Various Typos and Grammar Issues - Episode 2 of DGS2

[earlgreyincarnate]

Hey, here are some various typos and grammar issues that I noticed. Note that a lot of these are REALLY nitpicky because you guys did such a great job with the translation and editing. I enjoyed this episode so much.

General things: Examples of a possessive apostrophe when there should be an additional S Meterman: But that was the boss' orders! I'd give my life for the boss!

• This makes it seem like there was more than one boss, but then in the second part he specifically says he only has one boss. The correct word is actually "boss's," as awful as that seems. It might be better phrased like "But those were the orders straight from the boss!"
• An example of a correct version in the text is van Zieks in the second day trial: "I make it a rule to never drink more than seven grails' worth of wine during a trial." This is the correct version, because seven grails is plural, and collectively, that's what the possessive is referring to. (Also that was a great callback line. Was that a callback in the Japanese as well?)

Similarly, every instance of "Duncan Ross'" should actually be "Duncan Ross's" -- look up possessive rules for the name James if you're doubtful of this. Maybe the rules are different for British English, though, I don't know.

Naruhodou: You're monitoring the gas' flickering.

Pretency: Yes... That sweet gas' sinful scent indeed filled the room of one Pretency.

Milady and Milord / My lady and My lord The use of "milady" and "milord" vs. "my lady" and "my lord" is inconsistent; it seems like writing out the word "my" is more common, but I'm not sure if there's a reason for the discrepancies (specific characters, etc.). I made note of "milady" and "milord" when I saw them, and if you'd like to change them, I can leave another comment with the examples I found.

The Letter The letter about Duncan Ross has different text on almost every occasion it's read. Here are the various times I noted. Aside from the apostrophe thing (which you guys may have a reason for), any of these are acceptable, I guess I just wanted to note that there are a few discrepancies.

Naruhodou: "I have to tell you something about Duncan Ross' death." Naruhodou: "I want to speak with you about Duncan Ross' death." Judge: "I want to speak with you about a Duncan Ross' death." Viridian: "There is something I must tell you regarding Duncan Ross' death."

Quotation Marks The formatting for the quotation marks is correct almost across the board, with the quotes placed outside of the punctuation. However, there were a few points where that was not the case:

Holmes: "'Good morning'? But it's almost midday!"

• I'm sure the team knows the proper way, since this line ends with the correct formatting, but the single quote markings around "good morning" should end after the question mark. (Like I said, a lot of these are nitpicky.)

Naruhodou: (Yeah, "accidentally". Sure.)

Naruhodou: Did you get the chance to learn this "important information"?

First Investigation Day Gregson: "Last night, I drunk that luscious poison and nearly met with death."

• "drunk" should be "drank" in this tense (as opposed to "On that night, I had drunk...")

Gregson: "The detestable perpetrator is that Souseki Natsume!"

• Tiny thing here; I'd recommend changing "is" to "was." My personal opinion is that, although a perpetrator remains a perpetrator, it reads more fluidly to see "This thing happened to me last night. The perpetrator was this man!" There's an implied thing like "The perpetrator (in that past incident) was this man," which sounds a bit weirder with the word "is."

Gregson: More specifically, it happened in the victim, one Mr William Pretency's, room.

• I don't know if you agree, but the placement of the apostrophe makes this line a bit clunky. My recommend fix is to change the structure: "More specifically, it happened in the room of the victim, one Mr William Pretency."

Naruhodou: Souseki. You returned to your room at 11:00 PM, correct? Souseki: Yes, I do! As the English say.

• Just a guess here, but is Souseki just being eccentric and using that phrase even though it doesn't really work? I just wanted to check.

First Trial Day van Zieks: Putting the matter of the most interesting and historical of literary debates aside for now...

• Small fix: It should be "Putting the matter of this most interesting and historical of literary debates aside for now..." -- otherwise, van Zieks seems to think that the court was discussing what the most interesting and historical of all literary debates was. What's more, "putting aside" could be kept together and "the matter of" is unnecessary here. In general it might make a better sentence if it was more concisely trimmed to: "Putting aside this most interesting and historical of literary debates for now..."

Juror 5: You buncha twits! I don't give a monkey's about the verdict. I just wanna leave!

• This is probably fine as it is, I just wanted to make sure there's not supposed to be a direct object of "monkey's" here. I'm not that well-versed in British slang phrases.

Juror 3: One, two, three, one, two, three. Just like a waltz! You see what I'm getting at?

