[ SECRET POST #2548 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2548 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

REMINDER: For people who needed extra time to finish for the FS Secret Santa - today's the last day to get in your gifts! Gifts go out tomorrow!

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #363.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. http://i43.tinypic.com/34zaczm.png

[(Anonymous)]

I do think it's rather silly to pander on the whole--kids pick up new words from context all the time, British words are no different--but I CAN understand changing the title of the first book, 'philosopher' having one distinct meaning in American English that would confuse things.

[(Anonymous)]

Did I suddenly travel back in time to the early 2000's? People still are annoyed by this?

[(Anonymous)]

I was always so baffled by the title change, especially since it makes more since that it be called "philosopher's stone" since the philosopher's stone is an actual legend. Even Rowling said she really regretted agreeing to have the title be changed for american publication

[loracarol]

I get where you're coming from for some words ("sorcerer" vs. "philosopher", for instance), but at the same time, I think about some of the differences in meanings between the two Englishes, and I'm glad that some things are changed.

("suspenders" vs. "bracers", "biscuits" vs. "cookies", "pants" vs. "trousers", the different things "fanny" means, etc.)

[spacebabie]

I feel ya OP but you know what really ticks me off? It's when they take a British cartoon and redub it with American VA's. Why????? Why would they do that. It doesn't make any sense.

[caerbannog]

I'm so far behind, I didn't realise they had done this.

Nor do I get the reasoning, I wouldn't expect kids to know or care about the difference between a sorceror's stone and a philosopher's stone. :s


...The American version of Kath and Kim was horrible. Never watching an Americanised tv show again *shudder*

[(Anonymous)]

One of the things on my list for when I get some extra cash to throw around is to buy up British versions of these books so that I can read them as they were meant to be read.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I really don't get why they changed the title. I expect American and British kids were about equally likely to have heard of the Philosopher's Stone -- not very.

On the other hand, a grade-school could certainly be confused by biscuit/cookie, torch/flashlight, or chips/fries, and changing that sort of thing isn't inappropriate.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of the title change, in my language there was a Smurf (brainy smurf, I think) whose name was changed to literally "philosopher smurf" in the dub for some reason. So whenever I hear the argument behind philosopher -> sorcerer I'm like, "so?" Most kids in my region wouldn't know what a philosopher was when watching The Smurfs and didn't care. Not knowing the word is fine, and in the best of cases you would find out its meaning and learn something. Goblet is also an uncommon word for a lot of kids, and also hallows. But whatever.

Secret 6 - Americanization of British media

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the cover of the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling.]

This is such a pathetic thing to rage about but I feel so utterly angry and disgusted when I find out English books needed to be translated into *American*.

I sort of get the same thing when brilliant British shows get remade for American audiences.

I feel like they take away something special from the original product and that our originals weren't good enough.

I'm also pretty sure that they don't need to coddle and pander to the American audiences as much as they try. If a person can't understand the minute differences in language then that's because they've either never been exposed to it or they shouldn't even be reading in the first place.

Note: I don't think all American people are stupid, but I think they get catered to as if they were.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know why they changed the title, but changing the actual text/language is probably motivated by them worrying about their audience. I imagine they think Britishisms are too unusual in the USA, and might alienate some readers/watchers. They might be right, they might not be, but I'm not sure we have any proof one way or another.

It's a negative feedback loop

[nyxelestia]

Because on one hand, I've been in British fandoms for years but it wasn't until a Doctor Who clip that I realized "pants" meant something different in Britain than America - and yet they were both so similar and so common that I've been slightly confused for years yet never enough for it to be cleared up.

So I can understand that some words do need to be changed. (And it's not as if it's one way - the title of the first Avatar series had to be changed, and I'm pretty sure "fanny pack" wouldn't really pass muster for little kids). And it's not because they are so different, but because they are so similar, that sometimes these changes are useful.

Additionally, things are spelled differently and while those kinds of spelling differences existing in the first place is stupid, it doesn't change the fact kids learn their spelling from reading, so I can see why that needs to be changed, too.

That said, I can also agree that remaking things entirely is stupid.

Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse before it gets better, because the whole situation is self-fulfilling prophecy. People think Americans are stupid/need to be coddled, they adjust foreign media to fit these standards, Americans become genuinely sheltered due to lack of exposure, they need some coddling, people adjust more, Americans become less exposed and need coddling more...

It goes on and on. If someone doesn't break the cycle themselves to engage in foreign media directly - something which may seem easy to those of us who are used to it but daunting to those not accustomed to regularly illegally watching and downloading things - then they will become sheltered and then confused by foreign media, whether they like that situation or not.

