The Full Monty

[pensnest]

Beast recently offered his dad 'The Full Monty' to watch (FIL approved, mostly I think because it was set in Sheffield, where he was born). The box was lying around, so we watched it yesterday, and today looked at the Extras.

Apparently, many words needed to be translated for the American audience. Which is sad, frankly. We don't get translations from American English, we're expected to manage, and seriously, is it that hard to figure out what 'lassies' means? Or the 'works' band? Or 'top himself'? In context, I don't think any of these words is unclear. The one thing I thought was probably acceptable was 'pounds' for 'stones'. (They didn't like the title either, and it's more understandable that the phrase would be new to the USA, but there is a perfect little scene in the movie where it is explained exactly what it means. Apparently the title only stuck because they ran out of time without figuring out a better title, and had to take the film to Sundance.)

Out of context, it could be harder to get what's being said, but… are these examples really impenetrable? If they are, I'd love to know.

Comments

[dine]

it's been ages since I watched the movie, but I don't remember being especially confused by the dialogue or accents. I don't remember tons about it, just the general plot.

however, without context the 'works' band is throwing me; I can think of several meanings of 'works' but the phrase itself has no meaning for me. unless it's an actual band for a workplace?

[pensnest]

It is, in fact, an actual band (you see them marching past playing their instruments) associated with a 'works' (in this case, a steel mill).

[sporky_rat]

I got everything else sans context but the 'works band' threw me too. Thanks for clearing it up!

(Doing the conversion for stones and pounds always makes me pause, but I'm still used to finding things like an arpent used to measure land here.)

[pensnest]

It's quite interesting that the 'works band' is something that really is confusing. It's not part of my own normal vocabulary (I'm a southerner!) but obviously more culture-based than I'd recognised.

I'm getting used to weighing myself in pounds these days, as that's what our bathroom scale is set up for, but I then have to count back and figure out how many stone I am!

[dine]

yay! I had vague images of that scene, but couldn't be sure I'd not made it up. thanks for clarifying, and reassuring me I'm not completely crazy (yet)

[pensnest]

I'm interested to see how confusing 'works band' actually is! But I think it is pretty clear when you see it in the movie, indeed.