PCA Wins and Random UK English Question...

[hells_half_acre]

PCAS:

Congrats to Supernatural on winning the Favourite Sci-Fi/Fantasy award at the PCAs tonight. And congrats to the fandom for voting ourselves favourite TV fandom. We deserve this honour we have painstakingly bestowed upon ourselves! And that sounds sarcastic but I actually mean it. To prove it, here is my acceptance speech:

I would like to thank my sister for telling me that Supernatural existed and insisting that I should give it a shot, even though I was reluctant, without her, who knows what I would be doing with my life. Most importantly though, I would like to thank the Supernatural Family for being the most welcoming fandom, and therefore the first fandom that made me want to be a contributing member instead of just the lurker that I had always been. Thank you for voting for me, as I voted for you, and we all voted for each other. :)

Alright, that still sounds sarcastic, but I swear to god that I'm being sincere.

In more cynical PCA reaction - is it weird that part of me is a little glad that Jensen and Jared lost to Nathan Fillion? I mean, it would have been wonderful if we had gotten them an award in that category too - but I also can't help being cynical and imaging the *insert adjective* fans that would complain that J deserved the award more than J, and all the wank that would then ensue. Nathan Fillion is an awesome "You can't make us chose between our boys" alternative in my opinion.

ETA: Also, I should just say: As someone who is often more turned on by clothing than I am by people...holy CRAP Jared, Jensen, Danneel, and Genevieve were gorgeous at the PCAs! And they all coordinated their outfits!! At first, I thought that Danneel was the odd one out, until I realized that she had painted her nails to match Jensen's suit (and therefore Jared's tie and Genevieve's dress.) BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ALL OF THEM. Plus, Danneel looks fantastic for... I'm going to guess, four months preggos?  I'd demand that they all marry each other, but they basically already have.


RANDOM UK ENGLISH QUESTIONS:

What do you call a TV remote? Is it a TV remote? A controller? A clicker? A fidwidget? 

I figure you guys have digital recorders...do you call them something special? In the states, they call them DVRs and in Canada we call them PVRs. I've just called it "the digital recorder."

When you guys refer to the TV, do you say TV, or do you always call it the Tele? Telly? How do you even spell that. 

Maybe it doesn't matter... or maybe I should have this fic brit-picked. Or maybe I should just publish it and force my Canadianisms on everyone. At the very least, I was smart enough to correct sidewalk to pavement, and curb to kerb.

Comments

[liliaeth]

An other bit that all the fans can agree on is that the main reason neither of the J's won, is because the vote was split. it's the same reason why Destiel lost to Sterek in the AfterElton poll. Supernatural rarely loses an online poll, unless we're competing amongst ourselves.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They should have given us one option of "Jarsen Padackles"... I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind sharing. ;)

But yeah, that's what I meant when I said that Nathan Fillion was our "you can't make us choose between the boys" option - because they literally can't make us (as a collective) choose between the boys. The vote will always be split.

Brit-picking

[michapuss.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's a uniform name for a remote control over here, in our family they've always been called the gadget, but others will call them remotes or whatever.

Televisions are called either TV's or Telly's. Again, in our family it's the latter. They're sometimes referred to as 'the box' too.

Digital recorders are normally built into the satellite/broadband box, and are normally referred to as such, eg the Sky Box or the Virgin Box. Don't know if that's the case in all of the UK or just where I stay. For a small country we're full of regional idiosyncrasies.

Hope that helps!

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

I'd like to thank you for sharing your amazing enthusiasm for Show. It makes me very happy when you do detailed ep responses and extensive lists of Sam's various Plaid Shirts. Also stories about Ty Olsson are awesome. And little runins with location shooting are super exciting. :D

So, yes, thank you! mwah!


If I lived in Vancouver I'd be lurking at all the regional theatre all the time. My husband does regional theatre and he brushes shoulders with shoulder that have brushed with greatness all the time. One of his co-actors got knocked down by Angelina!! Another very sweet gay friend likes to tell the story of how he did not swoon in his scene with Harrison Ford. Theatre people rock.

