[HN Gopher] Please don't let anyone Americanise it (1992)
___________________________________________________________________
Please don't let anyone Americanise it (1992)
Author : revorad
Score : 304 points
Date : 2022-05-12 08:19 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.lettersofnote.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.lettersofnote.com)
| secondcoming wrote:
| For 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 wrote:
| To 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??
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 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.
| sarchertech wrote:
| By 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 wrote:
| Sadly, that's due to a trademark issue in the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off
| jaimedario88 wrote:
| This Captain Disillution video shows the lengths the producers
| went to apply that title change to the show
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OEwbocwYF8
| jetbooster wrote:
| I 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.
| bitwize wrote:
| I 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.
| ankaAr wrote:
| I Don't understand why publishers localize a book, instead to add
| a footnote..
|
| And translations are even worst.. .
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I 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-T4L...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| For the ultimate in retro digital calculator watches:
|
| https://watchranker.com/best-calculator-watches/
|
| 10-year battery life! Far superior to the Apple Watch and similar
| knockoffs.
| nestorD wrote:
| Americanising 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.
| skizm wrote:
| If you like Hitchhiker's, try "Year Zero" by Rob Reid. Very
| similar style IMO. Also "After On" by the same author is also
| fantastic.
| kuang_eleven wrote:
| It'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"?
| jawilson2 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| My 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.
| Symbiote wrote:
| This 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.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| 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 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.
| sircastor wrote:
| I remember learning about the title change, and the reason, and
| thinking "I know what a philosophers stone is..." because I'd
| come across it in my nerdy reading somewhere. I didn't think
| American children would have had a problem with it. I'm kind of
| offended that publishers, television and movie producers,
| record executives, etc keep pulling this kind of garbage. We
| aren't stupid, and I'm willing to bet that more often than not
| people are willing rise to the intelligence of a work rather
| than shy away from it.
| zumu wrote:
| Murakami's work is chock full of western media references. It's
| like his _thing_. At first I found it lazy and pretentious a 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.
| BearOso wrote:
| 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.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| "Philosopher's Stone" also refers to a relevant part of
| alchemy, whereas "Sorcerer's Stone" has no poetic or
| referential weight to it. Sad.
| spoils19 wrote:
| The American version is more accurate and arguably better - I
| like to think the title was changed for our heightened
| intelligence and not the opposite.
| Veen wrote:
| Your comment refutes itself.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| The philosopher's stone was a specific historical idea, the
| catalyst that would allow alchemists to create the elixir
| of life.
| underwater wrote:
| The myth of the Philosopher's Stone is not widely known
| outside the UK. Without correct context the title is dead
| boring and doesn't sound like it has anything to do with
| magic.
|
| Imagine picking up a book called "John Smith and the
| Architect's Compass" and having someone tell you the
| title makes sense because there is a legend about an
| ancient cult who guards a a device that can locate the
| holy grail.
| em500 wrote:
| It's pretty widely known at least in Western Europe. I
| knew it from primary school history class in the
| Netherlands (long before the first Harry Potter book was
| published). Similar for German and French colleagues.
|
| Not sure why the title should be changed to sound like it
| has something to do with magic. For people who are aware
| of the legend, the original title would mostly bring up
| associations with alchemy.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| the myth is explained in the book. the only difference
| between 'philosopher's stone' and 'sorcerer's stone' is
| that the former provides a connection to a real myth.
| underwater wrote:
| Philosopher is an overloaded term. For someone who
| doesn't know the myth the definition is squarely non-
| magical. For someone browsing a bookstore the magical
| meaning is missing. It just sounds dry and boring. That
| doesn't help the book get sold.
|
| At the time she was an unknown author with a single kids
| book. I think changing the title to make the theme more
| obvious was justifiable. Changing the term throughout the
| book was unnecessary.
|
| Personally, I grew up with the Philosopher's Stone and
| always wondered why she chose that name. It was only
| years later when I learned it was a legend outside the
| books did it make sense. The book does explain the
| meaning in the context of the novel, but not the wider
| cultural significance. That dampens the impact (just like
| how the Crystal Skull is not nearly as impactful as the
| Holy Grail in Indiana Jones).
| jfk13 wrote:
| Or transmute base metals into gold.
| jollybean wrote:
| This is some good irony right here!
|
| Aside from the fact that there can be nothing more
| 'accurate' in fiction than the Author's own words ... the
| 'Philosopher's Stone' has mythological reference that
| 'Sorcerer's Stone' obviously doesn't.
|
| And using American words for 'the toilet' that the
| characters may not have used themselves, is not 'more
| accurate'.
|
| And it mostly has little to do with intelligence.
|
| As a reminder to everyone - America is a very big place,
| with a lot of different people, often with different roots,
| migration status etc..
|
| It's feasible kids from New England would adapt to the
| English version without any fuss, but beyond that, a lot of
| this vernacular would just be 'very foreign'. We're talking
| about kids with limited vocabulary to start with, not the
| guy with an 'English Accent' in the documentary.
| nerdponx wrote:
| To be fair, everybody in that world is a wizard, not a
| sorcerer.
| bee_rider wrote:
| These are fictional classification of fictional magic users
| anyway. Actually did she ever clarify what exactly a
| sorcerer is in her universe?
|
| (In the D&D model her wizards seem to operate more like
| sorcerers, but of course D&D doesn't make the rules for
| everyone).
| thematrixturtle wrote:
| 1Q84'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.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| > It worried me that they might have actually replaced Japanese
| music and actors with western "equivalents".
|
| There's a weird inverse to this in the manga/anime Jojo's
| Bizarre Adventure. Many of the characters and their special
| abilities are named after well known American bands and songs
| (e.g. Steely Dan, Killer Queen, Crazy Diamond). But when
| localized, many have been censored due to potential rights
| issues. So Killer Queen becomes Deadly Queen, which is kind of
| sad since the references make me appreciate the cultural cross
| pollination you mentioned.
| resfirestar wrote:
| I think the attitude that Japanese popular culture should
| ideally be completely rewritten for overseas release (a la
| Godzilla) is still common within Japan itself, but thankfully
| US publishers and film distributors have mostly realized
| audiences don't want that. It's still enough of an issue that
| you're right to be cautious, though 1Q84 is a big enough title
| that the translation would be heavily scrutinized. A lot of
| Western culture has become so permeated into Japan that it's
| common to see: the Brothers Grimm are so popular with Japanese
| SF authors that I think some Western sticklers for originality
| would despair at how often those stories are referenced and
| adapted.
| bitwize wrote:
| The Japanese don't care much for Roland Emmerich's 1997
| Godzilla. Because the rights to the character are owned by
| Toei, that character occasionally appears as a joke in
| Japanese Godzilla films as "Zilla" (because he is pathetic
| and not a god).
