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2008-08-20, 07:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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2008-08-20, 07:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Flawse Fell, Geordieland
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2008-08-20, 07:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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2008-08-20, 07:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
I want an olympic hammer!
My avatar! Isn't it just utterly diabolical? Ashen Lilies made it!
"Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair."
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2008-08-20, 08:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Trapped in a planar rift
Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Would you settle for some hammered olympics?
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SpoilerI know less than half of you half as much as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve--Bilbo
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2008-08-20, 08:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2005
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- Australia
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
What about hamster olympics?
"My Hobby: Replacing your soap with gravy" by rtg0922, Doll and Clint "Rawhide" Eastwood by Sneak
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2008-08-20, 08:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2005
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- The sunny South
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2008-08-20, 08:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2008
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- Nottingham, England
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was random banter, not bad pun central.
I'll show myself out.Last edited by Player_Zero; 2008-08-20 at 08:15 AM.
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2008-08-20, 08:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2005
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- Flawse Fell, Geordieland
Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
What about Lillehammer?
"...and, re-e-e-e-each for the vague Olympics pun!"
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2008-08-20, 08:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
What about Michael Phelp's gold medal in olympic whale-riding?
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2008-08-20, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2006
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- Dinosaur Museum aw yisss.
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Uh... "disused" means "not used enough/as often as it should be/recently", and unused means "has never been used at all" That UK-US Harry Potter list is really not helping the "Americans are dumb and/or overbearing" stereotype
V Good point. Edited for clarification.Last edited by Serpentine; 2008-08-20 at 08:48 AM.
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2008-08-20, 08:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Who are you talking to?
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"Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair."
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2008-08-20, 09:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
I'm more than a little tired of this "Americans are stupid" line. It's a style thing. Nothing more. Harry Potter is hardly the first book to do it. Many others will follow. It looks nice.
Bogey doesn't mean anything at all here. Except when used to talk about the Bogeyman, who is not a booger covered villain. And so what if it sounds like bugger? You're reading it, not saying it, and to a 12 year old American boy or girl, it has absolutely no significance anyway.
Would you rather they said "an African American boy"? Because that's normally how you describe a black person here. It matters that he's black only in the same descriptive sense that it matters if Ron is a redhead. Descriptive.
*repeats "target audience" mantra*
It's not specific enough. A younger reader would not necessarily immediately associate a video player with a VCR, which they only know as that thing mum and dad threw away when they bought their DVD player. Taken literally (since we'd have no other way to interpret it) it just means "thing that plays videos". Perhaps "video player" means the PSP they watch their movies on? Or the little handheld DVD players that don't even need a seperate television? There are many things that play videos and VCR is only one specific one. For purposes of differentiation, yes, they needed to say VCR. Does it matter to the story one whit? Probably not, but then why not just throw out all descriptive text that doesn't directly push the plot forward then?
What are they? If you can't use a description that will evoke an image, maybe we should change it to one that does, even if it's different from the original image. (Note: Alarra was in London for five months in college and doesn't know what a bobble hat is either. I'm not just dumb.)
No. Top of the year has absolutely no association to schoolkids here. Top of the Class, maybe. And maybe that would have sounded better. If you ask a sixth grader what year he's in, he's like as not to tell you how old he is instead of what grade he's in because we don't use that term like that.
I'm nearly 40 and I don't know what the difference is. Why should a kid?
What is it?
Are they not both paper money? If not, what's a note?
They aren't both just puppets that go over your hand? What's the difference if they aren't?
Again, an American youth would have no idea what sherbert lemons are. Especially since we think of sherbert as kind of like an ice cream (fruity frozen dessert dish made with juice instead of milk which is somehow different from a sorbet but I'm not sure how). I doubt you're using it the same way. Could just as easily have said "candy" if you aren't going to give us something descriptive to grab on to.Want to meet some of the most awesome people on the internet? Come to the Baltimore/DC Area RenFest Meetup 2012!
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2008-08-20, 09:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2006
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- Dinosaur Museum aw yisss.
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Alright then: Why is it that the whole world can deal with minor differences in terminology (translations from a whole other language are different), but the US needs to have things all nice and familiar and just right for them? People from the UK can read US books just fine, why can't people from the US read UK books without having it all spelled out?
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2008-08-20, 09:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Why exactly is this even important enough to merit discussion at all?
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2008-08-20, 09:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
UK publishers *do* make amendments in style and word choice when they publish books written by American authors.
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"Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair."
