Happy Birthday?

Pamela Galli · July 23, 2018

Anyone can sing it anyway he wants of course, but what I am talking about is the original, copyrighted version that I hear in movies and TV

Edited July 23, 2018 by Pamela Galli

Coby Foden · July 23, 2018

4 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Anyone can sing it anyway he wants of course, but what I am talking about is the original, copyrighted version that I hear in movies and TV

Ok.

Madelaine McMasters · July 23, 2018

1 hour ago, Pamela Galli said:

Also I have noticed that in several languages they use English bad language /curses. Like in this Dutch thing I am watching now, bull**** , and FU. Maybe these are the same words in Dutch? The only bad language I even know in another language is merde, but I would never use it in place of an English word.

Fascinating!

I can think of two plausible explanations for this:

1) You wouldn't recognize cursing in a foreign language, but you would recognize perhaps tone, facial expression, and body language. This is why my neighbor swats me and her dog wags its tail when I coo lovingly at him "When you die, I'm going to use your pelt to make new floor mats for my Miata". The thing you are watching may be dripping with Dutch cursing, and you might sense anger, but the only cursing you'll recognize is the English. All he recognizes is the tone and body language.

2) I mentioned this before, but one of the USA's biggest exports is culture, via the entertainment industry. When budgets don't permit re-dubbing, American films will contain only subtitles in the target language. While the cursing might be translated in the subtext, the memorable moments will be recalled and repeated in English. The lingua-franca of the Internet is English, so memes will favor English.

And it's not just cursing. Outside of the music thread here, how often do you hear Mongolian music? Have a listen...

Sound familiar? Rap has spread around the world. Wanna guess how much cursing is in that song?

;-).

Edited July 23, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

Pamela Galli · July 23, 2018

Not that it pertains exactly to the importation of the Happy Birthday song but I just notice that in the Dutch to English subtitles, sometimes what they say is the same as the subtitles. FU in the subtitle is pronounced FU by the actor. I am wondering when this particular phrase, for example, entered the Dutch language. 500 years ago or 50? Is it all a function of the exportation of American culture through our media? I do know a lot of people learn English just from the media.

Madelaine McMasters · July 23, 2018

21 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

I am wondering when this particular phrase, for example, entered the Dutch language. 500 years ago or 50? Is it all a function of the exportation of American culture through our media? I do know a lot of people learn English just from the media.

I'll guess it entered the Dutch lexicon around the time it bubbled up in ours. Google's Ngram viewer is useful for questions like this...

https://books.google.com/ngrams

Type in the curse word or phrase that interests you, I can't do that here or I'll get a warning.

;-).

Edited July 23, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

Pamela Galli · July 23, 2018

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'll guess it entered the Dutch lexicon around the time it bubbled up in ours.

In Israeli media, I assume since Hebrew was a resurrected language, and since it did not come with essential bad words, they just borrowed our English ones. Because when things go wrong, you do have to be able to say Oh xxxx!!!

Madelaine McMasters · July 23, 2018

Go here...

https://books.google.com/ngrams

Type in the curse word/phrase of interest and select a language. You'll see that FU started trending in American English in the late '50s. British English follows by a year or two, and German (and probably Dutch) by a year or two more. French catches fire in 1965. Languages that use other character sets (Russian, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese) don't get picked up. I expect that for spoken word cursing, the curves would be similar and not obstructed by the character set issue.

I think this supports my theory that American curse words (and so much more) export widely and quickly.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

Madelaine McMasters · July 23, 2018

19 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Because when things go wrong, you do have to be able to say Oh xxxx!!!

We also use curse words when things go right. Ex: "That's f'ing awesome!"

My Iranian BFF tried to teach me some Persian curse words, but I can't remember them (don't get much opportunity to use them where I live). I was fascinated by their etiology, some of it very sophisticated and equally hilarious. They have a lot more history to mine from than Americans. And I worked with some Russian engineers who explained that their language is superb for cursing.

Phil Deakins · July 23, 2018

11 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

No, it doesn't, always. I have English speaking friends and they never use the person's name when they sing the happy birthday song in English.
They are not from UK, though. So, it's obvious that there are different English version wordings.

Had to check even how they sing it. No name!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Happy Birthday to you!

