Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Difference between revisions
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== Literature ==
* In the [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] [[Vorkosigan Saga]] novel ''Memory'', Miles Vorkosigan is said to have "buggered the cartridge" from a [[Sonic Stunner]] to improvise a grenade. Also, he describes Impsec's security recording as having been "buggered" when he finds evidence of tampering. Nowhere else in Bujold's books do we find this sort of expression. "Buggered" is fairly innocuous US slang for fouled-up or broken (but usually not irreparably). In the UK you can ''describe'' something as "buggered" or talk about "buggering something ''up''", but in most dialects if you say you've buggered something you'll get some strange looks. Thus Miles' statement sounds as odd to the British ear as it does to the US ear when a Brit "[[Burn the Witch|lights up
* Used in-universe on several occasions by Diana Gabaldon. She ''does'' do the linguistic research, but several characters (from different countries or different ''centuries'') manage to cuss each other out and have it go right over the other person's head. (Such as Claire using the word "fucking" and utterly perplexing her husband.) In a more fitting sense for this trope, the author also gets away with a lot of creative language in the ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' series by way of it being exotic and Scottish, or terribly dated—and then lets loose with the contemporary profanity.
* [[Harry Turtledove]] doesn't do too badly at curse levels, but uses things like 'bloody' far too often in a lot of cases (which has to be quite a bit, given how much we use it). Furthermore, some of the slang is simply wrong. 'Crikey' is an exclamation of surprise, not a swearword that you can chuck in anywhere.
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* Spoofed in ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'': After the supposedly British Phoebe accidentally used an American accent when she got upset and Liz called her on it, Phoebe picked up her British accent again and replied "I don't know what you're on about, you daft wanker."
* In one episode of ''[[Friends]]'', Chandler calls a character a "wank", to which many British viewers react with surprise or disbelief.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' lived and breathed this trope through the character of [[Badass Decay|Spike]] and occasionally Giles
** Giles also repeatedly calls people "pillock," which despite being a mild swear word in the UK, stands out compared to the American characters' cleaner language. Especially given Giles' clipped and somewhat posh phrasing most of the time.
** Not to mention Spike used ''[["V" Sign|that certain hand gesture]]'' several times. Probably the director [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|worked under the assumption]] that no-one outside of the U.K. would know that an outstretched index finger and middle finger do ''not'' form the victory sign if the back of the hand is pointing ''away'' from the body, in the direction of the viewers. Done this way, it means the same as an outstretched middle finger gesture. Hilarious.
*** And then he put it in the ''Season Five opening credits''
*** The original "V for Victory" sign, as done by Churchill, ''was'' palm inward. Whether the aristocratic Churchill knew what that gesture meant to other classes in England is subject to debate, but he turned it around later in the war. One story ran that Churchill, while visiting troops, would give the palm-out V sign, then, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"And this is what we think of Hitler!"]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|turn it around]], [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|to great cheers]].
** Then there's the hilarious moment in the episode "Tabula Rasa" where Anya accuses Giles of using a lot of British slang that she doesn't understand. When he argues that she couldn't possibly have heard him say any of them words she mentioned (they had lost their memories at this time), she retorts, "Oh, bugger off, you brolly!" which is a slang term for umbrella. Clearly Anya overestimates her curses.
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* ''[[Mario Party]] 8'' (seen above): The line "Magikoopa magic! Turn the train spastic!" in the Shy Guy's Perplex Express board game initially caused the game to be recalled in the UK, where "spastic" is seen as an insulting term for the disabled. It was changed to "erratic" over there.
* The GBA game ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' features a race of snails named 'winkles'. Nothing wrong with that in America - 'winkle' is simply a shortened form of 'periwinkle', which is a snail. But in the southern UK, 'winkle' is also an old-fashioned childish word for a male organ. And this is a game primarily aimed at kids.
* ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' has Croco refer to Mario as a "persistent bugger" at one point; when Europe finally got SMRPG on the Virtual Console, it got changed to "persistent pest" to avoid PEGI giving it a
** And, after all these years [[No Export for You|spent waiting for the damn game]], this was the only line that got changed.
