29 July 22 – Mumbling Americans
I watched The Batman the other day. Firstly I would like to give the Caped Crusader some crime-fighting advice.
I had to shine a torch at the telly to see what was going on.
Gotham City has solved the energy crisis by not installing light switches. On the downside everyone’s banging their shins and being killed by baddies who laugh a lot.
And then my sound bar started playing up.
What was that? Commissioner Gordon munched a jam sarnie. Can you rewind that?
Wait, sorry, The Riddler’s going to blow up his trousers?
HOLY CAN’T-HEAR-A-THING, WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT?
I can’t understand deep mumbling American voices, there I’ve said it.
And I can safely say I didn’t understand a single word Jeff Bridges said in True Grit. Hey Jeff, here’s what I’ve got to say to you
‘Spemmblle up amdd stommmnmn mummmbblleeing.’
And I really mean it.
As for Clint, he sounds like he needs to cough up a greeny and Sly says whole paragraphs as a single word after two bottles of wine. I don’t know whether I’m losing my lower range but I need the voices to be slightly higher pitched.
But I suppose if it’s good enough for Bruce Wayne and Rooster Cogburn, I thought I’d give it a go.
I got a quarter of pear drops for free because Mr Sherbet thought Clooney had just landed from Beverly Hills.
Add the mumbling to the fact that every other American film is a courtroom drama.
‘Did it look like <mutter> victim was visiting Mr Mumble on…’
‘Sustained’
‘Was Mr Mumble…’
‘De facto, counsel, don’t mutteringly make me acquit the inaudible word.’
‘The defendant has a criminal record…’
‘Take the plea-bargain…’
‘My client has the right to a series of muffled words, otherwise I’m taking the fifth.’
Can’t be bottomed with all that. I’ll binge the rest of it when I get into Stanford and ace my American Law Degree.
But what’s worse than mumbling and jargon?
Mumbling, jargon and this:
The Wire. I don’t know about you but I can’t ever remember being a drug dealer in Baltimore, so the realism of The Wire, although brilliant and everything, made me want to ride the wave of a dinkie dow, ja feel. I lasted 6 episodes then swapped my telly for 50Gs of tweak and a wheelbarrow of scooby snacks.
Please note: I don’t know what that means.
Let me know if this is just me and I’ll gladly head off to speak-up-will-yer.co.uk. Or alternatively, I’ll do what me mam does and complain the world’s gone a bit quieter.
Yes, they do Mam.
She doesn’t watch American telly so doesn’t understand how incredibly cool I’ve become nowadays.
So ‘uppmmble yerr piimmbbleeem’
Don’t worry she won’t hear that.
Have a wickitywack weekend.
Word.
Ian
(If you want to leave a comment below, that would be great)
?? so true. But our homegrown stuff is as bad. Try listening to Happy Valley. Great stuff but sign language needed next time
Yeah I agree, decided to pick on the Americans but we have so many accents to cope with as well. Confusing 🙂
I agree sometimes lve lost the plot cos lm like what did he/she say then and u rewind and still cant get lt some films are so quiet even when u turn TV up lts useless Thought l was going deaf lol… Ha ha
£3000 on a fancy sounds system with mumble technology, that’s what we all need 🙂
I live in Happy Valley we all talk like that, fluent gibberish
I can relate to that, living in Cumbria 🙂
If you think thats bad, you want to live in somerset like i do .
Cumbrians talking to Somersetians (not sure if that’s correct) would be a difficult one to decipher 🙂
Not only mumbling.. it’s the soddin “background/incidental music” too.. grrr
American kids on TV is the worst, as soon as I see a programme has kids in it, I switch on the subtitles.
Only if you’re not from yarkcher ?
I agree sometimes lve lost the plot cos lm like what did he/she say then and u rewind and still cant get lt some films are so quiet even when u turn TV up lts useless Thought l was going deaf lol… Ha ha
I had to stop watching Jamaica Inn a few years ago because of that. Clear diction has gone down the toilet. It’s all realism, no point if I can’t understand you. We have the subtitles on all the time now. ??
You’re totally spot on
Thanks Andy
Use the subtitles feature. It’ll either make things more understandable or conversely, less! Bonus that some of the typos are hilarious too ? Not just US shows either. Recently watched Top Boy set in Laaandin innit (London?) and feel about 150 yo
I do sometimes resort to subtitles. Any show set in Cumbria would probably be indecipherable to the rest of the world, we can hardly understand each other 🙂
I’ve looooong given up trying to understand what they’re saying, as far back as when somebody was talking about “Broken millinery for Donkeys” and I missed the rest of the programme trying to work out just what else they could have meant when they spoke aout “bustin a Cap for yo ass”. As a rule now, I leave the setttings for the subtites as “ON” , so thats the default setting. It’s a godsend (as me mother used to say). The worse is when you record a programme and for some reasons the subtitles don’t record, or they suddenly come on for a short period through the programme
I think I need to resort to permanent subtitles as well. If only you could have them in real life as well 🙂
Totally with you, I drive my other half mad pausing the TV so I can ask ‘yer-what?’ every 10 minutes! I think I lasted about 7 minutes watching the first episode of Snowfall. ?
Think I might give Snowfall a miss then, or come and watch it with your other half 🙂
Ha ha know what you mean..I struggled with Peaky blinders mumbling ?
Imagine if Batman was in Peaky Blinders, even the subtitles would struggle 🙂
I agree Completely! It got so bad before the pandemic the NHS actually prescribed me some hearing aids. Guess what? No noticeable improvement so sent them back. I don’t suffer so much with British TV, but there is no doubt this is a growing problem, unlike Scooby Snacks. ?
I think either there’s been a deafness pandemic or a mumbling pandemic. There should be a ‘Speak up’ button on the remote, I think 🙂
Totally agree, I’ve looked forward to watching so many films and tv series only to be disappointed by the vocals ,even though my other half thinks it’s just me going deaf, see we can’t all be wrong ??
They all need a good cough and spit into a bucket before the cameras roll 🙂
I always have a Friday smile reading your blogs…
Thanks Sue, glad you like them 🙂
Totally agree! I watched broke back mountain, then when it came to the end I have not to this day found out what was said ! I rewound it many times
, shows how long ago it was and asked others who watched it and no one else could ever tell me !!
Absolute cowboys 🙂
Had exactly the same problem with The Wire – ended up buying the box set so we could get subtitles. In fact, if it ain’t got subtitles in our house, we ain’t watching?
Keep up the good work Ian – love my Friday read – oh and the t-shirts!!
Sometimes you need them for Border News and Lookaround 🙂
Word
Jon, you are very cool 🙂
Ironically I wear hearing aids and Bluetooth the TV etc straight to them and I can hear it better than my wife , especially as I can turn off the microphones on the hearing aids so can’t hear the dog having a wash .
So go work in a noisy place , mess up your hearing then get hearing aids and you’ll be all set ?
Wow, they sound great 🙂 My mum has needed hearing aids for about 10 years I’ll tell her about those ones.