• I think that all the commas sort of lose the conveyance of the waltz meter. I'd recommend changing it to "One-two-three, one-two-three" so that you read that rhythm of a waltz better. (My degrees are in music, and though waltzes are in triple meter, they're typically felt in a larger pulse of two, which I think is what you're getting at here.)

Naruhodou: (Does he think he's in a courtroom, or a ballet recital?)

• Might be a holdover from the Japanese, but a ballet recital would never have people waltzing in it; it's ballroom dance music, so the dance is not really meant to be viewed like a ballet is. It might be better to change "ballet recital" to "royal ballroom" unless you feel like that ruins the feeling of the line. My personal feeling is that, since waltzes were traditionally danced in royal Viennese courts, the funniest and punniest version of the line would be "(Does he think he's in court, or a courtroom?)" or even "(Does he think he's in a courtroom, or a royal Viennese court?)" or something like that. Again, all of this is just my personal take on it. I don't know how educated the average player is to know the background of that joke. I hope all of that makes sense.

Altamont: We instal them in all rooms that use our gas.

• Not sure if "instal" (rather than "install") is just a British spelling that I've never seen before.

Naruhodou: How long has this been going on for?

• Tiny thing here, but the word "for" is unnecessary. If you're going to use it, it should be at the front ("For how long has this been going on?") but that feels a bit too formal for Naruhodou, and the word is implied by the rest of the sentence.

Naruhodou: Naturally, it would turn to ice, thanks to the sub-zero temperatures.

• The word is actually "subzero" with no hyphen.

Second Investigation Day Naruhodou: I didn't expect an even more bizarre story to be the lead-in to this bizarre story.

• I had to reread this line a few times to get what the point was, and I think it's because it got switched around and should actually be something like: "I didn't expect that bizarre story to be the lead-in to an even more bizarre story."

Holmes: Some dry out used tea leaves, dye them, and then try to sell them as luxury items.

• This line also really confused me; it took me a while to figure out the subject. I'd recommend changing "some" to "some of them" or even just "some vendors."

Naruhodou: (I have to spray every suspicious-looking nook and cranny!)

• There is no issue with this line, I just loved the reference to the Edgeworth games and was wondering if it appears in the original Japanese.

Naruhodou: There's the handprints on the floor, and then there's the handprints on the wall.

• "There's" here means "there is," so the more appropriate version would be "There are the handprints on the floor, and there are the handprints on the wall." (I also find the word "then" to be unnecessary, but that might just be me.)

Souseki: It may be impossible for anything good to come to me. Souseki: What with this cursed, dead-end life I live!

• It might not be this way in the original Japanese, but I feel like the first line should end in ellipses since the two combine to form one larger sentence. (A "what with" preposition can't really stand on its own as a sentence.)

Naruhodou: (I only hope your heart can still go on, Souseki.)

• This joke was hilarious too, and there aren't any problems with it. I just wanted to mention how this kind of joke really makes this feel like an official localization. Also, if this joke were to happen in the Japanese, the word "kokoro" for heart would make it sort of a triple-layered gag.

Naruhodou: It's a cut-out of a news article that we found in Mr Pretency's room.

• The word should be "cutout," without a hyphen.

Souseki: Now, he's trying to take the life of a hunchback, moustachioed Japanese man!

• Though "hunchback" can technically be an adjective as well as a noun, "hunchbacked" is used every other time Souseki is referred to in this case (and in my opinion is the more correct version). Also, the comma after "now" is unnecessary and makes the line seem like it has more pauses than it really does; it's up to you though.

Second Trial Day Juror 6: My Lord, may you guide these lost little lambs to a righteous judgement.

• A few things here: I seem to remember this running gag referring to "this lost little lamb" rather than "these lost little lambs' in the past. Also, "judgment" is the more common/professional way of spelling the word, though "judgement" is such a frequent misspelling that it was eventually considered acceptable.

van Zieks: That evening, the victim drunk extremely salty tea.

• Another instance where it should be "drank," not "drunk."

Pretency: The one who poisoned me... is the detestable, moustachioed Japanese man there!

• Again, I think "is" reads more cleanly as "was" considering "poisoned" is past tense. i.e., "The one who poisoned me... was the detestable, moustachioed Japanese man [who is currently standing] there!"

van Zieks: How foolish. It's futile to continue this vain struggle when judgement has already been cast.

• Another instance of "judgement," if you care to change it.

van Zieks: ...Has yet to be proven at this time. It would behove you to remain aware of that.

• Two things here. 1) I think "at this time" is unnecessary. Cutting it might trim the fat of the line a bit. 2) I've only ever seen it spelled "behoove." When I search for "behove," the definition that comes up lists "behoove," with "behove" as an alternate. It's probably acceptable.