[franztastisch]

Ooos Brit things! I can do that!

Everyone I know calls TV remotes TV remotes. Though when I was small, we had a remote-less TV for AGES. As such, when we got a TV with a remote, for soem reason we called it a gun for ages. I think that's because no one in out family had any prior idea as to what you call it, and my mum reasoned that you point and shoot it at a TV, therefore = gun.

Most people I know also call it the TV. Though telly is also used. They can both be used with "the" in front of it. So the TV or the telly. But they can also just be TV and telly. I don't think there is any deliniation between north and south concerning this, though I would (very tentatively) say that "telly" might be used more by older generations.

I had to think very hard what you meant by digital recorder then. :P On the whole, I thing we name them after the make (if they're famous e.g. Sky Box, Sky+, Virgin, BT Vision) or we just call it the Box. We call ours the Box because it's some shitty make. At uni we had a BT Vision box and referred to it as such. Though we'd refer also to just recording things. So it's not "I've DVRed Supernanny" it's be "I've recorded Supernanny". Because no-one uses videos anymore, people know what you mean.

But yeah, we're an odd bunch. So this probably won't hold up everywhere. Hope that helps!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Cool, I'll keep the TV remote as the TV remote then (which was my first guess). When I was a kid, we used to call them "the clicker" or "the controller."

TV sounds much more sombre than Telly, and I talk about a TV in a very sombre scene...so, I think I'll use TV. Telly just...brings an element of humour that I don't want in the scene...which might just be a personal reaction on my part, because I've always found the use of the word "Telly" by the UK to be adorable. :P

I did not know that about digital recorders in the UK! Thanks! That helps a great deal, as I don't want people to be tripped up. I like the fact that I can just use "the Box" as a generic one... but out of curiosity...what kind of box would a very posh/rich person have?

In Canada, we used to always say "I taped Supernanny", which meant that once tapes weren't actually involved, we switched to "I PVRed Supernanny" which actually just sounds ridiculous. So, yeah, I use "recorded" in the fic, because I'm staging a revolution to stop using PVR/DVR as a verb. :P

Re: Brit-picking

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thanks! I will just continue to call it "the remote" then. As long as people know what I'm talking about, I'm happy.

And thanks for the info about the digital recorders! Ours are built into the satellite/broadband too, but we just always call them "PVR" no matter what. So, it's good to know that you guys make a distinction. Now I just have to figure out what satellite/broadband provider the very rich use ;)

Small, but old countries are often full of idiosyncrasies... I mean, we have idiosyncrasies in Canada too (mostly in Quebec and the Maritimes) and we aren't even that old! (Though in fairness, Quebec and the Maritimes are the oldest bits :P)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! :)

It's true, once you start hanging out in the film/acting world in Vancouver, you realize how small the community here really is. I don't think the local theatres get any of the big names, but they get people who might one day be big names...or at least act with big names. ;)

[franztastisch]

Telly to me is an adorable old perosn thing, or my mum, who still uses it occasionally. :P

Well... I dunno really. I think it would be a toss up between Sky/Sky+ boxes and Virgin Media. Because they're often the ones that come with internet access and computer access and iPlayer, Sky Player, 4oD and ITV Player all built in. And Sky has the best film and sport packages too I think. Also Sky has Sky Atlantic which gets a lot of US TV. I don't know as much about Virgin Media though. I think it's similar, though I think Sky still probably gets the best sport and film packages. Also just to let you know for accuracy (and if you need it), I think British Netflix is supposed to be crap. Another reason Sky is still pretty popular. Though we also have a website called LoveFilm which is basically a cross between Netflix and video rental. Well, as far as I know.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Sky Box is the way I should go! Especially if it has the best sport packages.