|
| The current Western Godzilla from 2024 on fared better with
| Japanese audiences, but they consider him too fat or
| something.
| ginko wrote:
| I think they were referring to the heavy edits the original
| 1954 Godzilla film underwent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla,_King_of_the_Monster
| s!
| resfirestar wrote:
| Yes, and also I was thinking more of how executives think
| about it rather than audiences. Sometimes the reason for
| popular Japanese films not making it to the West (or not
| making it until many years later) is because the Japanese
| rightsholders are holding out for funding to make an
| alternative cut for overseas audiences and get a wider
| theatrical release.
| anthk wrote:
| Murakami it's a special case: It's a Japanese feeling itself
| like an "alien" because he writes novels about being a mix
| between Japan's tradition and lots of Western influences.
| Freeboots wrote:
| Sorcerer's Stone is particularly annoying i agree. Not like
| philosophers' stone is an existing mythos highly relevant to
| the story or anything.
|
| Another that bugged me was Northern Lights -> The Golden
| Compass. Apparently NL was too abstract for American audiences?
|
| Oh and Harlequin -> The Archer's Tale.
| morelisp wrote:
| Moreover, "The Golden Compass" was illustrated with the wrong
| type of compass.
| resfirestar wrote:
| >Northern Lights -> The Golden Compass
|
| According to Pullman that one wasn't really about an attempt
| at cultural adaptation, the title had been in flux and the US
| publisher had taken an early name for the upcoming series,
| "The Golden Compasses", and run with it before he settled on
| Northern Lights.
| auxbuss wrote:
| re: The Golden Compass (sic)
|
| Not only did the American editors change the title, but the
| device in question - the alethiometer, which is not a compass
| - is made of brass not gold in the original text. The US
| editors basically changed it to gold to fit their created
| title.
| tristam_shandy wrote:
| Haruki 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| He 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.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| Well, they didn't translate the pun in the title of 1Q84, at
| least, so they at least have some respect for the reader.
| morelisp wrote:
| Possibly unintentionally it still works, just as a visual pun
| instead of an aural one.
| Spivak wrote:
| Wait, it's disrespectful to the reader if they change the
| wording so that it's a pun in both languages? Isn't that
| like... the best possible translation?
| retrac wrote:
| 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, so most of the
| worries about Briticisms would apply to Canadian children.
| Somehow we managed to read it, despite the strange and foreign
| speech and ideas.
| jollybean wrote:
| 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.
| sn0wf1re wrote:
| This is false. Incredibly so in the western provinces.
| jollybean wrote:
| It's absolutely correct, though it varies by province.
| [deleted]
| t-3 wrote:
| 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.
| jollybean wrote:
| 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.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > because America is an English colony
|
| I thought we settled that particular dispute a while
| back.
| t-3 wrote:
| 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!
| davesque wrote:
| There'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.
| dionidium wrote:
| One 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.
| wowokay wrote:
| I 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.
| Finnucane wrote:
| The 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.
| rendall wrote:
| * Americanize
| Intermernet wrote:
| Someone had to say it ;-)
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 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.
| keybuk wrote:
| '-ize' might be preferred by Oxford, but '-ise' is
| preferred by Cambridge. So I think it needs no explanation
| which DNA would prefer.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _is preferred by_
|
| But International English is Oxford, not Cambridge. The
| convention came to be OED.
|
| > _So I think it needs no explanation which DNA would
| prefer_
|
| I do not understand. "DNA"?
| stevedh wrote:
| Douglas Noel Adams
| rendall wrote:
| Gotta love HN.
|
| > _The '-ize' prefix..._
|
| Since we're doing flagrant pedantry, let's go all in: don't
| you mean _suffix_?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Oops! Of course I do. I'm just quite tired.
|
| By the way: no pedantry involved (unless you mean the
| "educating" value of information passed here where
| "intellectual curiosity" is the criterion for exchange).
| The purpose and implicit messages in your original post
| were unclear (many readings were possible).
| rendall wrote:
| Only positive, warm humor intended by any of it.
| dragontamer wrote:
| A 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.
| wetpaws wrote:
| That's not americanisation, that's translation.
| junar wrote:
| > 3. Final Fantasy VII
|
| earisu (earisu) is not how Japanese speakers would pronounce
| "Earth". That would be asu (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.
| CalRobert wrote:
| There'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.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Discovered Bluey and use it as a treat/distraction when needed
| with my 10-month-old. I legitimately enjoy watching it and love
| the subtle jokes made for parents. A big part of the charm is
| the Australianisms.
|
| We don't need more Americanized stuff. If anything it should be
| the reverse: USA needs more international content, accents,
| etc.
| Hayvok wrote:
| 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 some history lessons in our
| house: a handful of episodes reference Australian soldiers
| (including Bluey's grandpa) which led to my kids asking what
| wars Australia fought in. Queue the (very) gentle introductions
| to WW1 and WW2, and the Pacific War specifically.
| nerdponx wrote:
| 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.
| lbriner wrote:
| 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!
| jack_riminton wrote:
| 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"
| beanders wrote:
| 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 :)
| kergonath wrote:
| From my experience, even people used to variation still
| struggle when it is the _wrong_ kind of variation. It 's
| a bit difficult to explain but I have seen it happening
| regularly, including once when I tried to say something
| about Vancouver and it took a writing down to get it
| across. The other person was used to one southern
| American accent, Estuary English and European Globish at
| least.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| I know I shouldn't but I still do find it surprising how
| someone speaking English can't understand a well spoken
| English person!
| djur wrote:
| If we're going to be using eye dialect, did he order an
| "fritter" or a "fri'uh"?
| leoedin wrote:
| Not understanding an accent is purely due to lack of exposure
| - so if that's the reason producers choose to dub everything
| then it's a self perpetuating cycle of ignorance.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I 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.
| astrange wrote:
| Speaking 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.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Oh, 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Bluey is one of the few kids shows a parent can watch without
| having their brain melt.
|
| And it gives great ideas for playing with the kids.
| larkost wrote:
| I would also suggest the Storybots series. There are some
| amazing cameos by Snoop Dog and Weird All Yancovic among
| others.
| scrollaway wrote:
| You should check out Gravity Falls, and the 2017 DuckTales.
| dunham wrote:
| And you get to learn new words like dunny and dobber.
| Joeboy wrote:
| I guess David Attenborough probably isn't so well-known in the
| US? It's apparently much harder to get people to show up for
| something without a big name attached.
|
| Edit:
|
| > Actress and conservationist Sigourney Weaver was brought in
| to replace David Attenborough as narrator, as it was thought
| her familiarity to American audiences would attract more
| viewers.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_(2006_TV_series)
| Intermernet wrote:
| David Attenborough is by far the most famous nature
| documentarist in the world. No one comes close. I'm not sure
| what name would be regarded as bigger.
