My Sainted wife and I have taken to using closed captioning when watching TV, and not for the reason you're probably thinking: "they're old, they're going deaf." No, as suggested by an alert reader, we use it so we can understand the dialog in British shows.
Yes, yes, I know they too are speaking English, but let's face it - when the British get to talking fast it can be a struggle to keep up. Plus they have this habit of pronouncing everything differently if they don't have an entirely different word handy (e.g., chemist is pharmacist) which really puts a spanner in the gubbins.
Which brings up a troubling observation: closed captioning is always there when you need it. That means it is there on even the absolute WORST movies imaginable (Plan 9 From Outer Space and its ilk). I assume that means someone actually had to sit through these awful things typing up the, for want of a better word, dialog.
I hope the dialog typing union is good enough to get them some kind of combat pay for being exposed to these horrid things.
I recently found out I could watch the entire season of Downton Abbey season 5 on You Tube. So I watched. Just for the fun of it, watch an episode with the closed captioning turned on. Not sure what form of the English language gets posted. It's entertaining!
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