Neither three speak a word of German

[Glizdka]

In Inglourious Basterds, Bridget von Hammrsmark says "I'm afraid neither three speak a word of German".

The original film contains subtitles for Anglophones because the characters speak multiple languages, and they were most likely written by Quentin Tarantino himself.

I was taught neither works with two arguments, not three.
I was taught neither is grammatically singular.

Quentin is obviously a native speaker, and even if the subtitles weren't written by him, I believe his attention to detail would not allow any grammatical mistakes made by the translator(s) to slip in the official release of his film, so I suppose this is a sentence Quentin himself would say and have no problem with it.

Is it grammatically correct? Is it just something that's officially regarded as a grammatical mistake, but a native speaker would not bat an eye? Am I just wrong and it's perfectly fine?

 

[Rover_KE]

It's not fine. It should be 'I'm afraid none of the three speaks German'.

I don't know why Tarantino approved that subtitle, but neither do I know why he deliberately misspelt 'inglorious' and 'bastards'.

 

[jutfrank]

I suppose this is a sentence Quentin himself would say and have no problem with it.

I imagine so, yes.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not convinced that film directors bother themselves with checking subtitles. They have people to do that for them so it's the fault of that person, whoever they are.

 

[Glizdka]

I don't know why Tarantino approved that subtitle, but neither do I know why he deliberately misspelt 'inglorious' and 'bastards'.

My two guesses are:

1) Making mistakes when speaking a foreign language is crucial for the plot. It might be a "hint" for potential viewers.
2) There had already been a film called "Inglorious Bastards", and he didn't want "Inglourious Basterds" to be confused with it.

I'm not convinced that film directors bother themselves with checking subtitles. They have people to do that for them so it's the fault of that person, whoever they are.

It's in the script. I think the "subtitles" were written first, and then someone translated them to German/Italian/French for the actors. I doubt Quentin knows the three languages enough to have originally written the lines in them, and then had someone translate them to English.

It's Tarantino, though, so anything could have happened there. ;-)

---

So, it's just bad English, and under no circumstances should it be replicated by learners, right?

 

[jutfrank]

I'm not convinced that film directors bother themselves with checking subtitles. They have people to do that for them so it's the fault of that person, whoever they are.

This is not quite the same. I'm with Glizdka in suspecting that Tarantino probably did write the subtitles himself. That's exactly the kind of thing he'd do, I think. In fact, I strongly suspect that he wrote the English subtitles first, as part of the original script, and then got someone to translate the lines into German from those subtitles.

 

[Glizdka]

Another thought: Most of the actors are bilingual, trilingual, or even real polyglots. Christopher Waltz, for example, plays Hans Landa, a German colonel who speaks German, French, Italian, English, and probably Hebrew and Russian too, all fluently. Maybe Tarantino just told the actors what he wanted them to say, they improvised it, he was like "Yeah, that'll do", and then someone translated it for the subtitles.

 

[jutfrank]

I think that's possible, yes.

 

[Tdol]

It's the title, not a subtitle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds

And one of his better films IMO.