Friends

So I've run across this piece of Youtubery several times by now in several different forms; A pivotal scene from the German movie Downfall, where a clever, or "clever" video editor has imposed their own English subtitles.



I've run across a few different versions of this video using this scene. In another version, Hitler is supposedly ranting about a new piece of software, in one more he's talking about the Twilight movie, and in another he's going off about Michael Jackson's death. (As if the tasteless factor wasn't high enough.)

Personally, I don't really find this very funny, for several reasons:

- I am a near-fluent German speaker, and I can understand everything the characters are saying quite clearly. Therefore it's kind of hard to "get it" when the subtitles clearly aren't translating anything.

- The reason this is funny is because virtually every native English speaker is, of course, a monolinguist who couldn't possibly understand a foreign language, therefore everything the actors are saying will sound like gobbledy-gook. Well, to practically every native English speaker anyways. The gall of the assumption just irks me. True, more native English babblers, particularly Americans, should be learning foreign languages, but I still find the assumption irksome.

- The inherent tastelessness of using a scene like this for a laugh. This is a film about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, not a scene from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I think employing this kind of scene from this kind of movie is in questionable taste.

What do you all think? Am I being too sensitive? Do you think it's funny? Are you also holding your nose? Comment!

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1198

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "Great Tweets of Science" - originally published 7/13/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

I was thinking about this the other day . . .

How many composer "one hit wonders" can you think of? That is, composers that were known for ONLY one piece (in other words, composers for whom most of us can only name once piece).

I can think of two off the top of my head: Carl Orff for Carmina Burana and Johanes Pachebel for Canon.

Discuss.

"The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom...I wish I could..."

-- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

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Летняя акция! "Влюбись в себя со скидкой 50%"

Hello... I am looking for a store that sells interesting colored contacts or circle lenses. I know there are probably millions of optical stores that sell lenses, but I am in Hong Kong for only about three more days until I go back to the US. So I am hoping to find some contacts that are different from the average colored contacts in the US and might be able to ship the contacts to America since I probably won't be here long enough to go back to the store and pick them up. Thank you!

I'm pretty excited that this is finally happening. Now, every time you buy an mp3 of my song, "Hetero-Strike," on amazon.com or itunes, half of the proceeds will go to the National Center for Lesbian Rights. The NCLR is one of the leading organizations in the fight against Propostion 8 and they need money to pay lawyers. Lots of lawyers. So let's give them some money, eh?

Amazon:
http://amzn.com/B002B2XTHQ

iTunes:
http://www.apple.com/search/ipoditunes/?q=rhune+kincaid

Of course, if you want to preview the song, you can always check it out at my website:
www.rhunekincaid.com

or check out the classic video that has been seen all over the net, but mostly by Prop 8 supporting bigots who leave nasty comments. :/
http://www.youtube.com/v/rxOeA1TNzK0

"Well, it is clear to me that he has done a very good job on you," said Scrimgeour, his eyes cold and hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses. "Dumbledore's man through and through, aren't you, Potter?"
"Yeah, I am," said Harry. "Glad we straightened that out."
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling.

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: last day on earth - kate miller-heidke

Somtimes, you SO want to believe in the goodness of a person..for your own sake, not the person's.

Hello fellow linguaphiles!

I'm currently learning Norwegian (for just a little under a year now), and I've found that for me personally one of the best tools in learning a new language as well as the respective culture is to listen to music and watch films in that language. Anyone have any good recommendations for Norwegian? I've been listening to a lot of Kaizers Orchestra, Gåte, and Odd Nordstoga (though people have told me that he has a "crappy accent" and that I shouldn't base the way I speak off of him...). Film-wise, all I've seen are Mannen Som Elsket Yngve, Elling, and Insomnia.

Any help at all would be much much MUCH appreciated! :)

Current Music: Kaizers Orchestra - "Bøn Fra Helvete"

Alfred Hitchcock

I picked up the box of Alfred Hitchcock Collection because

• It had one of my favorite movie – Rebecca
• It was less than INR500/- for six movies from the master of suspense, thus an undeniable ‘Steal’

Well actually the box, marketed by moserbaer in India, is priced INR549/- but if you have good contacts with your neighborhood video store you get upto 10% discount on almost every thing. Of the six movies at least four appear to have been digitally remastered / cleaned up and an absolute treat to watch.

If you don’t know anything about Rebbeca here is a small something to whet your appetite

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Originally published at http://tariquesani.net/blog/. Please leave any comments there.

Is it true that Eskimo have 300 words for snow? Some people say that it's true, some people that that it is an urban myth.

Which words in your language do you have for

- a bribe payed to a train's conductor to travel long distance without a ticket in a luggage compartment?
- a bribe payed to a policeman so he will not give a speeding ticket?
- a bribe payed by bottles of vodka instead of cash?
- a bribe payed to a police inspector to give a local registration which is necessary to find a job?
- a bribe payed to the university admission commission so your daughter will get good marks and will be admitted to the university?
- a small bribe payed to the medical doctor so he will provide you a good service instead of "a standard one"?

At least I think so.

www.babelgum.com/3016880/the-linguists.html

A link to the full-length documentary The Linguists, which shows the fieldwork done by two linguists on endangered language revitalization.  The film focuses on their works with the Chuyim language of Siberia, the Kallawaya language of Bolivia, the last speaker of Chemehuevi in Arizona, and the Sora language of India.  Both of the linguists work at the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.  The short-haired guy, David Harrison, has an excellent book out called When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World' s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge.  The other linguist is the beardy Gregory Anderson. 

I thought it was a greaty documentary and it shows an interesting side of the subfield of linguistics that I want to work in.

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