I've never heard it sung without the name of the person whose birthday it is, and it gets sung often. The normal english version includes the name. As someone said, if it's more than one person's birthday, then maybe a specific name is sometimes missing, but it's not the normal english way of singing it.

Callum Meriman · July 23, 2018

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

As someone said, if it's more than one person's birthday, then maybe a specific name is sometimes missing, but it's not the normal english way of singing it.

Ugh, our family increases the torture.

It becomes "Happy birth~day dearrrrrrrrrr <huge breath>Callum and Mum and Hunter and Sean and Bryce and Grandmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Happy bithday to you"

Coby Foden · July 23, 2018

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I've never heard it sung without the name of the person whose birthday it is, and it gets sung often. The normal english version includes the name. As someone said, if it's more than one person's birthday, then maybe a specific name is sometimes missing, but it's not the normal english way of singing it.

Ok, I was wrong in my first post, you were wrong in your first reply.
Score situation: Phil 0 - 0 Coby

Then I learned that there is the original English version with name. And you saw that there is version without name (and it gets sung often too, to single person).
Score situation: Phil 1 - 1 Coby

There are no penalty kicks in this 'game'. It's a draw.
I'm ok with this . Are you?

Phil Deakins · July 23, 2018

It'll do for me

Edited July 23, 2018 by Phil Deakins

Coby Foden · July 23, 2018

13 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

It'' do for me

Big-Bear-Hug.gif.6fd9973bd89f40ae94ccb3b0d1dd2136.gif

Phil Deakins · July 23, 2018

Dillon Levenque · July 23, 2018

On ‎7‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 9:01 PM, Madelaine McMasters said:

I also learned Frère Jacques in English and French, from Mom. She has the amusing ability to speak gibberish fluently, in what sounds like a variety of languages. Italian pop singer Adriano Celentano did exactly that in song years ago, producing the masterpiece "Prisencolinensinainciusol". He doesn't speak a word of English, but if you were Italian and didn't either, you might think he was fluent. For those of us who do speak English, it's a mind bender.

Here's the NPR print/audio story about the song...
https://www.npr.org/2012/11/04/164206468/its-gibberish-but-italian-pop-song-still-means-something

The video link on that page is broken, so here it is on Vimeo (song starts at 1:22)...

The blonde dancer featured in that video is Rafaella Carra... swoon.

I loved this! And while Rafaella is definitely swoon-inducing, you gotta admit Adriano's pretty cute his own self. (When I said his name I rolled the 'R' nicely and stressed the hell out of that third syllable: Ah-dr/ree-AHNNN-o!).

ps: How did I miss all this? I posted in this thread! I must not have checked back in all weekend.

Pamela Galli · July 23, 2018

22 minutes ago, Dillon Levenque said:

I loved this! And while Rafaella is definitely swoon-inducing, you gotta admit Adriano's pretty cute his own self. (When I said his name I rolled the 'R' nicely and stressed the hell out of that third syllable: Ah-dr/ree-AHNNN-o!).

ps: How did I miss all this? I posted in this thread! I must not have checked back in all weekend.

Well. That is mesmerizing, and if the internet had been around, that number would have been another Gangnam Syle.

Tari Landar · July 23, 2018

18 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Tari, did it never occur to you that your singing voice is what's scaring him?

Try playing this?...

More seriously, I could imagine your son simply doesn't like being the focus of attention in that way. I don't. And if you do play the Beatles, be careful about getting everybody up to dance, that could make things worse ;-). Just play the music loud and see what happens.

...shimmies in her chair.

Haha, it is entirely possible, on both counts

Really, he doesn't like being the center of attention and never has, which is what I suspect is the real issue.

That said, The Beatles are a rather large staple in my family's musical collection/interest-mostly starting with my mother who absolutely loved, and to this say still loves them. The love has carried through to not only her children, but our children as well

Love Zhaoying · July 23, 2018

8 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

Ugh, our family increases the torture.

It becomes "Happy birth~day dearrrrrrrrrr <huge breath>Callum and Mum and Hunter and Sean and Bryce and Grandmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Happy bithday to you"

Ours is long and complex and has nothing to do with the standard song. I sometimes sing it for co-workers, but I can never make it to the last verse.

First verse:

?Who is the birthday child,

Who is the birthday child,

Who is the birthday child?