# Accurate portrayals of your profession in fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 24, 2021, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871 "2021-11-24T12:14:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/61 "2021-11-28T19:37:34Z")
Never saw the movie. Read the book, but it was ages ago. I remember the diamonds, which were the crux of the plot. Diamonds were a possible substitute for high-density circuits which were desirable because diamonds have such a high thermal conductivity. Don’t recall lasers being involved in the book. In any event, I’ve long thought that de Shayzer and Rand’s diamond laser would be interesting precisely because of that high thermal conductivity. I’ve worked with people who tried bonding laser material to diamond plates to take advantage of that conductivity (heat dissipation is the bane of solid state lasers), but without significant success. The diamond laser, however, would be MADE of diamonds, so the thermal conductivity was right there. No bonding required. The problem is, though, that the lasers were pretty low power. And trying to run them at high power would probably have destroyed the point defects that were doing the lasing, high thermal conductivity or no. Still, another possible entry to the Optical Scientists in the Movies list. Can’t say that I know of any Optical Engineers whop worked with Signing Gorillas much, though. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/62 "2021-11-28T19:39:28Z")
Val Kilmer’s character in _[Real Genius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Genius)_ seemed to be doing optical engineering. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/63 "2021-11-28T19:45:19Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > There’s one point in the book where he’s very careful to choose the appropriate word in Russian so as not to offend Khruschev during his hotline conversation with the American president. Reminds me of when Putin called Trump brilliant (the word the translater used). The more accurate translation of the Russian word Putin used was more like showy and faky and tacky-glitzy. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/64 "2021-11-28T19:47:41Z")
Ever seen the movie “Pressure Point”? A prison psychiatrist, but still… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/65 "2021-11-28T20:01:50Z")
I remember when Jimmy Carter’s interpreter (an American) told a Polish audience that the President had “a great lust” for the Polish people. At one conference in the '70s (I don’t remember who the American president was at the time), Brezhnev’s interpreter (a Russian) told his US audience “I shall not say good-bye, but rather good-bye” as they were departing. To understand the gaffe, you have to know that Russian (like many other languages) has more than one way to say “good bye.” What Brezhnev actually said was “I shall not say _proshchayte_” (which is what you say to someone you’re probably never going to see again) “but rather _do svidaniya_” (literally “until we meet again”). After a confused pause, the Americans laughed politely at the obvious mistranslation. Brezhnev, who already had one foot in the grave, just smiled and nodded. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/66 "2021-11-28T20:22:32Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Reminds me of when Putin called Trump brilliant (the word the translater used). The more accurate translation of the Russian word Putin used was more like showy and faky and tacky-glitzy. I missed this. What was the Russian word, if you recall? I feel like we need to steal it. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/67 "2021-11-28T20:26:21Z")
“Yarkii” (яркий), the word Putin used, does indeed mean “brilliant.” But not in an intellectual sense, according to Russian experts. “The word means someone who’s bright, colorful. It means ‘brilliant’ if you’re thinking about a bright light, but it’s not ‘brilliant’ if you’re thinking about someone’s intelligence,” Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University, told NBC News. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/68 "2021-11-28T20:26:49Z")
Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/69 "2021-11-28T21:42:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Val Kilmer’s character in _[Real Genius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Genius)_ seemed to be doing optical engineering. Forgot that one. It inspired me with thoughts of how to take revenge on a hated professor, but I couldn’t figure out how to get multiple bags of popcorn into his house. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/70 "2021-11-28T22:45:28Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I remember when Jimmy Carter’s interpreter (an American) told a Polish audience that the President had “a great lust” for the Polish people. And JFK famously told a German audience that he, too, was a jelly donut. But I think that the fact that he was attempting on his own to speak to them in their native language was more than enough for them to forgive him. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/71 "2021-11-28T23:12:23Z")
His interpreter covered for him pretty well too. Kennedy actually thanked him for translating his German into German, which got a big laugh from the crowd. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/72 "2021-11-28T23:14:40Z")
