Latest news with #Grumpy
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Mea Culpa: the Ukrainian army's modern version of ancient heroics
An article about the changing tactics of the Ukrainian armed forces featured a former computer programmer with the call sign 'Grumpy', and said: 'Grumpy is the sort of warrior that young people enjoy pretending to be in video games and nostalgic tales of SAS daring-do from the Second World War.' A couple of readers commented that they expected to see 'derring-do' there, an old-fashioned construction meaning daring deeds or daring action, associated with Biggles and similar fiction. In fact, it is a much older compound than that, and it literally meant 'daring (to) do', so our spelling was true to its origins. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, Chaucer used 'dorrying don', from Middle English durren, to dare, and don, infinitive of do, to mean 'daring to do' what is proper to a brave knight. It was spelt derrynge in the 1500s and was mistaken for a noun by Spenser, who took it to mean 'manhood and chevalrie'; before being picked up from him by Sir Walter Scott and passed on to the Romantic poets as a pseudo-archaism. All we were doing was modernising it, just as Grumpy was. Angel Digits: A striking instance of spurious accuracy cropped up in our report of the case of the British couple accused of drug smuggling in Indonesia. We reported: 'Mr Umbara told the district court in Denpasar, Bali, that a lab test result confirmed that 10 sachets of Angel Delight powdered dessert mix in Collyer's luggage, combined with seven similar sachets in his partner's suitcase, contained 993.56 grams (2.19 pounds) of cocaine, worth an estimated 6bn rupiah (£271,743).' Thanks to Iain Brodie, who found the use of five, three and six significant digits discombobulating. No doubt the first number was what was reported to the court, in a faintly comical attempt to make the lab results seem properly scientific and ungainsayable. But to a normal person, we are talking about a kilo of cocaine, which does not need to be converted into pounds and ounces, as our readers are familiar with kilograms. And the 6bn rupiah is obviously a rough estimate, so £270,000 would have been more than enough detail for the sterling equivalent. Best of three: In an article about Donald Trump's use of pardons, we said: 'With well-known rappers including Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, the latter of whom himself received a pardon from Trump…' Thanks to Teri Walsh for suggesting that we should have said 'last', because 'latter' refers to the second or 'later' of two things. Backing and forthing: In a news story about the strategic defence review, we reported that, 'just two weeks out from the review's publication, there was still some toeing and froing over which department would foot the bill', referring to a dispute between the foreign office and the Ministry of Defence over the cost of the Chagos treaty. Thanks to Roger Thetford for pointing out that this is usually spelt 'toing and froing', because otherwise it looks like toeing as in 'toeing the line'. The departmental squabble has nothing to do with feet, but with the phrase 'to and fro', meaning back and forth. Incidentally, Roger asked if 'fro' is one of those words that is only ever used with one other word. It is, so I have added it to my list, which started as a Top 10 but now has 21 entries: amok, askance, aspersions, bated, betide, clarion, dudgeon, dulcet, figment, forfend, fro, halcyon, hale, inclement, knell, petard, shebang, shrift, scot, serried and squib. Not the dog show: Sometimes one of our writers uses a word I don't know and it is fine because it is guessable from the context, and I come away feeling that I have learned something. Thus it was with our article about the threat to Google's dominance of internet search, which said that one of the things holding back the company's artificial intelligence rivals is 'the unnecessary cruft that comes with the current overly verbose AI answers'. I didn't know that 'cruft' is slang for 'badly designed, unnecessarily complicated, or unwanted code or software', but I could guess and now I do. The sum of human knowledge has been increased.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Snow White' Actor Responds to Disney Movie's Premiere Pivot: 'They're Afraid'
One performer from Disney's new Snow White is sharing his thoughts amid the debate surrounding the launch for the live-action movie. Martin Klebba — who has appeared in two previous versions of Snow White, including the 2012 feature Mirror Mirror that stars Julia Roberts and Lily Collins — provides the voice of Grumpy in the new movie and also serves as an advisor for the miner characters. Klebba tells The Hollywood Reporter that the recent controversy surrounding Snow White, which has led to the film's Saturday premiere not inviting press onto the red carpet, has meant a less exciting celebration for those involved in the project that stars Rachel Zegler as the title character and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Freakier Friday' Trailer: Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis Return to Swap Bodies Over Two Decades Later 'Lilo & Stitch' Live-Action Remake Makes Splash With Full Trailer Inside Disney's 'Snow White' Troubles: "They Need to Get This Over With" 'It really isn't going to be a red carpet,' says Klebba, who emphasizes that he is very proud of the movie and cannot wait for audiences to see it. 'It's going to be at the El Capitan [Theatre], which is cool. But it's basically going to be a pre-party, watch the movie, and that's it. There's not going to be this whole hoopla of, 'Disney's first fucking movie they ever made.' Because of all this controversy, they're afraid of the blowback from different people in society.' Klebba says that the premiere changes were due to 'the controversy with Rachel' but clarifies that he had not been given direct information on why the event was altered. Zegler is known as an outspoken star who suggested in 2022 that she was not a fan of the original 1937 animated classic due to outdated plot points. Additionally, after President Donald Trump was elected in November, Zegler posted comments to social media that were critical of his victory before later apologizing. Back in 2022, before filming on the new Snow White had even begun, Peter Dinklage spurred debate when he criticized Disney for retelling 'that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.' According to Klebba, the film had already intended to use motion-capture animation for the seven miners in the film. As the voice of Grumpy, Klebba is the only little person to voice one of the seven dwarfs in the film. 'I don't usually get into the political stuff, but I [felt], 'Dwarfs aren't going to go away just because you can't imagine that they're there,'' Klebba explains. 'We're still going to be walking around. So I didn't get the whole stuff about not doing the dwarfs. The story's been around forever, and it's a classic.' Klebba added that, given that the film was creating CGI animals, it also was the right call to use VFX for the dwarfs. 'If you guys go this route, it just makes sense to be able to draw them the way you want,' he says. 'This way, they're all the same size. And to find seven little people actors to pull it off, that's not an easy thing either.' He also was surprised that the new film's title, Snow White, does not mention the dwarfs, as the 1937 version did. 'I wish they would've kept it,' Klebba says of including the dwarfs in the name. 'I wouldn't have gone away from that. But the marketing people know what they're doing.' The actor is grateful to have now been in three film projects related to Disney theme park rides, in addition to his roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion franchises. As for a potential future Disney gig, Klebba says he would love to be considered to play the Marvel hero Puck, a comic book character with dwarfism. 'I've been waiting forever for somebody to write something for the Marvel Universe, instead of all these beautiful-looking guys like Chris Pratt — let's have somebody different,' quips Klebba, who stars with Pratt in the Netflix film The Electric State. 'Let's see some people that aren't exactly nature's wonder.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked 20 Times the Oscars Got It Wrong The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time
