![[5.12-07.58] Dime store](../wp-content/image-headlines/d3228d868c6f249099df524bd1906154.png){kind=small}
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Goof seen in: Checkpoint at 07.58
The Watcher called Nigel says “dime store trinkets”, which is something an English person would never say. |
| Related Trivia: | |
| Suggested by: | › Jess |
| Added: | › 4th October 2004 |
| Updated: | › 9th May, 2005 |
| Hits: | › 333 |
August 15th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
What would you call them? What’s the English equivalent of “dime store”?
August 16th, 2005 at 8:07 am
One penny trinkets? i dunno. i thought the british may say that because they are slightly mocking american slang.
August 16th, 2005 at 9:03 am
kp - I think “pound shop” is pretty much the same thing. We have euros in Ireland, and the boyfriend says they should be called “Euro Cheap Bastard”.
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:16 am
As an English person I can assure you that we do know the phrase and it is used over there.
A related but real and infinitely worse goof is perpetrated by Giles (I can’t remember the episode) when he mentions something at his ‘public school’. I have a similar background to the Giles character and I’m certain that no one who had been to one would refer to it as anything but ’school’—btw public schools are a bit like the US Ivy League but at highschool level.
It would be like him saying ‘horseback riding’ (if you do it, it’s ‘riding’–you know pretty-well which part of which animal!) I wonder if he says that when he is riding at the begining of season 7??
Or it would be like him using the spelling pronounciation of schedule (”sked” rather than “shed”) which he does throughout—to Giles generation such things were still quite important.
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:48 am
I wouldn’t say ‘dime-store trinket’. I hate Americanisms with a vengeance and I think the Watcher’s Council would probably be with me on that one.
Puja
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:05 am
I got distracted remembering the ‘public school’ thing and so didn’t elaborate:
Yes we think of it as an Americanism (possibly a hated one too) but Puja’s point really strenghten’s mine—and what better put-down for an American Magic shop if that’s the case.
August 22nd, 2005 at 8:55 am
I’m English too and know what “dime store trinkets” mean, but just wouldn’t use it. I never thought of it as being a put down before though, richardelguru. That’s an interesting point.
August 22nd, 2005 at 6:33 pm
Richardelguru has a point actually. The Watcher’s Council did think that Giles had gone too ‘native’ when they replaced him with Wesley, so the phrase might not have just been referencing cheap tat, but referencing cheap *American* tat . I would’ve thought the phrase would be delivered with more of a sneer if it was intended as an insult though.
Puja
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:27 am
richardelguru, when you say
“Or it would be like him using the spelling pronounciation of schedule (”sked” rather than “shed”) which he does throughout—to Giles’ generation such things were still quite important.”
do you mean that Giles uses the “sked-” pronunciation? Because that’s actually the American version. Older English people say “shed-”. At least, so Fowler’s Modern English Usage (3rd ed., Oxford, 1996) tells me!
I actually have a vague memory that Giles also says “gotten” at some point. I would be oh-so-happy to be wrong.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:25 am
I think one could also assume that Giles has lived here long enough that certain things have simply entered his lexicon, whether or not it was a deliberate choice on his part. Just as people who move to Minnesota tend to pick up the very round “o, or the fact that people who transplant cultures often tend to pick up colloquialisms. God knows Buffy and her gang are nothing if not colloquial!
August 23rd, 2005 at 3:14 am
I remember he definitly said “schedule” using the ’shed’ prononciation in Some Assembly Required.