Not an issue, but I was just curious if when Holmes says "Zvarri" it was also in the Japanese? Takumi slipped that reference into Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as well, and here we do have another great detective character, so I wouldn't put it past him.

Susato: Perhaps he had a certain reason for changing venue that evening.

• I think this should be "changing venues," unless "changing venue" is a phrase I'm not aware of.

Pretency: Then, the night that Japanese man visited me... the letter was spirited away!

• I am so confused about this line, because it seems like an error in translation is unlikely, but the letter should have disappeared several nights before Souseki came to Pretency's apartment, right? Pressing the statement even confirms as much, and the end-of-testimony note from Susato even says that it was Viridian who spirited away the letter. I'm probably just getting confused by a detail somewhere, but I'm just checking because it seemed unclear to me.

(I think this is just a generic "wrong answer" exchange, but I got it here) Judge: I'm sorry, but I can't say I agree. Naruhodou: Me, neither! I was just bringing it up!

• Should be "Neither do I" or "Me neither" without the comma, if you want to keep that. "Me neither" is not technically grammatically correct, but it is probably something that Naruhodou would blurt out, so I think it works.

van Zieks: Selden's files?! How did you get your hands on this?!

• Should be "How did you get your hands on these," since the subject is "files" (plural) and not "a collection of files" (singular).

van Zieks: "Dragged £1,000 to the Grave." Once he was gone, so too was the jewellery.

• Is there a specific reason grave is capitalized? I can't remember if it was the newspaper headline, because that evidence was removed from the Court Record. And that text doesn't appear in the new details for the Selden files.

Souseki: It was then that I was forced to experience a lifetime's worth of human trial and tribulation.

• This is not necessary and you may not even like it, but I think it would be a nice nod to the English releases if you changed it to the plural "trials and tribulations."

I did have one more question (since I haven't typed enough). I got to thinking about Barok van Ziek's name during this episode. Obviously it's not a huge thing, because I didn't even register for the entire first game, but is there a reason you went with "van" rather than "von?" "von" indicates royalty or nobility, which I'm assuming he is, because they refer to him using the title "Lord Barok van Zieks." "van," on the other hand, was used by commoners when they wanted to sound more like nobility or make a better impression, but didn't have the birthright to use "von." For instance, this is actually the reason it was added to Ludwig van Beethoven's name; he wasn't nobility, but his father wanted to make him sound more esteemed than the average commoner to entice possible sponsors.

That's all I've got. Fantastic episode. Fantastic translation. Most of these are just suggestions or minor issues you might validly disagree about anyway.

[Wendy-Youngbag]

Hey, thanks for these. I'll go through and address each point now.

General things: Examples of a possessive apostrophe when there should be an additional S

This is more a stylistic choice than a rule. In our case, we prefer just to add a single apostrophe after a word which already ends in 's' (whether singular or plural) to indicate the possessive.

The van Zieks thing was the same in the original!

>Milady and Milord / My lady and My lord

We distinguish based on character. Characters with a particularly high register will use "My Lord/Lady", whereas most other characters will contract it.

The Letter

Thanks - I've made sure that these are all consistant now.

Quotation Marks

British English conventions are different from American English conventions on this, but to sum up: British English prefers to place punctuation outside a quote, unless that punctuation already exists inside the quote. The examples you've given are all correct according to British English conventions.

Gregson's drunk

Thank you - fixed!

Gregson: "The detestable perpetrator is that Souseki Natsume!"

Agreed and fixed.

Gregson: More specifically, it happened in the victim, one Mr William Pretency's, room.

The original sounds a little better to me, personally, so I'm leaving it as is for now.

Souseki: Yes, I do! As the English say.

You are correct. It's a lot clearer in the Japanese, since he's actually speaking in English in this line.

van Zieks: Putting the matter of the most interesting and historical of literary debates aside for now...

Thanks - fixed.

Juror 5: You buncha twits! I don't give a monkey's about the verdict. I just wanna leave!

This is cockney slang - "I don't give a monkey's" is a more polite version of the full phrase, which you can find here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/give_a_monkey%27s (and I'm not going to repeat lol)

Juror 3: One, two, three, one, two, three. Just like a waltz! You see what I'm getting at?

I think I agree, but I'm not confident enough to change it straight out, so I'mma bring it to the team and see what others think - then change it accordingly or not.

Naruhodou: (Does he think he's in a courtroom, or a ballet recital?)

This was me trying to be funny. I've fixed it to ballroom (lemme know if that doesn't work).

Altamont: We instal them in all rooms that use our gas.

