Watching an episode of CSI now, and over here in the Netherlands, foreign shows are subtitled. And the person who subtitled this episode is really good. I often complain about subtitling and how they botch jokes, innuendo, double entendres and so on. But this was a very good re-write in Dutch of a joke.
Scene: Two pathologists are talking about closed room murders, which turns into closed room jokes. Eventually, the following dialogue happens (slightly paraphrased):
Doc 1: You’re in a closed room with a table and a saw, but no doors and no windows. How do you get out?
Doc 2: I don’t know.
Doc 1: You cut the table in half. Two halves make a…?
Doc 2: …hole.
After this the scene went on to discuss how the murderer must have found some way to create or find some kind of ‘hole’ to get in and out.
The subtitle then went like this:
Doc 1: Je bent in een kamer met een vrouw, geen deuren en geen ramen. Hoe kom je eruit?
Doc 2: Ik weet het niet.
Doc 1: Negen maanden wachten en…
Doc 2: …ontsluiting.
Literally:
Doc 1: You’re in a room with a woman, no windows, no doors. How you get out?
Doc 2: I don’t know.
Doc 1: Wait nine months and then…
Doc 2: …dilation.
Very clever way to get to the same point (a hole) without losing the joke (since the two halves don’t make a ‘hole’ in Dutch). Kudos!