[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)