CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The launch of HBO’s recent app, Describr, has provided Australian baby-boomers with the capacity to translate the authentic Baltimore slang from cult TV hit ‘The Wire’ into a middle-Annandale dialect.
TechNews reports the app, which can be run on both iOS and late model cheaper but good value Androids that are favoured by dads, is able to quickly and succinctly translate any parcel of urban Mid-East-Coast African-American dialogue.
Phrases like “sharing that work” are translated into “I have previously shared needles with another sympathetic character, under the false impression that, having already contracted HIV, I could be more careless with my intravenous narcotics hygiene. All that being said, this a moment of intense pathos that you can discuss over coffee at the nice place near the Coles.” – for example.
By pointing it at the screen, a user can translate the profoundly inhumane scenes of boarded up social housing, into terms that boomers can understand. “This area, though not yet gentrified, represents a market opportunity with incredible upside – a true buying opportunity.”
When shown this translation service, Helen Swifter, 54, commented “I didn’t think people could live like this in the inner city. With AirBnB, they sublet to tourists and taken out an investment loan that allowed them to buy property in South East Queensland, thereby doubling their passive income.”
Local man, Jason ‘Interceptor’ Cross, a Northern Rivers DJ and marketing strategist, says the app helped him translate the now infamous ‘I rip and run’ scene, involving cult hero Omar Little testifying about his occupation as someone who robs drug dealers for a living to his mum
The app helpfully outlined that “although not grammatically correct, like most inner-urban ebonics, Mr Little, in fact, robs the very criminals who cause much of the devastation that we, as a society, fear – but, around the decriminalisation of, one may form a single-issue vote that one uses to judge other people harshly, who disagree.”
Mr Cross says his mother, after finally comprehending the subtext of this iconic line, leapt from her imitation Eames and awkwardly missed a high five.
Describr has also provided translations for the 3rd-generation Italian slang used in The Sopranos – as well as the LA bro-culture-heavy dialogue in Entourage
My wife says “every episode in The Wire is the same!”.
Geoff Moss
Balmain East