Back when I was doing EOD work, the _closest_ fictional work I’d seen was a 1970s BBC series set during the Blitz: _ **Danger UXB** _. _The Hurt Locker_ was, in my opinion a great cliffhanger with a few notable scenes, but Hollywood took a metric f&ck-ton of liberties with a few scenes. For example, one does _not_ lift a half-dozen lightly-buried 155mm howitzer rounds out of the ground by hand. For my current job, I would say that _The Matrix_ is a good, accurate portrayal. I’d resemble Mr. Anderson in a cubicle farm, where certain Federal folk’s direct analog are The Agents they dress just like 'em. Some of the working factory floors I’ve been to, do in fact, resemble the tunnels that the _Nebuchanezzar_ floated through. Tripler Oh. . . you think I’m kidding, don’t you. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/73 "2021-11-28T23:52:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And JFK famously told a German audience that he, too, was a jelly donut. But I think that the fact that he was attempting on his own to speak to them in their native language was more than enough for them to forgive him. [That’s an urban legend.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#%22I_am_a_doughnut%22_urban_legend) A berliner is a type of jelly donut, and one could parse the sentence that way, but while I don’t know if a native speaker would typically use precisely that form, “ich bin ein Berliner” is a perfectly correct way to say “I am a Berliner” (as in, “I am someone from Berlin” or “I am a citizen of Berlin”), and in context it was completely clear to his audience exactly what Kennedy meant. The idea that his audience might have thought he was saying “I’m a jelly donut” apparently only arose 20 years later, as a comment by a fictional character in a novel. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/74 "2021-11-28T23:58:06Z")
Yeah, it’s the equivalent of somebody giving a speech where, as a rhetorical flourish, they say “If New York means freedom, then let me say: I am a New Yorker!” and later having people laugh and go, “he said he was a magazine. The correct way to say it is ‘I am from New York.’” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/75 "2021-11-29T02:50:43Z")
Certainly his audience knew what he meant, and even if he did say it wrong (I’m not nearly enough of a German-speaker to say), most people do appreciate it when folks attempt to speak to them in their native language. By all accounts, the jelly donuts he was speaking to appreciated the speech. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/76 "2021-11-29T03:41:21Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > Back when I was doing EOD work, the _closest_ fictional work I’d seen was a 1970s BBC series set during the Blitz: _ **Danger UXB** _ I saw Danger UXB\* on Masterpiece Theatre when I was a kid and found it fascinating. It still stands out as a deep dive about a relatively obscure part of WWII. Can you talk a bit about what they did well in that series? - Maurice Roeves died last year, and I immediately thought of him as the Sergeant in Danger UXB, although modern audiences might remember him best from Last of the Mohicans. And I spotted two of the other actors with prominent roles in Master & Commander alongside Russell Crowe. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/77 "2021-11-29T06:53:13Z")
I loved the sequence that opened every episode, where they followed the life of a bomb from the foundry where the metal was cast to the time when it was dropped over Britain, all with that haunting theme music playing in the background. One of the best TV series ever! ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/78 "2021-11-29T07:40:57Z")
Couldn’t the translator just have used ‘farewell’ and ‘good bye’? Not faulting the interpreter, must be hard work if you don’t know what is coming up, but it appears as if English does have multiple ways to say goodbye as well. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/79 "2021-11-29T07:50:25Z")
Of course it does. Many languages do. He could even have mixed English and French: “I shall not say ‘good bye,’ but rather ‘_au revoir_.’” The difference between _proshchayte_ and _do svidaniya_ is one of the first things you learn in Russian 101. For an official interpreter not to convey it is really inexcusable ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2021, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871/80 "2021-11-29T21:51:23Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Can you talk a bit about what they did well in that series? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the series, but I distinctly remember two scenes: - “Junior” finds ‘a contraption’ in the schoolyard, brings it home, and puts it in his dresser–ends up being a [German Butterfly Bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Bomb). Mom finds out and calls the Army. Some of their rope, hook, and line techniques looked pretty reasonable, and not farfetched from what I would have expected to be done (remote movements when possible, if kind of a PITA). - The beach’s pier was mined, and it took the Squad a _long time_ to RSP and remove everything. IIRC, in the series it was a weeks-long process. Lemme tell ya that the _ **last** _ thing you want to do on a planned job is to _rush anything._ Proper disposal, in saving life and property (in that order) takes time and patience. You simply _do not_ go rushing in an start cutting wires like this: [https://youtu.be/-wINinKkMdg](https://youtu.be/-wINinKkMdg). Like I said, it’s been awhile. I should bingewatch it again over the Holidays. _Bluestone 42_ gets an honorable mention, but that’s more of a comedy, but has a few important elements worth noting, i.e. pulling security overwatch for your “P1” who’s downrange. I’d watch that too, but I can’t find it _anywhere_ here in the States. Tripler Man, I have a lot of TV to watch. . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accurate-portrayals-of-your-profession-in-fiction/954871.md?page=5)