Yep - old British English spelling

Naruhodou: How long has this been going on for?

Seems fine to me, given Ryuu's usual register. This is something I'd say irl as well

Naruhodou: Naturally, it would turn to ice, thanks to the sub-zero temperatures.

Oxford has it with a hyphen: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/sub-zero?q=subzero

Naruhodou: I didn't expect an even more bizarre story to be the lead-in to this bizarre story.

Yeah, this is funny one. I've gone ahead and rewritten it.

Holmes: Some dry out used tea leaves, dye them, and then try to sell them as luxury items.

Changed the first "some" to "they".

Naruhodou: (I have to spray every suspicious-looking nook and cranny!)

Unfortunately this isn't in the original Japanese. It's just a result of having a particularly ardent Edgeworth fan on the team.

Naruhodou: There's the handprints on the floor, and then there's the handprints on the wall. Thanks - fixed.

Souseki: It may be impossible for anything good to come to me. Souseki: What with this cursed, dead-end life I live!

Agreed and fixed.

Naruhodou: (I only hope your heart can still go on, Souseki.)

Not in the Japanese, as you may have guessed, but glad you appreciate it!

Naruhodou: It's a cut-out of a news article that we found in Mr Pretency's room.

Oxford has the hyphen: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/cut-out_1?q=cut-out

Souseki: Now, he's trying to take the life of a hunchback, moustachioed Japanese man!

Fixed!

Juror 6: My Lord, may you guide these lost little lambs to a righteous judgement.

Both spellings are correct here. As for the lamb thing, it doesn't seem to be a running gag at all (though please enlighten me if I'm not remembering. I can only find two lines in the script, one in singular and one in plural).

Thanks for these! I'm gonna take a break now and get to the rest later.

[Wendy-Youngbag]

van Zieks: That evening, the victim drunk extremely salty tea.

Fixed.

Pretency: The one who poisoned me... is the detestable, moustachioed Japanese man there!

Fixed.

van Zieks: ...Has yet to be proven at this time. It would behove you to remain aware of that.

"At this time" was present in the Japanese, so I'm keeping it. As you may have suspected, behove is a British spelling.

Not an issue, but I was just curious if when Holmes says "Zvarri" it was also in the Japanese? Takumi slipped that reference into Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as well, and here we do have another great detective character, so I wouldn't put it past him.

Yes and no. "Zvarri" is a transliteration of the common Japanese word ズバリ which means "precisely" or "exactly". Although Atmey uses his own variation of this word in the Japanese, the word itself is not unique to him. Sherlock uses the regular word in the Japanese, not the Atmey-variant of it. But since he did, we decided to take the opportunity to put that in.

Susato: Perhaps he had a certain reason for changing venue that evening.

Fixed.

Pretency: Then, the night that Japanese man visited me... the letter was spirited away!

What he should be saying is "by the night that..." - I'll go and fix it.

(I think this is just a generic "wrong answer" exchange, but I got it here) Judge: I'm sorry, but I can't say I agree. Naruhodou: Me, neither! I was just bringing it up!

Removed the comma.

van Zieks: Selden's files?! How did you get your hands on this?!

Fixed.

van Zieks: "Dragged £1,000 to the Grave." Once he was gone, so too was the jewellery.

He seems to be just quoting the article itself. Fixed.

Souseki: It was then that I was forced to experience a lifetime's worth of human trial and tribulation.

I don't think it would fit as well here as Souseki's original line given his register, but maybe we'll have that reference in elsewhere.

I did have one more question (since I haven't typed enough). I got to thinking about Barok van Ziek's name during this episode. Obviously it's not a huge thing, because I didn't even register for the entire first game, but is there a reason you went with "van" rather than "von?" "von" indicates royalty or nobility, which I'm assuming he is, because they refer to him using the title "Lord Barok van Zieks." "van," on the other hand, was used by commoners when they wanted to sound more like nobility or make a better impression, but didn't have the birthright to use "von." For instance, this is actually the reason it was added to Ludwig van Beethoven's name; he wasn't nobility, but his father wanted to make him sound more esteemed than the average commoner to entice possible sponsors.

His name in the Japanese original is "van Zieks". "van" just means "of" in Dutch, and can be used in names too. (although his name doesn't make sense in Dutch otherwise).

[earlgreyincarnate]

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to explain all that stuff. The quotation mark stuff still looks distracting to me, since it goes back and forth, but at least I understand why now.

As for the running gag about Juror 6 referring to himself as a “lost little lamb” — it may only occur twice in the script here, but unless I’m remembering incorrectly, it appears multiple times in the first DGS as well. I thought it was a callback line here.