Fear the Wonky Subtitles

So as I’ve mentioned before, ever since, in his old age, Dennis the Vizsla took to noisily exhorting the humans to go to bed already in the evenings, we’ve been watching television with the subtitles on. In addition to helping with sometimes unclear dialog, subtitles can be humorous, grammatically horrifying, or subtly (or not-so-subtly) different from the actual spoken dialog.

Then there’s this, from Fear the Walking Dead:

Now what the character Morgan actually said here to his friend Grace was, “Remember those people I told you about?” But that’s not even close to what the subtitle says. Well, I mean, okay, it’s close in that “people” and “pee” both start with a “P” sound, but other than that. Hmm … Maybe Morgan and Grace both work for a medical lab and are discussing some samples?

Actually that reminds me of the time, many years ago, when I had a temp job answering the phones at a medical laboratory, and a tech called in looking to talk to one of his coworkers.

Caller: “May I speak with Irene? She works in urine.”
Me (picturing someone toiling away while up to their waist in amber liquid): “That’s unfortunate.”*

Presumably they, too, needed to discuss some pee, but I doubt any walking dead were involved …

* I thought this, but did not actually say it out loud.

6 thoughts on “Fear the Wonky Subtitles

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