Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
A little while ago I complained about a mini-episode of “Sherlock”,
and so it only seems fair that I now turn my attention
to my favourite television show of all time: “Doctor Who”.
Going back to the 2005 season, those of you who saw it may remember
that the phrase “bad wolf” cropped up all over the place,
and the mystery was eventually solved in the season finale.
In the episode “Boom Town” we even saw it in Welsh, as “Blaidd Drwg”.
I can’t comment on how accurate that translation is;
but in an earlier episode, “The Doctor Dances”, set in 1941,
we see the phrase stencilled on a bomb in German as “schlechter Wolf”.
That’s actually very possible:
both words are common German surnames,
and there’s no reason the bomb could not have been manufactured by a company
named after its founders Herr Schlechter and Herr Wolf.
Of course, as a surname, “Wolff” would normally be spelled with two Fs,
but there could always be exceptions to that rule: why not?
The question is, though: is this a good translation of the phrase “bad wolf”?
Well, it’s not a bad translation.
My first instinct was actually to say that
“schlecht” means “bad” in the sense of “bad quality”,
and so “schlechter Wolf” would be something that’s not very good at being a wolf:
a vegetarian, perhaps;
or maybe a guinea-pig trying to imitate a wolf,
but doing it badly.
As it happens, that is the primary meaning of the word “schlecht”,
but it also has other meanings,
and it can mean “morally bad”, “evil”, “wicked”.
And so if I’d gone with the first draft of this script
and said: “Ha ha ha! The went with the wrong translation!”
I would now look like an idiot.
However, I shall defend myself and say that
since it was clearly intended to refer to the big bad wolf of the fairy tales,
the usual phrase would have been “böser Wolf”.
And the primary meaning of “böse” is “bad” in the sense of “evil” or “wicked”.
Still, in this case, the BBC was right:
“schlechter Wolf” does mean “bad wolf”,
it’s just not how I personally would have translated it.
This video has been brought to you by...
Thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did, then be sure to subscribe for more.
Also, why not follow my Google+ page
for some behind-the-scenes chit-chat and other goodies as well?