| dymk wrote:
| Morgan Freeman as a runner up
| pvaldes wrote:
| I would put Jacques Cousteau and Felix Rodriguez de la
| Fuente in the same league. If we take in mind the risks
| that they suffered to film nature I would say that they
| score higher in the epic factor.
|
| I'm not denying that Attenborough is a category in himself
| and a wonderful narrator of course.
|
| Freeman and Sigourney are in a different category. Both are
| excellent actors and narrators in films directed by another
| people. Freeman is "the" voice in the anglosphere, but
| Rodriguez de la Fuente was "the" voice in the latinosphere.
| Everybody was trying to imitate their style and accent
| decades after their death. He was the leader in a wolf pack
| when nobody was doing that, and don't hesitate to escalate
| a clift to take a good shot of a vulture nest. He was not
| an actor that just arrives to a set, say their lines and
| go.
| adolph wrote:
| Some people's work is of a sort that it doesn't get
| Americanized so much as alter American culture. I'd put
| both Adams and Cousteau in that class. How could Cousteau
| be understood through that accent? How could anyone not
| pay close attention once the accent was decrypted?
|
| _By the end of his life, Jacques Cousteau seemed a
| caricature of himself. The red cap, the thick accent--the
| Cousteau aesthetic was so overripe that director Wes
| Anderson used it as the template for The Life Aquatic
| with Steve Zissou._
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/water-
| activi...
| quesera wrote:
| Ken Burns is a candidate, though not strictly natural world
| stuff.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| If Americans don't know his name, they know his voice. And we
| would know it better if we could get more BBC nature content
| licensed for display in the US.
| abruzzi wrote:
| Somewhat famously, Mad Max was dubbed into "American" for
| distribution in the USA. I have an old DVD that has both
| soundtracks and it can be fun to switch back and forth.
| vrc wrote:
| I think there's something about British narration of nature
| docs that makes them more relaxing and engaging for American
| audiences. Especially those who grew up in an era of Discovery
| Channel and PBS where the narration was usually British, or
| South African, or Australian, or in the Commonwealth-tinged
| flavor of English of that location. Perhaps it's nostalgia.
| bombcar wrote:
| For me at least, for no real reason and perhaps because of
| British narration of documentaries, the British accent "by
| default" sounds more learned.
|
| Now I'm sure there's variations of British accents, but the
| ones we were exposed to as children seemed to coincide with
| "scientific" or other educational content.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| > Now I'm sure there's variations of British accents
|
| That's an understatement.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| or: Tats en oonderstatement.
|
| or maybe: Thaaats and aaandastatement.
| twofornone wrote:
| I agree and I think part of it is nostalgia for a time when
| educational channels actually broadcast informative content,
| not semi-scripted, over edited, over dramatized reality tv.
| Did anyone else notice the slow boil of channels like
| History, Discovery, Animal Planet? Just irresponsible to
| coast on their reputation and start showing nothing but junk
| TV 24/7 to people who thought they were learning.
|
| I think it started with Pawn Stars and went downhill from
| there. MBAs saw $$$ and had no qualms about dumbing down
| their national audience and trashing the reputations of the
| channels in the process. American TV is unwatchable IMO.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I didn't have cable growing up, but by the time I was in
| college History channel had already given up on history and
| was just running "Ancient Aliens" and its ilk along with
| reality TV. As far as I know, there is nowhere to find good
| documentary content on a regular basis (whether by
| streaming or legacy media). PBS gets close, but even their
| Nova and Nature programs have degraded in quality.
| CalRobert wrote:
| It really is painful to watch. It's been so long since I
| watched anything that wasn't a streaming service that when
| I see old fashioned TV with commercials and horrible
| editing it drives me up a wall.
|
| I remember when my complaint about the History Channel was
| that it was WWII all the time. It was still massively
| better than today; at least I learned about the Battle of
| the Bulge over and over and over.
| mcphage wrote:
| Removing all the Australian idioms from Bluey would have been a
| travesty!
| deltarholamda wrote:
| 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.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Bluey is a fantastic show, and the fact that it's
| unapologetically Australian is part of what's so fun about it.
| I think it's just the choice of nervous higher-ups to localize
| things like this, and not actually what people want. Like
| Douglas Adams says, people can survive hearing references they
| don't understand. And they might even learn something about
| another culture.
| onpensionsterm wrote:
| Which is why non-localised US media can be so successful in
| other countries, even places where English isn't the first
| language.
| marlowe221 wrote:
| My kids (ages 6 and 3) LOVE Bluey. We are American and
| (sadly) English-only speakers. The fact that the show is full
| of Australian accents has not impacted their ability to
| understand or enjoy the show in any way at all.
|
| The exposure to places that are not-America is good for them!
| CalRobert wrote:
| I didn't even realize it but when Bluey, Bingo, and dad go
| to watch Chunky Chimp (the kids' movie with a big storm)
| the characters' accents are American.
|
| "it's just a bunch of singing monkeys I wouldn't read too
| much in to it"
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| >English-only speakers
|
| I mean most of native speakers won't have much trouble
| understanding Australian accents. It's the ESL people that
| would have a hard time without having enough exposure.
| soperj wrote:
| It's not really the accents that are hard to understand
| in Australia, it's the slang.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not everybody is a xenophile, some people are nationalist types
| who get annoyed (rather than aroused) whenever they hear a
| foreign accent, and may even have trouble understanding them.
| You're not going to change channels if you hear an American
| accent, but they very much will if they hear an Australian one.
|
| One out of every six big US movies would be black if it were
| proportionate to population, but they're not. The reason is
| because black people will watch white movies, but white people
| don't watch black movies. It's the people willing to walk away
| that make the decision.
|
| It's very expensive to redub a series just to change the
| accent; they're getting a return on that.
| gordian-mind wrote:
| > The reason is because black people will watch white movies,
| but white people don't watch black movies.
|
| What happened to "people just want to be represented in
| movies"? Simply put, since there are more whites than blacks
| in the U.S., then every film-maker has an incentive to
| represent them more to reach a broader audience.
|
| This is absolutely not because "white people are more
| bigoted", which is laughable when you consider that they are
| surely, in proportion, the most xenophile people on the
| planet.
| inkywatcher wrote:
| > surely
|
| Would you mind substantiating this?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't understand the argument that you're making. Black
| people expect not to be represented in movies, and so
| seeing someone like themselves is not essential to
| appreciate them (although a token certainly helps.) White
| people are alienated from movies they don't see themselves
| in. Therefore movies made for white people will not lose
| black audiences, but movies made for black people will lose
| white audiences.
|
| You seem to be supporting that opinion, but angrily.
