Are there any errors you keep hearing from sources that are “official” or professional, that just make you want to smack your head like young Alvy Singer in the schoolroom scene in Annie Hall? I don’t mean piddling little grammatical or spelling errors, but situations where a tiny error significantly alters the meaning. To give you an idea, here are my two:
Transcriptions of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Fire”, the spoken words before the break are always given as follows:
Move over Rover / And let Jimi take over / That’s what I’m talkin’ about baby / Get it on baby
But from the rhythm of the words the last line has got to be Get on with it baby.
Another one is the translation of “Honi soit qui mal y pense”, which is usually translated as Shame on him who thinks evil, but should be Shame on him who thinks evil of it. Wikipedia does give both translations, but anyone who’s had a semester of high school French knows it should be the first one. The word y means “of it” in this context. The “it” was the the garter of the Countess of Salisbury, which, again according to Wikipedia, slipped down into a visible position on her leg and was snickered at by the adjacent courtiers. The King put it on his own leg and said Honi soit qui mal y pense, in which case only the “of it” translation makes sense. Without the “of it” tag, the statement is rather off the wall and inane, like “It’s raining” or “You’re very tall”.
This is my very first post! I believe Jimi says: Ahhhh, move over, Rover/And let Jimi take over/Yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about/YEAH, get on with it baby!
I’ve noticed other differences in written Hendrix lyrics vs what is sung on the (studio) version. I assumed the lyrics were transcribed from the napkin or whatever he originally wrote the song on, but he sang what he felt like singing in the moment.
… The Minotaur/Evil SonofaBitch is demanding the little girl give up the infant. She stands defiantly in front of him and, according to the English subtitles, screams, ‘‘No! I won’t’’ and is promptly killed.
Except the actual Spanish is
‘‘No! Me sacrifico!’’ This means, ‘‘No! I sacrifice myself!’’
Fairly meaningful difference, I thought. Why did they change it?
Welcome ChileanBlob! Your first post in my thread–the very first reply in my thread. I don’t know why but I feel honored. Not knowing you at all, it must be your exceedingly cool username.
And you’re right about that third line but I couldn’t quite remember it.
Another Christmas related one is where you deck the halls with “balls” of holly. True, nobody knows what a bough is anymore, but a “ball” of holly makes almost no sense.
Translations of just the titles can be anything but intuitive. A German film title Vormittagsspuke, which should be (Late Morning Ghosts, was advertised in by the local art museum’s cinema department as “Ghosts Before Breakfast”.
I happen to know that film. Ghosts Before Breakfast was actually the title card of the U.S. release. Watch it here
There was probably some confusion with Vormittagessen, which isn’t breakfast, but a kind of midmorning coffee break. (Four men in the film sit down to coffee, with amusing special effects.)
I guess this would come under piddling gripes, but one that has always bugged me is from the sung version of Psalm 23. From the King James Version, the line is Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
The “me” makes perfect sense here.
But the sung version (dating from at least the Scottish metrical psalter of 1650) is thus : For thou art with me; and thy rod and staff me comfort still.
I understand that the construction is probably a poetic reordering of “me” and “comfort” to make the metre fit better.
But to my ear, it always sounds as though it should be “For thou art with me; and thy rod and staff my comfort still”. This is on the ground that the “art” in the part of the sentence before the semicolon cries out for a parallel, understood “art/are” after the word staff, so that the sense of the second limb of the sentence is “thy rod and staff are my comfort still”.
The “me” jars, like a hick saying “Where’s me dinner, luv?”
It might not be a poetic reordering so much as a holdover from when English was more inflected than it is today. It’s definitely a little odd to me too, but since I know German the construction doesn’t seem at all off to me.
Isn’t the “me” for “my” mostly a Northern English thing? (I assume you’re English.)