Speaker’s corner
TO MY alarm, not to mention despondency, I am finding it more and more difficult to understand what people are saying in English television movies. I long ago gave up trying to understand American movies. It is partly the accents but also because actors, nowadays, act like ordinary people behave – talking when somebody else is talking or saying things under their breath or with a full mouth. In my day (May 11 1956 I think it was) actors spoke loudly and clearly and in turn. They helpfully clutched the forehead when depicting anguish or put hand on heart when talking of love.
The other day I had great difficulty understanding what a Cockney was saying. I am a Cockney myself who used to say “bruvver” instead of “brother” and was only persuaded to pronounce the word properly when hit by my muvver’s backhand that would have me ricocheting off walls.
But I found recently that I could actually understand Chinese movies – because they have subtitles. DSTV seems to have bought a job-lot of pre-revolution Chinese films – films mostly shot in candlelight showing sexless people, usually stumbling about in the snow looking like badly stuffed duvets. But I can now more easily understand what’s going on in a Chinese film than in an English film.
Unfortunately, in Chinese movies, subtitles tend to be in white lettering against white backgrounds or black against black and they are sometimes subliminal. Examples:
Sound track: (as two men meet in the snow) “Hop hong Wu - chi wonaichu hakaoi! Koi? Hingighangi yen kiangste ha!” Subtitle translation: “OK”. Sound track: (as the hero pulls off frostbitten toes and tosses them in fire) “Hoi?”
Subtitle translation: “I must go to Shanghai and save face with my honorable cousin, Hu Chin Min, by stabbing him with my specially sharpened pagoda.”
Speaking of Far Eastern languages the following conversation came up on the web. It is said to have come from an exchange between a Singapore hotel guest and room service in the 1980s. But I recall Art Buchwald attributing it to a conversation with a Puerto Rican in room service in a New York hotel long before the 80s. Room Service: Morny. Rune-sore-bees. Hotel Guest: Oh, sorry. I thought I dialed Room Service.
RS: Rye, rune-sore-bees. Morny. Djewish to odor sunteen? HG: Uh, yes. I’d like some bacon and eggs. RS: Ow July then? HG: What? RS: Aches. Ow July then? Pry, boy, pooch...? HG: Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled please. RS: Ow July thee baycome? Crease? HG: Crisp will be fine. RS: Okay. An Santos? HG: What? RS: Santos. July Santos? HG: Ugh. I don’t know. I don’t think so. RS: No? Judo one toes? HG: Look, I feel bad about this, but I don’t know what “judo one toes” means. I’m sorry.
RS: Toes! Toes! Why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow english mopping we bother?
HG: I’ve got it! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be fine. RS: We bother? HG: No. Just put the bother on the side. RS: Wad? HG: I’m sorry. I meant butter. Butter on the side. RS: Copy? HG: I feel terrible about this but... RS: Copy. Copy, tea, mill... HG: Coffee! Yes, coffee please. RS: One minnie. Ass rune torino fee, strangle aches, crease baycome, tossy English mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye? HG: Whatever you say. RS: Okay. Tendjewberrymud. HG: You’re welcome.