Comedy Central's
The Daily Show March 17th edition, in a report on what seem to be the last stages of the US health care reform broohaha, offered a video of Republican representative Steve King. In this video, the gentleman from Iowa compares the opposition to the current version of the HCR bill to the crowds on the squares of Prague during the Velvet (or as we call it here in Slovakia, the Tender) Revolution. As ridiculous as this comparison is, it wasn't the most prominent whiskey-tango-foxtrot moment in that particular segment. Take a look below, see if you can spot what caught my attention:
The screengrab shows that the video credit goes to
ThinkProgress.org or their
Youtube channel (UPDATE: and ultimately, CNN), but the font is unmistakeably that used by the editors at TDS and so it is to them I direct this question:
Seriously? Checkoslovakia. Seriously?
5 comments:
Subtitling of news programs is done in real time, and if the word is not available in the system (it does, after all, refer to an entity no longer in existence), it is coded phonetically and spelled so. A word-based system may function worse rather than better the more words it knows; far better to misspell a word rather than to insert the wrong word. For example, suer 'one who sues' is undoubtedly a legitimate word of English. But it would be foolish to add it to a spelling-correction dictionary, for 99 times out of 100 it will be a mere typo for user.
That would explain it, although - and this may come as a suprise to some - TDS is not really a news program. That whole bit must have been written by staff writers and all the elements, i.e. the video, carefully selected and prepared.
Here in the UK, Czechoslovakia is frequently confused with 'the Czech Republic', both being similarly multisyllabic thus the pairing "Czechoslovakia and Slovakia" is often heard. The vast majority of the population (especially those under around 35) do not have the slightest idea about Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic/Slovakia/Slovenia (even if they've been to Prague or Bratislava on a stag weekend).
Yes, it is like here in Slovakia, many people who took advantage of 5€ ryanair tickets to Edinburgh will describe their trip as "a weekend in England".
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