| Abekkus wrote:
| The first planet earth wasn't just given different voiceover
| for American audiences, it was recut. The brass called the
| Attenborough cut "excruciatingly slow-paced", so once they
| decided to re-edit, it was probably easier to recast the
| narration than to try and edit down Attenborough's own speech.
|
| The Attenborough cut is my personal preference too.
| Hayvok wrote:
| Agree in general that the UK/Attenborough cut is preferable,
| but the American intro sequence is fantastic and dramatic.
| Gave me chills the first time I watched it.
| yes_i_can wrote:
| I kind of hate the dramatization in newer nature
| documentaries, rife with cuts of sweeping landscape views
| set to loud, epic music. I'm probably just getting old, but
| it feels like they're trying too hard to keep my attention.
| I don't need blaring horns and pounding timpani to keep me
| watching.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| The problem is it's a race to the bottom with these kinds
| of things, comparable to the over-salt-&-sugar-ing of
| American foods:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G77ev9pks4I
|
| "..until eventually, they're shipping hamburger buns with
| exactly three sesame seeds artfully arranged in a
| triangle, and nobody buys their hamburgers any more."
|
| -- https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/09/11/theres-no-
| place-li...
| Digit-Al wrote:
| Replacing Attenborough as the narrator on a nature
| documentary is a crime against humanity, and should be
| treated as such ;-)
|
| What we need to do is feed all of his narrations from the
| last 60 years into an AI and get it to process them; then we
| can use this corpus to have all nature documentaries narrated
| by him forever more.
|
| I am, of course, joking... but would it _really_ be that bad
| an idea? ;-)
| hef19898 wrote:
| Once wr did this it should be part of the UN charter that
| the Attenborough narration AI is the acceptable use of AI
| from that point onwarda into eternity.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I didn't even know there was a version that wasn't
| Attenborough. Where is this other version found (not that
| I'll watch this "other")?
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| It blows my mind that Attenborough would ever be replaced as
| a narrator because he is the best of the best vis-a-vis
| nature documentaries.
|
| Or to provide an Americanized analogy, you wouldn't replace
| Morgan Freeman in a situation where you needed the sage
| reflections of an old man in voiceover form.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Honestly I'm an avid fan of all of the "Planet" series
| precisely because of Attenborough.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| It's deeply lamentable that in this day and age one has to
| resort to throwaway accounts to express their fondness of
| Sir Attenborough.
| mrep wrote:
| ? Are you referring to throwaway894345 who has been here
| for 4.5 years and has 12483 karma? Don't think that is an
| actual throwaway at this point.
| kergonath wrote:
| It might have been a joke...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Is "ZoomZoomZoom" your legal name? :)
| renewiltord wrote:
| These days, if you say you're English, you'll be arrested
| and thrown in jail.
| onion2k wrote:
| If you watch them side-by-side it's like they took all the
| long words out of the US narration.
|
| UK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onELlblAI0U
|
| US https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zt4wmjOpr0
| petepete wrote:
| Or when Mary Beard was cut from the American release of
| Civilisation.
|
| She, a world-renowned scholar and classicist, was replaced by
| Liev fucking Schreiber.
| neild wrote:
| Bluey is the only show that made my kid want to turn the TV off
| so he could play whatever game Bluey and her sister were
| playing himself. We still play Silly Hotel from time to time.
|
| It's very different tonally (much more serene), but fans of
| Bluey should check out the BBC kids' show Sarah & Duck, which
| is aimed at a similar age range and also contains much for
| parents to love as well as children. It's gentle and surreal,
| and I'd have been happy to watch it on its own merits even if I
| didn't have a kid who loved it as well.
| technothrasher wrote:
| When my son was little we used to watch "Bob the Builder"
| together, but apparently the producers didn't feel the same as
| the Bluey ones or didn't have as much sway. Our local station
| switched to a dubbed version with American accents and it was
| just awful and pointless. So now they say "soccer" instead of
| "football", so what? It lost most of its charm.
| tombert wrote:
| Honest question: how did it lose charm by switching to
| American accents and localisms?
|
| I'm not disagreeing (I'm a bit too old for Bob the Builder
| and I don't have kids), I'm genuinely curious.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I think it was mostly because we were used to the voice
| actors they had been using. The new ones just didn't fit
| the characters as well. I'm not sure it was an American vs
| British thing, I think it was more likely 1) you like what
| you were introduced to, and 2) they hired less qualified
| voice actors and re-writers to do the cheap dubbing than
| they originally did when they cast the show.
| not1ofU wrote:
| Sounds like watching The Simpsons with dubbing -
| interesting for a brief moment, but then you want the
| original.
| astrange wrote:
| The French-Canadian dub of The Simpsons is at least as
| good as the original.
|
| https://twitter.com/matttomic/status/1158910781964083201
|
| The Japanese dub from what I've seen is surprisingly
| okay, but also kind of wordy, which they make up for by
| speaking faster than usual. (But they have the guy who
| does all the anime priests as Rev. Lovejoy.)
| underwater wrote:
| Fun fact which is strangely on point for this thread: Dave
| Mccormack, the voice of Dad on Bluey, was previously known for
| his band Custard. One of their most popular songs was "I feel
| like Ringo". Ringo Starr was famously the narrator of Thomas
| the Tank Engine.
| causi wrote:
| _'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.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| They have to make some minimum amount of changes to justify
| their job/importance.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736
| Strs2FillMyDrms wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| Speaking of the "disused" part:
|
| https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2018/06/disu...
|
| (and yes, I am that Paul)
| lbriner wrote:
| Well 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.
| JaceLightning wrote:
| The example of digital watches is interesting. I found the
| digital version exponentially easier to read than the watch hands
| one.
| bananabiscuit wrote:
| Digital 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.
| jawns wrote:
| His 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.
| pikminguy wrote:
| I think this is more of a "different people's minds work
| differently" thing than an age thing. Some people who grew up
| in the digital age still find analog clock faces more useful.
| Here's a short youtube video exploring that
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArBfxaPzD8 . I think Adam's
| mistake was assuming the preference for analog was universal
| which was probably wrong even when he first wrote the joke.
|
| I think the argument could be made for a clock face being a pie
| chart if you think of it the way the host of that video does.
| The categories are "time left in the hour/day" and "time passed
| in the hour/day".
|
| All that said I was really happy to finally understand what
| Adams was trying to say with that joke witch, as a person who
| finds digital readouts more useful, never landed for me before.
| boesboes wrote:
| I'm 37 and have a hard time parsing clock faces, I remember
| having a hard time with it in kindergarten and they basicaly
| wrote it of as me being a little prick and refusing to do it
| right
| worker_person wrote:
| Same. I can do it. But not fast.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Do you where one strapped to your body at all times? If you
| did, I bet you'd find it more intuitive.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| I wore an analog watch for about 15 years and never hit
| the point where it was easier for me to read than a
| digital display.
