I was delighted to see Manchester United win 5-3 yesterday against Newcastle, thanks to Paul Scholes, Ruud van Nistelrooy (3) and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. So far, they've had a fairly variable season, sailing through the first group stage of the European Cup and spluttering in the League. With Liverpool and Arsenal losing, United are fifth, six points behind the Arse. - to make a bid for the top. Everton are in a very strange third place.
Yesterday evening we went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I would definitely recommend it. We went to "...and the Philosopher's Stone" by accident: me thinking Jimmy wanted to go, and he thinking that I did. Neither of us thought we would like it, but there was no question whatsoever about going to this one. Don't misunderstand me - it's not great, or massively thought provoking, and SPOILER the Goodies won over the Baddies<. /SPOILER>.
Incidentally, I got side-tracked by this bulletin board where some person kicked up a whole storm by saying that Harry Potter should be filmed in American accents. One person posted:
No offense, and not to go against the Rowling's work, but why can't you believe American publishers changed some sayings and words (like the title of book 1)? They had too. Sure the original British English could have fostered dialogues between parents and children across the U.S., but really, "jumper"? An American child reads that word and won't ask what it is because we have our own notions of what a "jumper" is and it's not a sweater. We would have read that wrong and then had the wrong image in our heads.Things like soccer or the word billion. In British aren't they football and trillion. American's football is a very different sport and a trillion is so much larger than a billion. Or how about that a public school in America would be a state school in Britain or that a public school in Britain would be a private school in America. Certain words need the translation to avoid confusion.
Just as books need to be translated from British into French or Japanese, they also need translated into American English. And vice-versa I'm sure. The two languages are not at all interchangable. I like British English. I love movies set in Britain, but that's because in the movies I can get the context of the language from the visuals on screen. In a book, it's a bit harder. Certain sayings in Britain mean other things in America. But if there are American sayings that better convey the British meaning, why not translate? It's not an insult to American youth and their intelligence, but a logical way to make sure that American children truly understand and see J.K. Rowling's story and vision as she intended.
I have to admit to being shocked at that. When I was a child I read quite a few books from North America - notably, those by Louisa M Alcott (Little Women etc), LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) and Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie). These were not translated into English English, and some of the expressions and words threw me, but I seem to remember that I somehow I just absorbed that words were slightly different, and part of the richness of reading is learning about far away places.
This afternoon I had a bit of a bad back, so I went for a long soak in the bath. when I got out, Jimmy asked me to get some chocolates out of the fridge 'because they need eating'. So I held them above my head and looked up to see if there was a 'Best Before' date on the bottom. I did a nasty injury to my neck, which made it nigh on impossible to move for half an hour, and still hurts now about five hours later. I later spoke on the phone to my brother, a doctor. He diagnosed Walnut Whiplash.
