[the picture of this post is a screencap of one the final scenes of the movie “Gone With The Wind”. Clark Gable’s character, Rhett Butler, addresses Vivien Leigh’s character, Scarlett O’Hara. Text in the image, implied to be captions for what the Rhett Butler is saying read “tbh bae idgaf”]
What I think I love the most here, is that this version keeps the same exact intended message as the original, including the tone, but translates it to a much modern codification, while still being technically the same language.
The original phrase in “Gone With The Wind” is (iirc) “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
The phrase here has the same structure, and the same implied meaning in the message!
It’s made up of the same elements: [i am being honest with my message] + [term of endearment for a romantic partner i am close to] + [very strong disinterest + use of profanity to accentuate the weight of my message] (plus, both in the spoken message within the film and in this caption, the tone of voice conveyed by the speaker is flat, disinterested (which is partly implied in the caption by the lack of punctuation!))
Like, this is actually a very faithful translation of the original phrase in the movie!!! And at the same time, it could not possibly look any more different!!! Almost a century apart, the sentence in this caption was made using a specific form of English, and it has the same meaning as the sentence used in the film.
But the form of the sentence looks completely different, and if the reader is not used to reading the kind of abbreviated English used in it, and is not familiar with the implied meaning behind it (”bae” as a term of endearment, “tbh” and “idgaf” as both acronyms for “to be honest” and “i don’t give a fuck” and also ways of saying something slightly more specific than those expressions (such as “i care so little that i can’t be bothered to write my response in full’)) it can be entirely incomprehensible.
This caption is a translation of the original message to a more contemporary use of the same language (English), and a faithful one at that. But at the moment it was made, because of the kind of language used, it was such a specific kind of translation that people not familiar with its language would likely have strong issues not only understanding it and its message, but even recognizing it as what it is (again, a contemporary translation into a specific form of contemporary English).
Language is fucking amazing and I love it.
gummygunk
theartofmadeline
janainaart
titsay
jacobvanloon
kaledo-art
snowghoul