| joemi wrote:
| Same for me. My house had loads of analog clocks when I
| was growing up, I had one for a watch for over a decade,
| but still it was always a little bit harder to figure out
| than digital for me.
| develoopest wrote:
| Also same, this seems to be related to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia
| wink wrote:
| I am just apparently very bad at estimating which hand is
| the longer one (if there's not a huge amount of
| difference). Once I figured that out... reading the time
| is not a problem.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| I was very surprised that anyone _at all_ would find digital
| displays harder to read than an old-style clock face. Learned
| something new just now. I 'm 37 too.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| 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
| gramie wrote:
| I would never wear a watch that had to be charged every day.
| My Amazfit Bip (stupid name, I know) is good for about 6
| weeks if I don't use the GPS and heart monitor, and 2 weeks
| if I do.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| We could have had Pebble, never forget what they took from
| you
| skykooler wrote:
| 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?)
| nradov wrote:
| Garmin has several smart watch models with sleep tracking
| and batteries that last for over a week.
| llimos wrote:
| Why else would God have given you two wrists?
| tomc1985 wrote:
| So that people can look as ridiculous as possible, it would
| seem
| _trackno5 wrote:
| I don't know what you're trying to get at with that
| comment.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The idea is you can wear a longer lasting watch on the
| other wrist.
| nradov wrote:
| There 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
| Adraghast wrote:
| Mine is extremely good at telling me the time. I just look at
| my wrist and there it is. Maybe you're using it incorrectly?
| scarface74 wrote:
| People said the same about smart phones compared to Nokia
| candy bar phones with battery lives that lasted a week.
|
| In exchange for charging my cellular watch every night, I get
| a device on my wrist that can make phone calls, stream music,
| store 16GB worth of music, has GPS for when I run, monitors
| my heart rate, gives me notifications and let's me send
| messages.
|
| If I went into coma in 2009 and the most advanced piece of
| technology that I knew at the time was the iPhone 3GS or the
| then current laptops and woke up in 2022, I would be much
| more impressed with the Apple Watch than any other piece of
| technology.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _but even now, in elementary school, they require entire
| lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face._
|
| I'd say that's a failure to teach them analog time as toddlers,
| not digital time being inherently superior.
| Adraghast wrote:
| Digital time is inherently superior. Analog time requires the
| extra cognitive step of translating to the numbers being
| represented. Digital time skips that process and shows you
| the numbers directly.
| solveit wrote:
| Neither numerals nor configurations of clock hands are
| numbers and both require a translation step. For what it's
| worth, time isn't a number either and you translate from a
| number to a time.
| danachow wrote:
| This thread has devolved into what sounds like a bunch of
| web devs that think that makes them experts on perception
| and psychophysics.
|
| But on this point there isn't anything inherently more
| abstract about Arabic numerals as a representation of
| numbers than the angles of the hands on a clock face (ie a
| short hand to the right is 3 and upright is 12, etc is a
| pretty efficient way to convey a number). As for what can
| be read quicker probably has overwhelmingly a lot to do
| what was learned in youth. Similar to stenographic
| shorthand this can probably be acquired but there just
| isn't much incentive to do so.
|
| There isn't necessarily any extra "cognitive step" in the
| pattern recognition of a clock face vs that of a numeral.
|
| I don't know much about research on this particular area
| but there is some in the related area of written language.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I wear an analog watch for the simple reason that I can tell
| the time at a glance, and don't need glasses to get it.
|
| With a digital watch, I have to wear glasses and deliberately
| focus on it.
|
| There's good reasons why cars and airplanes still have analog
| displays, and people present data with graphs rather than
| columns of numbers.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in
| school on telling time from a clock face.
|
| I'm not sure our age difference, but as a millennial I'm pretty
| sure we did when I was in elementary school as well. I don't
| remember which grade though, I didn't learn about how to read
| those watches from my parents. Digital clocks became so common
| that I never cared for it. Same with cursive, because of
| computers making cursive really pointless, I don't know how to
| write in it outside of my own signature.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Anecdote: my partner can't read analog watches at a glance,
| they prefer digital displays.
|
| It's a funny little hole in their wide skillset!
| joppy wrote:
| Are you sure this is not just the amount of exposure to each
| type of clock?
|
| On the other hand, I've noticed that children who understand
| how to read only digital clocks are quite capable of answering
| what the time is (just read the numbers right off), but have
| trouble telling how many hours there are from 10am to 3pm.
| audunw wrote:
| > Are you sure this is not just the amount of exposure to
| each type of clock?
|
| I have a large analog clock in our living room that I look at
| every other day or so. I still find that I instantly
| understood the digital watch, but with the analog watch
| example I had to actually stop and look carefully at it for a
| second.
|
| If I had a analog wrist watch I used every day I'm sure I'd
| be equally good with both. But I really think it takes more
| time to get used to the analog version. At least in modern
| society when we have numbers all around us all the time
| anyway. I'm sure someone who's not literate would feel very
| differently.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Great argument for using the 24h clock ;-)
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Ever seen the 24h analog clock? :)
|
| https://m8y.org/images/24.svg
| Izkata wrote:
| I have the widget on my phone, it uses local
| sunrise/sunset to adjust the nighttime shaded area: https
| ://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.staticfre..
| .
| nadavr wrote:
| Related, I made a little toy[0] that lets you explore
| what analog clocks would like with an arbitrary number of
| hours in the day (since 12/24 is of course arbitrary
| too).
|
| [0]: https://nadavrecca.com/eleventhour
| adolph wrote:
| This is very nice as it addresses the zero-index nature
| of time by going 0-23 instead of 1-24. Time would be much
| more comprehensible if all clock were marked that way.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Hm, I think most countries that use 24h time systems use
| 00:00:00 to 23:59:59
| lucumo wrote:
| I've been staying at that click for a solid ten minutes,
| but I can't figure out why minutes and seconds start on
| top, but hours on the bottom. Any idea why that
| particular choice was made?
| goblinux wrote:
| the 24 hour clocks I've seen usually are set up like this
| so daytime is the top half and night time the bottom - as
| though the tip of the hour hand was the sun
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Adding additional info to my sibling comments. Since the
| bottom is designed to show night, it would be cool to
| grab a geolocation and draw the bottom based on
| sunrise/sunset times.
| K2L8M11N2 wrote:
| From the sibling comment's link: "Noon is at the top, so
| that the hour hand mimics the path of the sun."
| monknomo wrote:
| Sure it does - for example the portion of the hour in front of
| the minute hand's sweep is "in the future" whereas the portion
| of the hour behind the minute hand's sweep is "in the past" and
| the portion of the hour under the minute hand is "now".
