Shadowrun and its ridiculous names, Didn't want to hijack the other thread Options

[ColdEquation]

seabee (there are bees that live in the ocean?)

Actually, I can explain this one.

A Seabee is a US Navy combat engineer. As opposed to the engineers who work aboard ships, it is the role of the Seabees to support the Marines and other landing forces by building (and destroying) fortifications, runways, landing zones, and so forth. The name "Seabee" comes from World War Two, when Navy combat engineers were formed into battalions of surveyors and builders called Construction Battalions, or CBs for short ("What do you do in the Navy?" "Why, I'm in the CBs!") You can see where it came about.

The Sea Bee that serves as their mascot was originally drawn by animators at Walt Disney Studios, and even appears in a cartoon with MIckey Mouse.

[hermit]

When Wal-Mart entered the German market they tried to establish their US-style of making the employees be ultra-friendly, greeting the customers, offering help, presenting the daily/weekly special offers...
They failed miserably. German customers are not used to this kind of behavior and don't want it. Basically, we expect store employees to be invisible and inaudible until we ask them for (specific) help. Some total stranger who greets you like a friend and starts blaring special offers, follows you around with a wide (and obviously fake) smile doesn't make us feel welcomed but hassled and watched.

So YES. The perpetual smile/grin of Americans is ... eerie to say the least. Seems like they're on drugs or thoroughly brainwashed. Or part of an alien and hostile hive mind. If you're not genuinl frinedly, you'Re not. Makes for a rather rough tone in all service related areas that foreigners often take personal, but it's just a different mentality (and gets har harsher in the formerly East German parts of the country than it is in the West).

Also, WalMart pissed off the unions like they do in America. That was what broke them in the end. Because that is among the things you really should avoid here, lest you get slammed in all kinds of ways. That Germany is already a very tight-margin market for discounters and has various local competitors who are well set up didn't help, either.

I remember when McDonalds first started opening up restaurants in Russia. They were having difficulties getting the local employees they hired to smile and be cheery to customers.

I can imagine. Poor Russians.

I guess they also dropped the alcohol ban in their restaurants real quickly (they had to in Germany too because people got angry at not getting a beer).

He thinks it's less about Americans being generally gregarious and more about us being the ones to take this whole assembly line approach to selling food to its current extreme. Basically, other countries have less chain restaurants and more establishments that grew up by happenstance and are locally owned. He said that when you go to a French corner restaurant and expect to have your ass kissed US style, you're more likely to be talking to someone who actually owns the place and whose establishment may have only developed because his great uncle started selling sandwiches to construction workers in order to both be nice and to make a li'l petty cash on the side. In other words, it's almost like they're doing you a favor, not vice versa, whereas in the US we're weaned on "The customer is always right," and we know full well that the guy behind the counter doesn't want to hear from his manager. Hence why we think French waiters are snooty and why they think we're presumptuous blowhards who wield menus like some kind of royal scepter.

There's truth in that, but France also has it's own chain restaurants (Qwik being the most common, after the state-owned highway cafeterias and Carrefour cantinas, IIRC). Thing is, American service depends on the guy behind the counter being instantly fireable because the manager wants it. In Europe, that's (usually) flat out impossible. Employee rights and unions are far stronger here than in America (and in France, unions are even more powerful than in Germany, bear in mind the French communists routinely get 10% of the French vote in national elections). The guy behind the counter won't kiss your ass because he can afford not to. Of course, if the guy also owns the place, at least in Germany he has the right of house and can just order you to go, so there's a certain snootyness that comes with this. That said, usually, restaurant staff in Europe usually are pretty polite. It's just not the creepy enthusiasm common in America (and customers are expected to display at least moderate politeness too). All bets are off in local pubs - expect not to be served in certain areas if you speak the wrong accent (foreigners often have it easier there).