This is a crazy depressing fic, which is pretty stupid because it's for an addition to one of my more cracky crossovers... this always happens with my crossovers. They go from me thinking "Oh man, this will be hilarious!" to me very depressingly writing about death, grief, and regrets. :P Anyway, yeah, so, definitely not going to use "Telly", especially since it's all young person POV.

I'll might let you know if I have any questions. I really just started brit-picking it myself last night and I only got to the end of the second section before I decided just to post my questions so far... so there might be others.

[franztastisch]

Just another thing. With Sky and all that, you talk about having Sky, not having a Sky box. So it's like "we have Sky" rather than "we have a Sky box". In the same way, you "have" BT Vision or you "have" TiVo (which I just remembered is Virgin Media. David Tennant does the ads). If that helps too. And yeah, I'm happy to answer questions, so I'm cool with that. :)

(I have no idea why this replied to the post and not the comment. Sorry.)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

But if someone was talking about the recording device itself... like "the Sky Box was on and paused" or "He had the program queued up on the Sky Box" would that be right? Like, they aren't talking about their cable package, they're talking about the fact that there's been something recorded and they are now going to watch it.

[franztastisch]

To be honest, I think they'd just say TV. "The TV was paused". Or "the programme was queued up on Sky". I think though, the more we chat about this.. I think we just talk about it in a different way. Or maybe how you talk about it depends on the box/provider you use. When we had BT Vision, we'd have things on series record. If it was a recorded programme you were watching - like with your "the Sky Box/TV was on a paused" - you'd say either something along the lines of "the TV was paused" or "he/she/they paused the TV/show". As to thngs being queued up... I don't think we use that phrase at all. To be honest, I thought it was an American/TiVo (which I only knew as American at the time) phrase. So really, I'm not sure what that means. I think we refer to the TV and the box as the same thing. There is no destiction between the two.

I think I've been confusing. For us, a DVR/PVR would be referred to by provider/brand (so Sky, Virgin, BT) but its recording ability, and everything it can do, falls under the name "TV". You record things, pause things, rewind things, on the TV. Maybe you've recorded Game of Thrones. That was recorded on the TV. The fact that you can record Game of Thrones means you have Sky Atlantic and therefore either a Sky box or a Sky+ box. The Sky box would have to be on to record, yes, but it would also have to be on to watch TV, recorded or not. It's like the modem of a computer. In the same way, you wouldn't mention you had Sky unless something specific prompted it e.g. "come over to my house to watch the Lions tour, we have Sky". So if your TV was paused, then your TV is paused, and not the box. If you are getting ready to watch a recorded programme... Well, I don't know. Queued is not something I've come across outside of things I consider American. I guess we might just say the TV was ready or the programme was ready. Um...

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...interesting. But it is a separate box right? Like, here, you have your TV hooked up to your PVR. So you can turn off your TV (as in, make the screen go black) but the PVR can still be on and paused - so that you only need to turn back on the TV and press play to resume watching TV where you left off. (As long as you do it within a certain amount of time...but we won't get into that.)

I can take out the "queued" bit...change that around.

Basically, in the story, someone records a bit of the news - and then turns off the TV, but leaves the PVR/Box-thing ready so that they only need to turn back on the TV and hit play in order to show what they recorded to someone... but perhaps this is only possible in Canada? :P

[franztastisch]

Yeah, for the most it is a separate box. You can get TVs with Freeview built in, but that just gives you extra channels, nothing more. You need some sort of box to be able to record. But for what you need, you can say almost exactly what you've said above, just putting in Sky box (or whatever) instead of PVR and I think you shouldn't have any trouble. And you can do that in the UK.

Which makes this a very long and rather pointless conversation after all. :P

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, no never pointless! I have learned much! :)

I'll let you know if anything else pops up in my final pass through this story. :)

[franztastisch]

Haha yeah, about British Freeview boxes and Sky. :P

Feel free! Always happy to help. :)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Other questions:

1. Drug rehab: Do they call them rehab centres or recovery centres or something else entirely?

2. When you play tug o'war/tug-o-war, do you call it that? Or is it just "tug war" or the proper "tug of war" or something else entirely? (The more I look at the words, the more they don't even make sense...shouldn't the game be called "war of tug"?)

