that: "Just remove the duck" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736

Oh wow – I remember battle chess! I played it as a kid and loved it. Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#249
post #164
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you just gave up a lot of precision doing that conversion. 16:54 might be 5 minutes and 0.1 seconds or 5 minutes and 59.9 seconds. If you can get that same feel for 16:54:36 then sure, but I personally don’t.

I can't say I've ever taken the second hand into account when looking at an analogue clock to check the time, nor do I usually find myself reading the minute hand more precisely than 5 minute intervals. I've certainly watched it slowly approach 12 when waiting to get out of class or something like that, but I could just as easily watch a number count up toward 60.

It’s a useful skill. Anyway, you don’t actually need a second hand to get sub minute precision as a minute hand should be continually sweeping through the range.

Which is why people in the thread are talking about the feel of time. You can get an intuitive feel of how much you need to speed up etc.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny 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

We could have had Pebble, never forget what they took from you

I still use my Pebble Time; I can't understand why you'd buy a watch with a battery that lasts less than a week.

(I've had people tell me that you just put an apple watch on the charger overnight. Then why does it have a sleep tracker app that requires the watch to be on your wrist?)

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