Mis-hearings

[Travis B.]

I think I understood about half of what was going on around me - both what people were saying in real life and what people were saying in the US movies we watched. (I had started learning English at 10.) Oddly enough, I understood some people almost better than those with more "common" accents. For instance, I had no problem understanding those who pronounced "th" as if it was a simple "t".

[t~tʰ] for /θ/ sounds wrong to me, but I don't even notice [t̪] for /θ/ (I actually have a very hard time telling [t̪] and [θ] apart, and I highly suspect that my own /θ/ is often [t̪] or [t̪θ] as I typically pronounce /θ/ with full contact of the tip of my tongue with my front teeth).

[WeepingElf]

Yesterday I saw a documentary about Simon & Garfunkel on TV, and it featured a mishearing: The arranger of the song (Like a) Bridge over Troubled Water had misheard that as Like a Pitcher of Water and wrote that title on his score.

[WarpedWartWars]

Yesterday I saw a documentary about Simon & Garfunkel on TV, and it featured a mishearing: The arranger of the song (Like a) Bridge over Troubled Water had misheard that as Like a Pitcher of Water and wrote that title on his score.

I see "bridge over" sounding like "pitcher" if you don't pronounce the "v"--i.e., "o'er", but how does "troubled" sound like "of"?

[WeepingElf]

I don't know - just heard the story in that documentary, and asked myself just that question.

[Ryusenshi]

Apparently, the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars is know in Latin America as "Arturito". A mishearing of the English pronunciation?

In the soundtrack to the 1995 film La Haine, there is a mix by Cut Killer. Lots of people heard the chorus as "Assassin de la police" (which would mean exactly what it sounds like). Except it's actually a sample from KRS-One, which says "That's the sound of da police".

In the Queen song "Don't Stop Me Now", there's a line that goes "I'm 200 degrees, that's why they call me Mr Fahrenheit". I first heard it as "For idiotic reasons, people call me Mr Fahrenheit".

[Travis B.]

Apparently, the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars is know in Latin America as "Arturito". A mishearing of the English pronunciation?

Hearing English /d/ as Spanish /r/ does not seem odd, because in quick speech intervocalic /d/ is commonly flapped in NAE even if it is at what is strictly speaking a word boundary.

[Ryusenshi]

Especially since Spanish /d/ would be a fricative or approximant [ð ~ ð̞] in this context.

[Travis B.]

Turns out, the Latin American Spanish dubs of Star Wars specifically use Arturito.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

That is certainly a very odd decision. I would expect them to just use the names of the letters and numbers in Spanish.

[Ryusenshi]

The Spanish dub did exactly that, so R2-D2 is /eɾe dos ˈde dos/. So did most dubs.

I was surprised when I saw some English-language Star Wars media write R2-D2 as Artoo and C-3PO as Threepio. The French novels I read always use the letters and numbers.

[Raphael]

Not really on topic in this thread, but for some reason, the German dub of Star Wars translates "emperor" as "Kaiser" in the original movie and as "Imperator" in all other movies.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Not really on topic in this thread, but for some reason, the German dub of Star Wars translates "emperor" as "Kaiser" in the original movie and as "Imperator" in all other movies.

In German, does the word "Kaiser" have a specifically German or Austrian connotation (as sometimes in English), or would it also be used for an Emperor of China or Japan. (The Emperor of Japan actually has a different title, 天皇 Tennō from the title used for a Chinese Emperor, 皇帝 Kōtei, which is also used for Roman Emperors)?

[Raphael]

In German, does the word "Kaiser" have a specifically German or Austrian connotation (as sometimes in English), or would it also be used for an Emperor of China or Japan.

It doesn't have any specifically German or Austrian connotation. As far as German historical writings are concerned, George V had the title "Kaiser von Indien" during World War I.

[WeepingElf]

Not really on topic in this thread, but for some reason, the German dub of Star Wars translates "emperor" as "Kaiser" in the original movie and as "Imperator" in all other movies.

In German, does the word "Kaiser" have a specifically German or Austrian connotation (as sometimes in English), or would it also be used for an Emperor of China or Japan. (The Emperor of Japan actually has a different title, 天皇 Tennō from the title used for a Chinese Emperor, 皇帝 Kōtei, which is also used for Roman Emperors)?

The Chinese and Japanese Emperors are both Kaiser in German, as is, of course, the Roman Emperor.

[Travis B.]

It should be remembered that Kaiser is taken directly from Latin Caesar.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I don't think that would stop semantic drift from occurring.

[Travis B.]

I don't think that would stop semantic drift from occurring.

Tis true.

Actually, I am surprised that StG does not use something like *Zäser myself.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

The inherited English form would be expected to be either *Caser or *Coser, apparently.

[Travis B.]

The inherited English form would be expected to be either *Caser or *Coser, apparently.

Only if Caesar were inherited from PWGmc as an earlier loan from Latin by OE, though.

[WeepingElf]

I don't think that would stop semantic drift from occurring.

Tis true.

Actually, I am surprised that StG does not use something like *Zäser myself.

Because German never had a /k/ > /ts/ shift. Palatalization of /k/ before front vowels is a Romance thing, not a Continental West Germanic one. Caesar is usually pronounced as if it was spelled Zäsar in German, but when West Germanic borrowed the word from Latin Caesar, this was still pronounced ['kaesar]. Thus, Kaiser is indeed closer to the original Latin word than "Zäsar".