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2008-08-20, 09:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
I don't think that's the case at all. Alarra has here two of the Song of Ice and Fire books that she bought in London. She's going to skim for differences. In the meantime, this article invites one to speculate that we stupid yanks aren't the only ones who do it.
EDIT:
Because, as I said before, I'm tired of being called stupid just because I'm American.Last edited by Zeb The Troll; 2008-08-20 at 09:40 AM.
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2008-08-20, 09:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
This should be the philosophy that we take regarding the "two countries divided by a common language" discussion that has popped up here...
Its too easy to have your own cultural and linguistic upbringing lead you to criticize how someone else interprets the same language.
Let's call the whole thing off, shall we?Last edited by TwoBitWriter; 2008-08-20 at 09:38 AM.
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2008-08-20, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Wow.
I for one have always hated the whole "American's are stupid" stereotype. It's like saying everyone with glasses is a nerd.
Plus, why should it even matter that there are differences between the books? It's slightly easier to understand for the younger kids, is that such a crime?
And anyway, I'm not prejudiced; I actually live in the UK.
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2008-08-20, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
I'm American and live in the UK. I'd have dual citizenship if I could afford the £600 application fee for UK citizenship. In general, people have been very accepting, but every now and then I get someone who thinks worse of me because of my nationality. Thankfully it doesn't happen often.
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"Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair."
― Dorothy Parker
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2008-08-20, 09:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
(@ Leigh: For a few days now. )
Anyway, yeah. The only stereotype I let myself believe is that stereotypes are stupid.
...I can't help but notice a lot of imperial thinking in those statements, Curly.Last edited by randman22222; 2008-08-20 at 09:47 AM.
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2008-08-20, 09:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2008
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- Nottingham, England
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Does that maean we can resurrect the British Empire?
God save the queen!
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2008-08-20, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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- Missing
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
@ Randy - you! shush!
@ happyturtle - same here.
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2008-08-20, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2005
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- Flawse Fell, Geordieland
Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
<Zeb's vocab discussion spoilered for brevity>
Heaven forfend that the young should be forced to reach outside their own personal experience in an attempt to understand a work of fiction. I mean, how would we ever have understood what was going on if "Lord of the Rings" or "Watership Down" or "Once and Future King" or "The Fionavar Trilogy" or Lovecraft had asked so much of us in terms of unfamiliar vocabulary. Oh, wait...
Yeah, the "Americans are dumb" line is old (and 'twas a cheap, lazy shot even when first coined - sometime in the 18th century), but the idea that books should be localised in the manner of some tacky MacAkred 4Kids import cartoon makes me feel slightly nauseous. It's not like the "Harry Potter" books are being translated from Russian, French or Latin for goodness sake.
Surely the ideal is that if a book presents new vocabulary and ideas to the reader, then said reader should take the time to learn what these strange new words mean? I personally didn't know the words 'pre-requisite' or 'encumbrance' until I encountered D&D (at the age of 12); but I certainly didn't demand a 'dumbed down' version of the game.
<evidence of perfidious Anglo-scheming spoiler>
SpoilerOriginally Posted by Cecil Rhodes
Who says we Brits haven't been planning our inevitable and beneficent domination of the pretendy shadowdevil abroad lands ahead.
It's not that we think the worse of you for being American Happyturtle. We just feel a little bit sorry for anyone who isn't lucky enough to be British. What you feel is our barely contained smugness at our own ineffable superiority.
Heck, there are reports of English people patronising the ambassador of France back in the 16th century, simply because he had the misfortune to be French.Last edited by bosssmiley; 2008-08-20 at 10:11 AM.
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2008-08-20, 09:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Soo... who likes bugles? I sure do.
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2008-08-20, 09:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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- Chicagoland
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2008-08-20, 09:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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- Norman, OK
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
I prefer cheetos... the baked kind... mmm...
And I am partial to the Saxophone myself.Last edited by TwoBitWriter; 2008-08-20 at 09:59 AM.
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2008-08-20, 09:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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2008-08-20, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2006
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- Leeds, UK
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
The saxophone...isn't a brass instrument though.
It's a jazz-bent-clarinet. Aka, a woodwind instrument.
*relurks*Last edited by Castaras; 2008-08-20 at 10:02 AM.
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2008-08-20, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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- Norman, OK
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Re: Jack Squat's Justlessly Juxtaposed Random Banter #101
Doritos are a very close second, the Nacho Cheese kind. I only said Cheetos because that was the first thing that popped in my head in the snack selection.
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