|
| Three categories, and the distribution of the current hour's
| minutes between them
| eadmund wrote:
| > His argument about digital watches did not age well.
|
| Didn't it? I think it remains true. Time is a continuum, not
| discrete; analogue watches demonstrate that, while digital ones
| do not.
|
| And yes, schools have to teach one how to use a clock, but at
| the end of the process one actually has enhanced one's
| understanding of time. Much like using a slide rule teaches one
| far more about numbers and maths than using a calculator.
| pikminguy wrote:
| Even if you're right that analog watches are better tools
| that's not what Adams was saying. "We all know, really, that
| [analog clock face] is a lot more instantly meaningful to us
| than 15:39" which is just wrong. Plenty of people, myself
| included, get more instant meaning from a digital readout.
| Beldin wrote:
| Having witnessed kids learning time: they will happily give
| "15:39" as an answer. But if you ask them when it'll be 4
| o'clock, they literally have no idea - not even of yhe
| direction (forward or back).
|
| I think this is Adams' point: digital watches pretend to
| give you information but only give you data. That's a
| reason to consider them silly: they make you work
| (translating their data to something with meaning) while
| pretending to do the work for you.
|
| Note: analogue watches also require interpretation. But
| they support coarse- as well as fine-grained
| interpretation: is it before or after a whole hour? Closer
| to half than to whole? Or to a quarter? 10 past or to? Etc.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Plenty of people, myself included, get more instant
| meaning from a digital readout.
|
| More from outside knowledge than from the digital readout
| itself. There's no way to tell from a digital readout there
| are 60 minutes in an hour or seconds in a minute, or that
| there's a 12-hour period that means something (and no hints
| to guess.) There's no evidence that the time represented on
| a digital readout changes at a constant rate or is
| sequential and doesn't jump around or go faster sometimes
| and slower others. Everything on an analog clockface is
| just there.
|
| If you found an alien digital clock written in alien
| language, it would take you forever to figure out anything
| about it; it would take a while to figure out anything
| useful even if you _knew_ it was a clock. If you found an
| alien analog clock, it would be immediately obvious what it
| was and what it was doing, and you could use it to help you
| understand the alien digital clock.
|
| edit: also, when your alien digital watch did the
| equivalent of jumping from 12 to 1, it would throw
| everything off, especially if there were a different symbol
| for 1 second or 1 minute that there was for 1 hour. An
| analog clock visually explains the transition between 12
| and 1.
|
| I think all this stuff is obvious, I'm confused about the
| argument being made that it's not. There's just less
| information on a digital readout. I feel like I'm trying to
| explain that movies have more information than movie
| scripts, but Kolmogorov would say to compress them both and
| compare the filesizes.
| pikminguy wrote:
| I don't think you're getting how important the word
| instant is in this context. An analog clock might be
| better for decoding an unfamiliar time system. It might
| be better for teaching children how we count time. It
| might implicitly contain more information. It might be
| better in a thousand ways. None of that matters.
|
| For whatever reason I get a faster and more accurate
| sense of what time it is from a digital watch. I am not
| alone in this. Therefor the assertion that an analog
| readout is more instantly meaningful for everyone is
| wrong.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Therefor the assertion that an analog readout is more
| instantly meaningful for everyone is wrong.
|
| Maybe I'm confused about the assertion. The sentence "A
| picture with a bird in it" is more quickly recognized by
| very fluent English speakers than an actual picture of a
| bird. But it conveys far less information to a far
| narrower audience.
| ehaliewicz2 wrote:
| The problem with the original statement is the phrase
| "more instantly meaningful". It might be correct if it
| said "more meaningful", but I doubt it's more `instantly`
| meaningful for someone who can read numbers quickly.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| My experience is different.
|
| When I am at the train station I can have an immediate
| idea of what time is it just looking at the analog clocks
| around (they are digital displays mimicking analog
| clocks) even if I can't read the numbers from afar.
|
| Digital clocks are harder for me because I have to parse
| the information: is that a 6, 8, 9, or zero?
|
| It doesn't make much difference in the end, bit having to
| actually read the number forces me to be precise and I
| can't rely on intuition.
|
| The more I age, the more my vision deteriorate, the more
| I find analog clocks easier to read.
| pikminguy wrote:
| Oh absolutely. Your experience is in line with what
| Douglas Adams was originally saying. Plenty of people get
| a better sense of time from analog displays.
|
| I'm not saying digital works better for everyone. I'm not
| even saying digital works better for most. It could
| easily be the case that I'm in the 1% of weirdos who have
| an easier time with digital. My only point is that it
| isn't universal either way. Adams said digital watches
| are silly because everyone gets a better sense of time
| from analog. It is a funny joke. But he is wrong about
| the facts.
| joemi wrote:
| > If you found an alien digital clock written in alien
| language, it would take you forever to figure out
| anything about it; it would take a while to figure out
| anything useful even if you knew it was a clock. If you
| found an alien analog clock, it would be immediately
| obvious what it was and what it was doing, and you could
| use it to help you understand the alien digital clock.
|
| I disagree with this. This seems to assume that an alien
| analog clock would look/function more like our analog
| clocks than an alien digital clock would look/function
| like our digital clocks. I'm not sure there's any reason
| to make that assumption.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > I'm not sure there's any reason to make that
| assumption.
|
| analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time
| is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and
| night (same concept of the meridian, plus dark hours,
| when there is no shadow).
|
| I imagine that any alien civilization that lives on a
| planet that rotates around its star and has a light/dark
| cycle would measure time in a similar fashion.
| adolph wrote:
| > analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time
| is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and
| night
|
| This is not supported by evidence. For one, it would make
| a 24 hour dial make more sense than a 12 hour one. For
| two, many early non-discrete clocks took the form of
| parallax observation or liquid flows and were not
| inherently circular.
|
| https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devi
| ces
| pessimizer wrote:
| The only assumption is that analog means a gauge of some
| sort with a pointer or pointers moving between symbols,
| rather than a series of symbols that change for digital.
| I wouldn't have any problem with assuming a circular
| gauge (because we calculate periodic things using circle
| math), but it's not necessary.
| joemi wrote:
| That's kind of a big assumption, IMO. Why does it need
| symbols? Perhaps a hypothetical alien species has an
| analog clock that keeps track of times with shades of
| color. Or audio tones. Or it uses a gauge, but the gauge
| vibrates and the vibrations mean something.
|
| Combine that with the fact that their time system might
| not be based on a fairly regular rotation of the planet.
| Perhaps they value some other less regular measurement
| more. Or perhaps their planet does not have regular
| rotation. How might a time system evolve and be portrayed
| in those cases? How can you be sure that an analog
| display would be easier to interpret than a digital one?
