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June 8

Train Simulator

Where can I get the following add-on routes/scenario packs for Train Simulator 2017 (complete with their respective scenarios, locomotives and rolling stock): Castle Rock, Hedborough, Seebergbahn, Test TraK [sic] and Trains vs. Zombies? I found three of them through Workshop, but without their scenarios (and for me, the scenarios are half the fun) -- as for the other two, I couldn't find them at all. Thanks in advance! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:F821:2693:F38:C173 (talk) 01:14, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tragedy on the Cliff

Do you remember those? Tragedy on the Cliff by Ilene Dover, and more. Is there an article that covers them? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's pun. This is a pun on "I leaned over". --69.159.63.238 (talk) 02:57, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really think we need this --Viennese Waltz 07:40, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

And they also managed to fit in a ref to the cliffs of Dover. Chalk another one up to them. Looks like they must be channeling an English punster. StuRat (talk) 03:22, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oooooooh, stop him. Won't someone please stop him!

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dam strait ! StuRat (talk) 04:13, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch! The humour centre of my brain just imploded! :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You should see a doctor about that. Brain humors can be rather serious. StuRat (talk) 16:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A wealthy, well-known former mayor of New York is said to be in negotiations for real estate there. He wants to see Bloombergs over the White Cliffs of Dover. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:03, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That I don't get. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:37, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"There'll be bluebirds over ... ". I'm sure all this is sending Dame Vera Lynn to an early grave. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:08, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously though, is there a name for these? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:37, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Viennese Waltz. That hat was not much appreciated. It was a serious question and I await and answer. Plus, there are more pressing things that we do not need that you could busy yourself with. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:28, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

VW is a busybody who would be screaming bloody murder if anyone he doesn't like had boxed it up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here are plenty of adverts at userpages, vandals on the loose, socks, and garden variety ne'er–do–wells we do not need. Surely a higher priority, no? :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:31, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In Boys' Life they appeared in the column "think & grin" under the heading "A book never written" [1]. I don't know whether the magazine 'invented' them, but I saw a lot of reference to Boys' Life while searching for an answer to your question. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I just found "Books Never Written". I wonder if there is a google books source that discusses these. I'm sure they've been around for decades. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:48, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So ... which book did you never write, Anna Frodesiak, 101 Ways to Make Him Fall in Love with You? ---Sluzzelin talk 08:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is correct. I would never write a book encouraging people to be coercive. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:35, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It also reminded me of the credits in Car Talk [2]. Using that as a second search-data point led me to this discussion which also mentions the credits in A Prairie Home Companion as well as Tom Swifty and nominative determinism which in turn reminded me of aptronyms, and so forth, but no term for this type of punny names. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:17, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting indeed, Sluzzelin. Hmmmm, where to go from here? It would be nice to have a bit of an article about this, or at least a section within pun. These are puns, right? Hmmm, dare we add an unsourced section within that article? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:16, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, this was an active trope 'when I were a lad' in the 1960s, and I'm sure had been around for a fair time before then. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.217.208.38 (talk) 21:56, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I started Talk:Pun#Tragedy on the Cliff by Eileen Dover

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:26, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This reminds me of the part of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" where they are announcing the Late Arrivals at the Ball. One example would be the late arrivals at the publican's ball: Mr and Mrs Tordersatthebarplease and their Norwegian son Lars... I'll get my coat... --TammyMoet (talk) 14:19, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TammyMoet. Ah, that's good. Maybe it could to into Pun. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See, User:Viennese Waltz? A little humour in a discussion is okay if it turns into content. Lots of such discussion were highly productive. Take the GOP's writing of corporate tax policy. I hear they were in hysterics. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Our esteemed Mr Splodge has ferreted out some interesting scholarly reference at Talk:Pun#Tragedy_on_the_Cliff_by_Eileen_Dover, though still no name! ---Sluzzelin talk 01:59, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fantastic news, Sluzzelin. I'm afraid I must leave it to others to add those refs because google books is blocked where I am. Thank you for letting us know. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Now done Anna. I have put in the "E. Norma Stitts" gag (with a scholarly reference of course) and I wonder how long it will stay in the article :-) Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Don't know whether this is relevant enough to be posted in your thread at Talk:Pun, so I'm adding it to the ephemeral entertainment desk). I just noticed that the aptronym article has an interlanguage link to German Wikipedia's Sprechender Name (literally "Talking name"), and that article lists all sort of fictional and silly examples too (though I didn't find one fitting the exact format of poor Ilene Dover).