[(Anonymous)]

I've always thought the British version of the Office was a lot funnier than the American version--and I'm American.

[(Anonymous)]

What's particularly entertaining to me in regards to the "Americanization" of Harry Potter is that, somewhere along the line, they decided to just roll with the British English words...and thus generated the very confusion they were trying to avoid, because they referenced Dumbledore's password during "Chamber of Secrets" as "Sherbert Lemon" in book 4, when the American version had used "Lemon Drop" back in the actual Book 2, thus making teenaged me very confused about continuity.

[(Anonymous)]

In the specific case of Harry Potter, it was the US editor pushing for the change and yeah, that was a very dumb move - the book title has been translated correctly almost everywhere else around the world with kids just as likely to know what a philosopher's stone is, so why even bother?
On the other hand, although in my experience of someone who has lived in both Europe and the US I would agree that the tendency in the US is definitely to dumb things down, there's also that editors in particular tend to dumb down things and in their attempt to make sure the finished product reaches the widest audience possible they go WAY TOO FAR, and that's true of editors all around the world. For example: did you know that some editors don't want to have illustrations that show teeth in books for children? Not scary ugly teeth, just...normal teeth. The reasoning behind this was that kids might get scared. This sort of stuff happens all the time with editors.

Also, did you know a lot of things are also translated from US English to UK English? As far as I know they're very minor changes, mostly spelling-related (ize/ise, o/ou), but it does happen all the time! I don't think these small changes in either direction are because of pandering or anything and after all it's not like US spellings aren't understoood at all in the UK, but it wouldn't be fair to force US spellings over the UK audience and vice versa.

But yes, it is enraging when things are changed to the extent of changing jokes. Why even bother dealing with the material itself if they think the only way to make it palatable to their audience is by changing it completely?!

[fingalsanteater]

Just because the medium is in English, doesn't mean it's completely understandable to all English readers. Words have meanings to different cultures, and I think it's fair to tweak unfamiliar language to make it more readable for an audience.

I don't think I've watched a British to US television conversion except for reality shows, but the concept is similar. It has nothing to do with coddling and everything to do with catering to your audience and protecting your (the networks, studios, etc.) ass by providing tried and tested. Like, think of the difference between Kitchen Nightmares UK and US. In the UK version, Chef Ramsay is lot less inflammatory and the drama is dialed down. But, US audiences were used to his angry persona on Hell's Kitchen and so that transferred to the conversation, and the drama was dialed up because it's not reality TV in the US without yelling and fighting.

Like it or not, British sitcoms have a different feel to them, and networks would rather write a version with jokes that make sense to American audiences rather than risk a product that fails because of language differences or jokes that require a specific context that would be more familiar to UK audiences.

[making_excuses]

Well in Norwegian the first book has the title: The Stone for the Wise... Or something close to that, Wise is a fucking hard word to get translated correctly in the tense I want, I mean the Wise as in a specific person, maybe "The Wise's Stone" is better?

[(Anonymous)]

Just watch PBS and BBCA. Problem solved.

Now for a weird example: remember the bit in Good Omens where the devil is talking to Crowley through the TV? Originally, he's using an episode of Cheers, but the American edition changed it to The Golden Girls, even though Cheers was an American show...

[(Anonymous)]

Big fucking deal. There have been American remakes of British tv shows (and vice versa) for decades. Why has it been within the past ten years that British shows all of a sudden have become sacred cows that shouldn't be touched?

[riddian]

I'm with you, OP. For what it's worth, reading Harry Potter was the first time I was exposed to British grammar and terminology, and confusing as it was for little-me to read the sentence "the entire team were laughing," it was the first step towards understanding that people in other places talked differently from me. It made me think, it made me learn, and I would hope all that wouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of making something easier to understand at first blush.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm still grumpy about Northern Lights > The Golden Compass. One, it reinforced the insulting stereotypes that Americans are ignorant of anything outside their own country, and two, an alethiometer is not a compass.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, I'm still annoyed they renamed A Matter of Life and Death (the W.W. II romantic fantasy film with David Niven) as Stairway to Heaven when it was released in the United States. Grrr. *is old*

[pantasma]

I was shocked when I found out they were different. I didn't know there was a significant difference in our languages when they started coming out, way back when I was in elementary school,and I never thought about it until I saw an ex with different covers up here in the Great White North.

Totally makes sense now, but it doesn't mean I like it.

[(Anonymous)]

This just in: AMERICANS RUIN EVERYTHING! OH NOES!