|
| Similar to how a 12-hour analogue clock does not
| necessarily imply that we actually have 24 hours in our
| days, an alien analog clock could potentially be vastly
| different than the same alien's digital clock.
| npteljes wrote:
| Yeah, this instant meaning is something that's learned. I
| derive an instant meaning of the analogue clockface, and
| also from the digital.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I don't think there's anything more inherently meaningful
| about a digital vs analog readout, or vice-versa. They're
| both highly abstract representations of time, it really
| just depends on what you're used to.
|
| That said, every single event on my calendar, and every
| single communication about time I have with other people is
| expressed as a written (or spoken) number, not as a
| position on a clock face. That makes digital clocks far
| more useful for me personally; it saves me the extra step
| of having to mentally convert to digital time before being
| able to reason about how the time on my watch relates to
| other events or significant times throughout my day.
|
| To those who prefer analogue watches I have to ask; how
| does that process work for you? Do you find it easier to
| mentally convert written times to a visualization of a
| position on a watch, and then do whatever mental reasoning
| you need to do in that space? Or are you doing the same
| thing I would be doing if I had an analog watch; converting
| it to digital and then reasoning from there? If the latter,
| why does skipping that extra conversion step by using a
| digital watch feel worse from your perspective?
| bananabiscuit wrote:
| Digital easier to read, but I personally think analog is
| easier to "feel". I get a much more visceral 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.
|
| At this point in my life I am definitely much more used
| to reading a digital clock so I don't think you can
| attribute this to familiarity.
| rlpb wrote:
| Communications with others are expressed as a written or
| spoken number. But then calculations with that number
| (eg. "how long do I have?") have to be done with
| arithmetic. It's fairly rare that I wear a watch, but
| when I do, such as at a conference or similar, I prefer
| an analogue face. In this kind of case I prefer to
| visualise the time on the clock face. Then I can "see"
| the time remaining without doing arithmetic.
|
| > If the latter, why does skipping that extra conversion
| step by using a digital watch feel worse from your
| perspective?
|
| I'm quite capable of doing it either way, but my
| preference is to do the single required conversion to
| "analogue" so that repeated comparisons are visual and do
| not require repeated arithmetic. I also find it easier to
| remember a time visually, whereas single-digit errors in
| remembering a digital time can result in a greater error.
| js2 wrote:
| Funny you should use 15:39 as your example.
|
| I find the translation I have to do from 15:39 to 3:39 pm
| to have much more friction than reading a digital or analog
| clock in the first place, both of which I can do with equal
| ease.
|
| The problem of course is that I'm not used to 24-hour
| times, so I don't equate 15 with any particular time of
| day. Similar to how I have to translate C to F to make
| sense of C temperatures.
|
| Now, a 24-hour analog clock with an embedded digital
| temperature read-out in C, that would really hurt.
|
| Apparently 24-hour analog clocks are thing:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Hour-Wall-Clock-Non-
| Ticking/d...
|
| Ouch.
| pikminguy wrote:
| I didn't pick 15:39 that's the quote from Douglas Adams.
| He pretty clearly went with a hard to read digital time
| to emphasize the point that he (and according to him
| everyone else) can more readily get useful information
| from an analog readout. My own watch is a digital 12 hour
| display and that is more useful to me.
| Lio wrote:
| At the time of writing 24 hour digital clocks were very
| common in UK train stations. All rail services in the UK
| are always in 24 hour form.
|
| So there's a good chance he just picked 15:39 as a
| familiar train time.
| joemi wrote:
| Counter example: I grew up using 12-hour time and still
| do to this day, with plenty of analog clocks all around,
| and yet I find it much easier and faster to convert
| between 24-hour and 12-hour time (just remove the leading
| 1 and subtract 2, if the hour is more than 12) than to
| parse an analog clock (identify which hand is which,
| convert the minutes to get an approximation, even more
| work if it's a stylized clock that might use roman
| numerals or not have any labels at all).
| parenthesis wrote:
| In the context of hours of time, I perceive `15' as just
| an alternative symbol for `3pm'.
|
| Likewise, I perceive 1539 as an alternative symbol for
| 1536, as I like to keep my clocks three minutes fast.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| I don't think that analogue watches demonstrate the
| continuous nature of time. They _tick_. That 's discretizing
| time. Sure you can omit the seconds hand or even make it run
| smoothly, and some do, but that's not reflective of the
| nature of the timepiece. You could just as well make a
| digital clock that fades out the unit seconds digit as the
| new one fades in. Or show digits until a blurby hundredth of
| a second, which some do.
| vrc wrote:
| That's why the continuous motion ones are so sought after
| and pricy. The mechanical continuous motion watches are
| really marvelous feats of engineering
| Intermernet wrote:
| They're also (as far as I understand it) not actually
| continuous motion. They just have much smaller increments
| of movement than a single second.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's still continuous, as even when fully ticking, it
| still goes from point a to b passing through all the in
| between points... well, up to planck length at least...
|
| Ticking just makes the motion jerky/abrupt, not
| discontinuous/discreet...
| Intermernet wrote:
| Ooh, alright, you win this one, but only on a
| technicality. I won't mention the fact that liquid
| crystals are also in a constant state of motion while
| under power ;-)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > up to planck length at least...
|
| Well, we actually do not know that...
| garaetjjte wrote:
| It seems there are mechanisms with fully continuous
| motion, eg: https://www.grand-seiko.com/global-
| en/about/movement/springd...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Is it "fully continuous" if it has a discret electronic
| controller correcting it all the time?
| dymk wrote:
| The movement is still quantized if you look close enough.
| coldtea wrote:
| Not in any discernible degree without at least an
| electron microscope...
| morelisp wrote:
| Your eyes will quantize the display before the mechanism
| does.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Time is a continuum, not discrete; analogue watches
| demonstrate that, while digital ones do not
|
| While obviously true, we often treat time as discrete to an
| appropriate level of precision. Timekeeping in sports is
| essentially all digital these days for example. And generally
| speaking (at least for some contexts), 10am really does mean
| 10am, not 10ish.
|
| I actually normally use an analog display on my Apple Watch
| but I think it's mostly to have something different as pretty
| much all the other clocks I use, including the watch I
| usually wear, are digital.
| Retric wrote:
| The issue is 10AM has real meaning but you're only actually
| at 10AM for an instant mostly you want to know how long
| until something happens.
|
| Think of a meeting at 10AM with an analog clock you can get
| an intuitive feel for how long you have to finish what your
| working on. With a digital clock it's easy to do the
| calculation but that distracts from the task at hand.
|
| It's most noticeable with a seconds. Many analog clocks
| include a second hand because it's actually useful, while
| few digital clocks do so.
| leoedin wrote:
| I think much like reading is abstracted to a point where
| the "shape" of the words conveys the meaning (and you can
| muddle up the inner letters without much loss of
| information), when you use digital clocks enough the
| subconscious meaning of the shape of the numbers is what
| you see. I don't have to do a manual conversion to
| understand from the 16:54 on my phone screen that I have
| 5 minutes until 5pm - I just "know" that from a single
| glance.
|
| Ultimately both digital and analog clocks are
| abstractions which convey meaning to whatever our
| internal sense of time is. I suspect the internal concept
| of time is quite different for everyone (hence why my mum
| is always late for everything...)
| Retric wrote:
| 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.
| djur wrote:
| 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.
| Retric wrote:
| 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.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| I find it _much_ easier to judge how urgent it is to
| finish given the information that it 's 9:54 than by
| looking at an analog clock. I wore an analog watch from
| age ~5-20 out of stubbornness and never got to the point
| where it conveyed useful information to me without
| actively stopping to think.
