Translating D'oh! - The Scholarly Kitchen

Some things are universal. Or so you might think, but it turns out that Homer Simpson’s catchphrase of regret, “D’oh!” (which has its own Wikipedia page, by the way) is expressed differently in the Simpsons broadcasts in different countries. While one would think that Bart’s “Ay caramba!” would shift depending on where the broadcast was taking place (apparently it remains unaltered in Mexico, but not in Spain), D’oh! seems like it would translate fairly well. Apparently not, and this falls into the same category we learned about back in 2019 when looking at the remarkable variation in the words for animal sounds around the globe.

David Crotty

David Crotty is the Executive Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Founded in 1933, CSHL Press is an internationally renowned publisher of books, journals, and electronic media, and is a division of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an innovator in life science research and the education of scientists, students, and the public. Previously, David was a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.