[Whipstitch]

I'm something of a paranoid loner by nature so I kinda honestly prefer the efficient but not necessarily smiley approach. In the US the forced friendliness also puts me off a bit from making any sort of small talk in part because I don't feel like divining if they'll appreciate some chit chat or if they're just thinking "God, take your snickers and get it out."

[Pinkys.Brain]

In the Shadows of Asia book there is a typo (I hope). So bosozoku became bosozuko. So the raging biker gang (normal Japanese expression) became the raging halo...
Then they randomly changed the first name and surname order. Shiawase Hitomi vs. Hitomi Shiawase (=minor thing).

I personally like the "Furin Inc.", which means "Adultery Inc." (and no, Furin is not a normal Japanese name).

(there are some smaller mishaps, like "kawaruhito" not meaning changed people, but changing people, but that's still okay).

[Nath]

There's truth in that, but France also has it's own chain restaurants (Qwik being the most common, after the state-owned highway cafeterias and Carrefour cantinas, IIRC).

The companies operating French higways were privatized a few years ago. However, the restaurants always belonged to other corporations like Autogrill of Italia or L'Arche. Quick, on the other hand, is a Belgian company that was privately owned until 2007. Then, the French state holding Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation (CDC) bought it from businessman Albert Frère in 2007, making it a state-owned company (the Belgian authorities were investigating a possible fraud ; the CDC allegedly overpriced Quick on the government's behalf, in exchange for Albert Frère supporting the GDF-Suez merger).

I know a bunch of people who still mourn the day Burger King chose to close all it restaurants in France, and jump on the occasion whenever they travel in a place that has one.

[Whipstitch]

I know, I was just making a generalization. Are there private restaurants in the United States and chain franchises in France? Sure. But for various geographic reasons the United States is very much about sprawl and highway culture, particularly once you get past the east coast, and name recognition is a huge advantage in that kind of environment. I bet you I can name 20 or so restaurant chains without much effort and if I sat down with a pen and paper the number would get pretty ludicrous. And I don't even really eat out much because I lived with a vegan for years.

[Adarael]

Actually, I can explain this one.

A Seabee is a US Navy combat engineer. As opposed to the engineers who work aboard ships, it is the role of the Seabees to support the Marines and other landing forces by building (and destroying) fortifications, runways, landing zones, and so forth. The name "Seabee" comes from World War Two, when Navy combat engineers were formed into battalions of surveyors and builders called Construction Battalions, or CBs for short ("What do you do in the Navy?" "Why, I'm in the CBs!") You can see where it came about.

The Sea Bee that serves as their mascot was originally drawn by animators at Walt Disney Studios, and even appears in a cartoon with MIckey Mouse.

No, I was talking about the Republic OA-15 Seabee, which were never used particularly much (except in The Man With the Golden Gun) but which look cool anyway. Not the US Naval engineers. I just sorta assumed it was probably a different "CB" contraction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_RC-3_Seabee

[Sengir]

The funny part about this is that a lot of the enthusiasm is just seen as a matter of being polite. We may end up exchanging the gift for store credit but that won't stop us from feeling obligated to send a thank you card afterwards.

...whereas we consider it meretricious at best and a sarcastic exaggeration at worst. It gets even better when it involves people of opposite genders, because that means you are touching the intricacies of US-style dating...and people say Asians have complex customs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[sabs]

I prefer the direct approach to dating.

Ruhipnol and a cage in the basement. Solves so many issues.

[Stahlseele]

best/Worst Pickupline being:"Does this smell like chloroform to you?"

[KarmaInferno]

This was posted in my old job's IT room:

ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKSEN.
IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.
ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

I'm fairly sure this is about the same level of thought that went into the German naming of stuff in SR.




-k

[Stahlseele]

my brain broke trying to understand that x.x

[Adarael]

That's because it's full of american colloquialisms like "poppencorken" <- pop your cork, or cottonpicken <- "cotton pickin'", and is probably totally incomprehensible if you're A) not north american, B) speak actual German.

