[TAG] English->American dictionary

[Jimmy O'Regan]

Predrag Ivanovic wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:36:52 -0700
> Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Quoting Predrag Ivanovic (predivan at ptt.yu):
>>
>>
>>>Heh.I use Aspell for that,and I wonder if it checks spelling by
>>>British or American spelling rules (they are different to a
>>>degree,right?). 
>>
>>English^wCommonwealth and American spelling rules do differ to some
>>degree, and yet are the same in being utterly mad.
> 
> 
> ["Utterly mad"....I just *love* that expression. <g>
> It's time to get that "Black Adder" DVD set.And "Thin blue line".And "Mr Bean".And....]
> 
> If native English speakers can't decide how to spell,what the fsck the rest of us are supposed to
> do?

Deal with it :-P

> 
> 
>>You can determine your global aspell configuration by typing "aspell
>>config | more", and vgrepping the output.  Note that each user can
>>have his/her own configuration, using dotfiles.
> 
> 
> Hm.It's en-US.So,that's why Aspell spelling seems a bit odd to me at times.
> My English teachers preferred Commonwealth version,apparently.

Makes sense, I suppose, given the relative distances.

>>http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/apf/good-omens.html has:
>>
>>  - [p. 32/13] "Sister Mary had expected an American diplomat to look
>>  like Blake Carrington or J.R. Ewing."
>>
>>  Leading male characters in the 1980s Power Soaps Dynasty (Blake
>>  Carrington played by John Forsythe) and Dallas (J. R. Ewing played
>>  by Larry Hagman). The general image is of somewhat rugged American
>>  masculinity. In a suit.
> 
> 
> It's been quite popular here,"Dynasty".One episode a week(Monday),empty streets in towns,everybody watching.
> Cat fight in mud(Alexis and Crystal,methinks) was hilarious,with cheering("Hit her!Pull her hair out!") and everything.
> "Dallas",on the other hand,was never excepted that much. 
> 

Heh. They used to broadcast both here too, six months after the original 
broadcast. I don't remember much about either, but I do remember the 
"who shot JR" stuff: people were phoning relatives in the US to find out :)

> 
>>  The Good Omens paperback replaces "an American diplomat" with "the
>>  American Cultural Attache". 
> 
> 
> I thought that "{American,Russian,whatever} Cultural Attache" was doublespeak for spook.
> Or so I've heard...

Kinda. "Cultural Attache" is a generic kind of description for someone 
who works in, e.g., an embassy (Civil Servants: World Tour!).

> 
>>and
>>
>>  - [p. 70/42] "The message had come during Cheers, one of Crowley's
>>  favourite television programmes. Woody the barman had [...]"
>>
>>  In the American edition of Good Omens, this scene was changed to
>>refer to the series The Golden Girls and the character Rose. (The
>>effect remains the same).
>>
>>  Nobody knows the reason for this change, since both are American
>>  sitcoms anyway. Speaking personally, I think Crowley is definitely a
>>  Cheers person, and would not have liked The Golden Girls at all. 
> 
> 
> "Cheers" I know,but "The Golden girls"?WTF?
>  
> 
>>>What could possibly be the difference?
>>
>>Publishers tend to be nervous and arguably neurotic people, terribly
>>afraid that something will make a book "inaccessible" to particular
>>readerships.  This is the same mental aberration that lead J.K.
>>Rowling's USA publisher to change her first volume's title from
>>_Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ to _Harry Potter and the
>>Sorceror's Stone_, apparently on a theory that Yanks are too ignorant
>>to understand the mediaeval reference, or might be mislead into
>>thinking this is a book about philosophy.
> 
> 
> I had a rather heated argument few years ago about that Harry Potter book.
> Apparently,she thought(without actually reading)

Or... "She spoke (without actually thinking)" :)

> that book is
> about witchcraft and black magic,much of that "opinion" based on name
> of it("It's called '...and Sorcerer's stone',Sorcerers are bad(anti-Orthodox),so
> it *must* be satanic.And there is magic in it.

I had a lot of similar conversations when I started listening to metal, 
even though (at the time) none of the bands I listened to were even 
vaguely Satanic.

> And Latin.I don't understand it.Burn it,burn it!").

I had been wondering how those 'Latin'[1] bits translated, but they 
probably translate just as well into every other language in Europe.

> I had to restrain from beating her to the ground with hardcover edition of "Satanic verses".

Tsk, tsk, tsk. It would have been much more effective to say something 
in Latin in a threatening voice: "nolite iudicare ut non iudicemini"
("Judge not, that you be not judged"[2])

> 
> I wonder how would Americans react to "Sophia's world",which *is* a book 
> about philosophy,but with a twist.
> Why can't publishers give their customers a benefit of the doubt?
> It's all about profit and numbers and marketing.It's sad,really.        
> 
> 
>>The same book will almost always have different cover art on each side
>>of the Atlantic, not to mention changes to spelling, punctuation, and
>>word usage (e.g., Harry Potter wearing "sneakers" where Rowling wrote
>>"trainers").
> 
> 
> And on the cover is "translated from British" sign?

:) Not in this case, as I've already noted.



[1] The most recent Harry Potter book has an announcement that 
"...Philosopher's Stone" is now available in Latin, Ancient Greek, 
and... Irish :)

[2] Funny, I only remember hearing that quoted as "Judge not, lest ye be 
judged", but the comparative search here http://bible.gospelcom.net 
doesn't show that particular wording (though it seems you can find any 
other wording you want).

While I'm vaguely on the subject: Scary Bible Quotes 
(http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/biblequotes.htm) is worth reading, just 
for the contradictions section. Oh, and the quote from the Latin Vulgate 
came from: http://www.drbo.org/lvb/