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| If you are talking about 12-hour analogue watches, no. They
| wrap the continuous time into some non-intuitive measure that
| needs an external context to determine the actual time of
| day. They rather demonstrate that time needs to be as precise
| and accurate as needed; the continuity of time doesn't always
| matter.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yea I am not sure I get his argument much at all either. While
| I love my analog watches and wallclocks I also have digital
| ones. If anything I think the argument should be that the AM PM
| system is just ridiculous - why do we use it? I am an american
| but always switch all clocks to 24 hour time (if digital) and
| while I am completely used to analog clocks being on the
| standard 12 hour cycle it always also seemed crazy to me that
| we do not just all use 24 hour analog watchfaces.
| egypturnash wrote:
| seriously, I am a GenXer who grew up with mostly digital clocks
| and I _still_ have to stop and think to get a time out of a
| clock dial.
|
| But then again as Adams said elsewhere, _Time is an illusion;
| lunchtime doubly so._ That one still rings true, especially if
| you 're a freelancer like me who _never_ needs to get up and go
| to an office at 9AM.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| If I just want a sense of progress of time, especially within
| an hour, an analog clock works just fine for me. It obviously
| is more work if I want an exact to the minute time for
| logging something, and then it must be converted.
|
| On the other hand, analogue might probably slightly easier if
| I just want to get an to the nearest 15 minutes approximation
| of the time. If reading from an analogue clock, I'll probably
| say it is 3:30, but would say it is 3:27 if reading from the
| digital clock, as reading it exact is faster than rounding
| it. I have had people seem bemused by my telling them the
| precise time like that, but like, I'm not going to make more
| work for myself to make the time less precise to better match
| tradition.
|
| But unlike some other people I know, I don't have much
| difficulty understanding the progress of time with a digital
| clock either. 13:54, and the equivalent clock face both give
| me equally good impression of how much time is left until
| until 14:00, and I feel no need to translate either into the
| other for that purpose.
| blarg1 wrote:
| same, every single morning I have to and think for a second
| to figure out the time :(
| FabHK wrote:
| A similar issue arises in aviation.
|
| In the cockpit, airspeed and altitude used to be presented on a
| dial like a watch (one hand in the case of airspeed, two hands
| or even three in the case of altitude).
|
| In modern cockpits with screens, they could be presented like
| that, or just as numbers, but they are presented as infinite
| bands that move up and down. One sees the number on it, but
| also perceives movement (and how fast it moves) "out of the
| corner of an eye". Maybe it combines the advantages of both.
|
| See here, for example, for both styles: https://www.flight-
| mechanic.com/pitot-static-pressure-sensin...
|
| I wonder what studies were made regarding this design.
| archerx wrote:
| From 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.
| Tenoke wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| 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.
| jakub_g wrote:
| There's a HN classic for that: "Just remove the duck"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9137736
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Oh wow - I remember battle chess! I played it as a kid and
| loved it. Thanks for sharing this.
| netsharc wrote:
| I.e. "get rid of the duck": https://www.simplethread.com/looks-
| great-lose-the-duck/
| worker_person wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Every once in awhile they fall in love with the duck, and
| it becomes the center piece - so it's not without risks!
| nemo44x wrote:
| Happens in music. Producer will make arbitrary change and now
| they are a co-writer and qualify for royalties.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Not 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".
| rob_c wrote:
| Amen!
| MarkovChain242 wrote:
| My 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...
| sillyquiet wrote:
| e.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.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > Science-fiction and fantasy UK book covers were better too
|
| Same with video games back in the day. The Japanese versions
| had much cooler box art than the Western ones. But they were
| often abandoned because they used a style that wasn't as
| popular in the West.
| tallanvor wrote:
| Eh, 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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
| revertmean wrote:
| 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...
| underwires wrote:
| Here's a variation with the lion, they removed it after
| his complaints
|
| https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IZy3SQYu8bQ/T3ByGLMH9BI/AAAAAA
| AAE...
| cjmb wrote:
| The book cover thing is really insane, too. It's gotten a
| little better over the last decade, but the early 2000s period
| was crazy (source: moved from UK to USA at that time).
|
| It's interesting that your pet theory is New York City
| parochialism. Mine is gerontocracy: the (mostly New York based)
| publishers of SF & Fantasy have been run by the same
| aristocracy for ~70 years. And those folks cut their teeth on
| serialized pulp fiction, comic books, and magazines, which
| culminated in a certain art style that (imo) peaked in the
| 1980s.
|
| If you browse wikipedia, you will see that many, many, many
| roads lead back to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Books
|
| Outside of the US market, newer publishing shops were started &
| run by younger folks with more modern artistic visions.
| em500 wrote:
| The Harry Potter book cover art change was not nearly as bad as
| what they did to video game box art.
|
| Original (Japan):
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/5b/d9/225bd9e4fda8aee8ed0c...
|
| Americanized:
| https://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/351430897872-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| The Americanized one is much cooler to me. I would have gone
| for that as a kid.
|
| The Japanese one is washed out and the art kinda looks
| amateur and crayola. I assumed that was the one you were
| complaining about because it minimizes the demon-looking
| Blanka and just looks boring.
|
| Kinda like how my mom (US) wouldn't buy me Warcraft: Orcs vs
| Humans because the large green orc on the cover looked like a
| demon, and you just couldn't be doing that in the 90s with
| all the stories of children worshipping Satan coming out on
| the Oprah Winfrey Show.
| oehpr wrote:
| >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 PS1
| notes, that the Queen looked very severe on PS1 notes, less
| severe on five pound notes, and so on, all the way up to PS50
| notes. If you had a PS50 the queen smiled at you very broadly
|
| no way... 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.
| m463 wrote:
| 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(r) and
| Decepticons(r) must not have read the warning label on their
| Viagra. At last we see what a four-hour erection looks like."
| Digit-Al wrote:
| I 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
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-12 23:01 UTC)