[Stahlseele]

Now try and explain what you just wrote to the german(non native english speaking) guy o.O

[hermit]

I know a bunch of people who still mourn the day Burger King chose to close all it restaurants in France, and jump on the occasion whenever they travel in a place that has one.

That is so understandable. IF I eat fast food and have any choice at all, it's there or Subway.

The companies operating French higways were privatized a few years ago. However, the restaurants always belonged to other corporations like Autogrill of Italia or L'Arche. Quick, on the other hand, is a Belgian company that was privately owned until 2007. Then, the French state holding Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation (CDC) bought it from businessman Albert Frère in 2007, making it a state-owned company (the Belgian authorities were investigating a possible fraud ; the CDC allegedly overpriced Quick on the government's behalf, in exchange for Albert Frère supporting the GDF-Suez merger).

Huh! I totally missed that, both things. Thanks for the info. Qwik is a Belgian company? Well, been a very long time since I was there, so I never thought about that. Just assumed they're French because I've only ever seen them in Frace (they're fairly good, but not BK).

...whereas we consider it meretricious at best and a sarcastic exaggeration at worst. It gets even better when it involves people of opposite genders, because that means you are touching the intricacies of US-style dating...and people say Asians have complex customs

Oh yes. But between their numerous taboos, PC talk, class and race structure, religious weirdness and dating, marriage, divorce and other customs, America gives Japan a run for their money in being incomprehensibly complex and weird.

I'm fairly sure this is about the same level of thought that went into the German naming of stuff in SR.

Yeah, at least it sounds like that.

Watschen. Gewerken. Good god. Where'd they find those. That's Austrian, not German.

[KarmaInferno]

Now try and explain what you just wrote to the german(non native english speaking) guy o.O

Attention!
All tourists(visitors) and non-technical onlookers!
The computer is not for poking fingers at and grabbing with your hands! Otherwise it is easy to snap the springwork, blow the fuses, and pop the corks with spitting sparks.
It is not for work (operation) by dummies. Rubbernecking sightseers keep their cotton-picken hands in their pockets.
So relax and watch the blinking lights.

It was written to resemble a WWII era warning poster.




-k

[Stahlseele]

Ah. okay. That i can actually understand. Especially, being an IT guy myself ^^

[hermit]

How the HELL did he get the idea to translate blinking with watschen? Watschen is Austrian for slapping. What the fuck.

[Stahlseele]

g'nackwatschen = to slap somebody in the back of the head
it COULD make somebody blink . .

[KarmaInferno]

Eh, it's not German or Austrian, it's English distorted to vaguely look like German.

ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

SO RELAX AND WATCH THE BLINKING LIGHTS.

Apparently it's from the 1950s.


-k

[hermit]

Ah, I see. Watschen, though, is a word for slapping in southern dialects, most notably Austrian but I believe in some forms of Bavarian too (correct me if I'm wrong).

[Kagetenshi]

That is so understandable. IF I eat fast food and have any choice at all, it's there or Subway.

McDonalds does the fries better, and that's really a fast-food burger joint's sole purpose in the world.

~J

[Whipstitch]

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that the US is in no way a monoculture and a lot of the "complexity" only comes about if you're dealing with one of those groups that has developed a siege mentality from having to deal with the large portion of people (including me) that frankly don't care about any of that drek. Like anywhere else, there's a lot of old customs that are written down but not necessarily observed.

[Doc Byte]

The Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (captain of the Danube steam shipping association) would like to have a word with you, ...

According to the 'New German Orthography' the word's spelled 'Schifffahrt' with triple 'f'. *cringe* Even a better word: 'Flussschifffahrt' (river traffic) *tryin' not to puke*

[KarmaInferno]

McDonalds does the fries better, and that's really a fast-food burger joint's sole purpose in the world.

~J

McDonalds fries are tasty and delicious for approximately 15 minutes.

After which the cooling oil starts making the fries soggy and eww.

McDonalds knows this, which is why fries more than seven minutes out of the fryer are by store regulations thrown out.



-k