3. Is it "voicemail" or "answering service" or something else?

[franztastisch]

1. They'd be called "rehab". I suppose that the actual buildings would be referred to as Drug Rehabilitation Centres but most people would refer to them just as rehab. If it helps any, the most famous one in the UK is called The Priory, though I don't know where it is.

2. tug of war/tug o' war is fine. (And yeah, that is weird isn't it?)

3. I think mostly it would be... well, "there's a message on your answering machine for you" or "I left you a message". Maybe even "I left you a message on your phone". People might use voicemail too but I don't and I don't think any of my friends/family do either. Oh no wait, things would go strait to voicemail, but I think that's the only time. As in "I tried to ring you but it went straight to voicemail." I think on the whole though, it's like TV. "Phone" is used to refer to all these things, because people don't really have answering machines any more. So it would just be something along the lines of "I left a message on your phone for you"

What on earth are you writing, that you need rehab and tug of war in the same story? :P

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Awesome thanks!! Sounds like the voicemail thing is the same as here then. Yay!

What on earth are you writing, that you need rehab and tug of war in the same story? :P

Sherlock :P

[franztastisch]

Haha yeah, as soon as I wrote that I though "totally Sherlock"

I'm EXCITED. :D

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hahaha... "Is this sounding completely ridiculous? Yes? Sherlock then."

It's a continuation/prequel to my Sherlock-Merlin AU fusion-thing... (I'm kind of loath to call it a crossover, because it's really just a way for me to explore Sherlock through the eyes of a non-canon character... though, I suppose that's what crossovers ARE.)

Anyway, I was going to wait until Sherlock S3 started up, so that I could see how they handled everything... but I got, understandably, impatient. :P

[franztastisch]

This is the eternal problem for the Sherlock fandom. And while I'm not going mad, I am quietly lamenting the lack of BBC dramas I want to watch right now. :P

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Indeed. By the end of it, I figure we'll be waiting as long as John for Sherlock to return. :P

I'm not watching any BBC dramas right now either. I'm not a fan of Downton Abbey, Merlin ended (and pissed me off), I lost interest in Doctor Who (which often happens), and there's nothing else that strikes my fancy.

[franztastisch]

Yeah, I haven't started up with Doctor Who again either. There's the Hour, which is supposed to be very good. But I'm not really watching TV at all right now. I mean, I watch odd episodes of Being Human, the Unusuals and Pushing Daisies when I'm really bored. But... meh.

That being said, I watch Stargazing Live, Africa (DAIVD ATTENBOROUGH) and Dara O'Briain's Science Club... but those are factual so.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Dara O'Briain has a Science Club?! That sounds like fun. I have been watching QI... though I think that's over/nearly over for this year?

Right now, I've got two more episode until I finish Leverage, and then once that's done, I'll ONLY have Supernatural. Warehouse 13 was recommended to me though, so I might check that out... but yeah, those are all American, so the Brits are falling down on the competition job. :P

[franztastisch]

Dara O'Briain does indeed have a Science Club! It is fabulous and full of learning. :D

Well, if you like Shakespeare, there's the Hollow Crown from last year. And even if you're indifferent to Shakespeare (which I kind of am) it is WELL WORTH IT. It is amazingly well acted.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Cool. I do like Shakespeare, though I'm different to his histories... but if it is well worth it, I will check it out. :)

[franztastisch]

Oh they are wonderful. All the best British actors who aren't in the Hobbit are in those four plays; Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, Tom Hiddleston, Ben Whishaw, Alun and Joe Armstrong, Michelle Dockery, Julie Walters, Simon Russell Beale etc. etc. It's very VERY good.