I checked some of the other interlanguage links, and they all have a lemma cognate to "aptronym" and list real-life examples, like the English WP article. The Spanish article Aptónimo does state that it is chiefly used in fiction (referring to a Portuguese online dictionary) while the English article doesn't even mention fiction, and at Talk:Aptronym one user refuses to consider Cruella de Vil an aptronym because "they were named to be as such, making them not an aptronym at all, but a ham-fisted way of letting the audience know they're bad".

Long story short: I thought one could see the "Books Never Written" as a sub-set of aptronyms, but remain confused. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:26, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pending anything more definite, I have added a "See also|Aptronym" template below Anna's Pun#Books never written subsection heading. Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The concept is akin to Tom Swifties. —Tamfang (talk) 06:01, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a link to Tom Swifty at Pun#See also. Alansplodge (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian tennis players before open era

When Jelena Ostapenko reached the French Open semifinal, I saw several news reports that she was the first Latvian woman to get that far in a slam since the start of the open era in 1968. Did a Latvian woman make it that far before 1968, and if so, who was it? Or is it just that whoever came up with that stat didn't have information about nationalities prior to 1968? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There were not that many top-rank Soviet players before the Open era. Through various searches, I couldn't find any indication of any Latvian players achieving significant results before 1968. The first male USSR player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal seems to be Alex Metreveli (who was of Georgian origin), at the 1972 Australian Open. The first woman was Olga Morozova who reached the finals at the 1974 French Open. Zaiga Jansone was a Latvian female tennis player who played Grand Slam events in the 1960s, but she never reached higher than the 4th round of a Grand Slam, which was at the 1971 Wimbledon Championships. --Xuxl (talk) 20:10, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Larisa Neiland won two Grand Slams in Doubles (French 1989 & Wimbledon 1991) 2A00:23C5:5202:1C00:91D:7786:7CA1:B242 (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both; I suspect the reports just said what they did because they didn't know if anyone had done better since 1968. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:25, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Reverse animated cartoon"

In an animated cartoon you draw images but record real humans for the voices. Has anyone made a movie with real life photography but with made up (eg. computer) voices? What would such a genre be called? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.140.123 (talk) 20:59, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen any films where that was done? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not particularly relevant, but I've seen plenty of silly YouTube videos using Microsoft Sam to dub over real people. clpo13_(talk) 22:31, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And I agree that you'd almost have to use it for comic effect (or maybe it could be employed just for creepiness too, without comic effect). Anyway, the very few film examples listed at TV Tropes' Synthetic Voice Actor only use it partially, if at all, and not even for humans! As implied by Clpo13, most examples can be found by clicking on "Web Original" within that article. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:38, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Related technique: Pixar's 2001 release, "Monsters, Inc.," was reportedly the first time the voice cast's recording preceded the computer animation, allowing a closer synchronization of the latter to the former. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:36, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist had pre-recorded ad-libbed audio, with animation made afterward to sync with the audio. Staecker (talk) 11:03, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know that has long been standard procedure in animation. The voice artists record the lines and the animators draw the characters' mouth movements accordingly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm pretty certain virtually all animation is done that way. Here's a ref for The Simpsons. Matt Deres (talk) 03:25, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you dig through the chain of references you will come to the source. The little girl who voiced the little girl in the movie didn't have real lines. They handed her a microphone and let her run around making random noises. Then, as they developed the movie, they just tried to work her random sounds into it. All of the other actors read lines - except Billy Crystal, of course. He has some sort of issue where he can't read a line without adlibbing. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:35, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]