Seinfeld watchers: lend me your ears
Norman Nasser
I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
look elsewhere for an opinion. The episode in which Jerry gets his
girlfriend to lip-read for George, whose fault is the mess-up at the end,
Kramer's or Jerry's girlfriend?
Norm
Norman Nasser
Norman Nasser (nna...@uoguelph.ca) wrote:
: I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
: Norm
I thought I should explain further. You see, the obvious answer
is that the deaf lady made the mistake between "sweep" and "sleep" as she
did with "six" and "sex", but a few things bothered me.
1) When Kramer was first introduced, he signed her something that
she couldn't understand. I imagine that she'd be pretty good at sign
language, so does Kramer know sign language really well?
2) When she signed back to Kramer, he turned to Jerry and claimed
something along the lines of "she doesn't know what she's talking about."
Once again, does Kramer know what HE'S talking about?
3) After Kramer's mix-up, George, being somewhat embarrassed with
his friend incompetence, I assume, covers his face with his hand and
shakes his head.
4) After the whole mix-up, George yells at the lip-reader and she
reacts by hitting Kramer (and accidentally catching George in the eye on
the back swing).
What do you all think? Am I just over analyzing it?
Norm
Jonathan
Norman Nasser wrote:
> I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
> look elsewhere for an opinion. The episode in which Jerry gets his
> girlfriend to lip-read for George, whose fault is the mess-up at the end,
> Kramer's or Jerry's girlfriend?
>
> Norm
It's Kramers fault.
DK
Jonathan wrote:
Well, I agree that Kramer may have been a bit confused about sign language when
he signed something to her and she didn't know what he was saying, but I think
it's more likely that she would confuse "sweep" with "sleep" from across the
room than him mistaking one sign for another. He DID get everything that she
signed correctly. It's a lot more logical to say that she was the one who
messed up. As pointed out before, she mixed up "six" and "sex".
-DK
Norman Nasser
I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
look elsewhere for an opinion. The episode in which Jerry gets his
girlfriend to lip-read for George, whose fault is the mess-up at the end,
Kramer's or Jerry's girlfriend?
You see, the obvious answer is that the deaf lady made the
mistake. Kramer obviously knew sign language, translating perfectly the
deaf lady's entire interpretation of the conversation between George's
friend and George's ex-girlfriend. Perfectly, that is, except that he said
"sleep" instead of "sweep". I assume the sign for sweep is considerably
different from that of sleep; so logically it was her error. She misread
"sweep" as "sleep" as she did with "six" and "sex" earlier in the episode,
but a few things bothered me,
1) When Kramer was first introduced, he signed her something that
she couldn't understand. I imagine that she'd be pretty good at sign
language, so how well does Kramer know sign language?
2) When she signed back to Kramer, he turned to Jerry and claimed
something along the lines of "she doesn't know what she's talking about."
Once again, does Kramer know what HE'S talking about?
3) After Kramer's mix-up, George, being somewhat embarrassed with
his friend incompetence, I assume, covers his face with his hand and
shakes his head.
4) After the whole mix-up, George yells at the lip-reader and she
reacts by hitting Kramer (and accidentally catching George in the eye on
the back swing).
What do you think? Am I just over analyzing it?
Norm
keepkicking
Anirban Haldar
It's always Kramer's fault!
On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Jonathan wrote:
>
>
> Norman Nasser wrote:
>
> > I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
> > look elsewhere for an opinion. The episode in which Jerry gets his
> > girlfriend to lip-read for George, whose fault is the mess-up at the end,
> > Kramer's or Jerry's girlfriend?
> >
Jonathan
Norman Nasser wrote:
> I've had an argument with my housemate about this and decided to
> look elsewhere for an opinion. The episode in which Jerry gets his
> girlfriend to lip-read for George, whose fault is the mess-up at the end,
> Kramer's or Jerry's girlfriend?
>
> Norm
It was just repeated in syndication tonight and after an in depth study of
the video tape I conclude the deaf girl was making the same sign for
both "sweep" (in the conversation between George's ex & the host)
and "SWEEP!" (when George joins the conversation).
This plus the fact that she gets so angry with Kramer, who acts so guilty
and doesn't try to deny the blame, imply that it was all Kramer's fault.
Q.E.D.
GIRTH0519
>It was just repeated in syndication tonight and after an in depth study of
>the video tape I conclude the deaf girl was making the same sign for
>both "sweep" (in the conversation between George's ex & the host)
>and "SWEEP!" (when George joins the conversation).
>
>This plus the fact that she gets so angry with Kramer, who acts so guilty
>and doesn't try to deny the blame, imply that it was all Kramer's fault.
>
>Q.E.D.
What!???? I can't believe that I actually am going to analyze this, but that
was a ridiculous answer so I have to respond to it. It is the Jerry's
girlfriend who obviously makes the mistake. 1) The whole thing was set up
earlier with the whole six-sex mixup. 2)The mixup at the party obviously comes
from her mistaking sweep for sleep. For you to be right she signals to Kramer
sweep but he misinterprets the sweep sign as the sleep sign. Now that would be
quite a coincidence if the signs for sleep and sweep were so similar as to be
confusing to Kramer. That is very unlikely. There's probably not much gray
area in different signs as there certainly is with spoken words read from
across the room. The only plausible explanation is her misinterpreting it.
Paul Kintzele
GIRTH0519 (girt...@aol.com) wrote:
: What!???? I can't believe that I actually am going to analyze this, but that
: was a ridiculous answer so I have to respond to it. It is the Jerry's
: girlfriend who obviously makes the mistake. 1) The whole thing was set up
: earlier with the whole six-sex mixup. 2)The mixup at the party obviously comes
: from her mistaking sweep for sleep. For you to be right she signals to Kramer
: sweep but he misinterprets the sweep sign as the sleep sign. Now that would be
: quite a coincidence if the signs for sleep and sweep were so similar as to be
: confusing to Kramer. That is very unlikely.
Your points are absolutely logical and correct; Kramer isn't doing the
lipreading so he is not going to confuse "sweep" with "sleep"--the mistake
has to take place at the moment of lipreading. However, I just saw the
episode too, and she definitely signs "sweep" the whole time. Apparently
the writers didn't think this one through.
Paul K.
Paul Sobejko
On 4 Feb 1998 07:33:55 GMT, kint...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Paul
Kintzele) wrote:
Actually, his whole argument is based on the presumption that Kramer
actually knows sign language. But isn't that put in doubt earlier in
the same episode (there's a moment when Kramer first meets the deaf
girl and he signs something she doesn't understand) ?
So really, the writers did a pretty good job in concealing who's fault
it was.
Paul S.
Paul Valenti
When Kramer meets the lip reader she doesn't understand what Kramer
said, and he says that she doesn't know what she is talking about.
Kramer could be the one that is wrong but maybe he was right, because
of the sweep/sleep and six/sex mix-ups.
Jonathan
Paul Sobejko wrote:
The deaf girl consistently makes the same sign for sweep. The sign
looks like is she is sweeping one palm with the finger tips of the other hand.
How anybody can still think it was the girls fault? There must
be some deaf Seinfeld viewers out there who can add something to the argument.
Badly written, non sequitur it may be (then again who can fathom the workings
of Kramer's mind) but based on this evidence it can only be Kramers fault.
Case closed-next!
Jonathan
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