* Reverse example. In the DS version of ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'', Prince Harry tells the main character, before his wedding to not "cock it up." Cue the player making innuendos about the wedding night. Although, considering Prince Harry's choice of souvenir for his own wedding {{spoiler|(he has musical instruments made so he can gleefully present the player with his very own *coughcough* "marital organ,")}} this one might be intentional.
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* The Korean-developed ''[[Alliance Of Valiant Arms]]'' has one of the EU side's taunts vocalized as "Go ahead, shoot some more, you bloody tossers!" One can suppose it was the British voice actor [[Throw It In|ad-libbing a bit]], as the other English taunts use somewhat more benign words like "rascals" and "cowards".
* The manual for ''[[Crash Bandicoot|Crash Team Racing]]'' offers advice for avoiding missile attacks by saying that, if the player is, 'being tailed by one of these buggers,' it's a good idea to drop something behind you. Could be [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]].
* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' features enemies called Buggers (possibly a [[Shout-Out]] by the translators to the ''[[Ender's Game]]'' example, but as they are robotic and accompanied by enemies called "Debuggers" it is likely to be a coding reference and unintentionally funny). The [[Nintendo DS]] release had a new translation that changed the enemies' names to Verminator and Deverminator respectively since that release was the first time the game made it across the Atlantic. The new names seem to imply that they're rogue pest control robots.
** Non-offensive example - the band of carpenters are referred to as "blokes" by their boss. Obviously the translator has heard that "blokes" = "guys" - however, when an English-speaking player sees "Come on, you blokes!" it stands out like a sore thumb just if he had greeted a group of women with "Come on, you females!"
*** Perhaps they've just been hanging out in Australia, where that would be the primary usage of the word (along with "What are you blokes drinking?").
*** It stands out when writers have a British character using it in the way 'mate', 'pal' or 'chum' would usually be used. British people don't use 'bloke' in that way.
*** These days, particularly in Australia, they are interchangeable.
** Early on in the game, one particularly disgruntled character will tell you to "take your bloody time!".
* ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] 2'' is almost completely devoid of profanity, which makes it surprising when an Imperial officer acknowledges a particular Jedi Master with what seems to be a sarcastic, 'Yoda? Bloody wonderful' (if it's not 'bloody', it's something similar enough to be a euphemism).
* The Australian versions of the New Play Control [[Pikmin]] games change the name of the Pollywog and Wollywog to Pollyhop and Wollyhop, respectively. ("Wog" is a slur for Mediterranean people, and the words "pollywog" and "wollywog" are evocative of "Gollywog", which are offensive caricatures of black people.)
* British players of ''[[Escape from Monkey Island]]'' have been rather taken aback upon hearing the usually family-friendly Guybrush Threepwood describe a group of termites as "little buggers."
* ''[[Portal 2]]'' features Wheatley, a personality core with a pronounced British accent and vocabulary to match. Later in the game, when things stop going his way, he begins tossing around "bloody" an awful lot for a game rated E10 in the U.S. (One must also however consider that Wheatley was ''made'' in the United States in-universe, so it could just be stupidity on the part of Aperture
* Any number of online swearfilters for games: take [http://pastebin.com/xVaCNsje this list of banned words] (rather obviously NSFW) from [[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine]], which includes typos and foreign language swearing, but not bugger, arse, bloody, wanker, sod, shag...
* ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'s Missing Link DLC'', being made outside the UK, shows the development team isn't too experienced with the lingo; an Irish character comments on a weapon being [[Stock British Phrases|"the bollocks"]] (read: slang for ''very good''), which, most likely to the confusion of whomever wrote the subtitle script, has compromised with "bullocks".
** {{spoiler|On the other hand, the "[[Fake Irish|Irish]]" character himself is not actually an Irishman, as his [[Accent Relapse]] shows during [[The Reveal]]...}}
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