Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Oy! I am offline for a holiday and I come back and find I need to say:

1) Alex and I agree on something! Dreamgirls was worth the price of admission solely for that 5-minute song. I think my socks were literally blown off. I thought some performances were good-- and that there was a deliciously unironic casting for Deena/Beyonce Knowles, since I personally feel that her voice IS the flatter, less-interesting one.

2) Steve and I agree on something! And it's about an Oscar contender! I don't believe I've spoken much about Babel here yet, but I thought it to be a horrible waste of celluloid. I simply can't stomach movies where I find nothing redeemable about any of the characters (see also: Last Kiss, The. Or rather, don't.) And other than thinking it to be an overblown, mis-marketed (why imply that the story is about cross-cultural language barriers if it's nothing of the sort?) and exploitative mess. Hey, I'm all about characters discovering themselves through sexuality, even when it's confused sexuality, but when you get to the fifth or sixth close-up of an underage character's vulva it becomes gratuitous and ooky.

Finally saw Borat, by the way, and was horrified by the small-minded people I like to pretend don't exist. And I laughed more than I wanted to.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by LSPoorEeyorick

I think my socks were literally blown off.

I'm fighting the urge to bad mojo you for your use of the word "literally".

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

I'm fighting the urge to bad mojo you for your use of the word "literally".

She's a writer! I'm sure that her socks were actually blown off. I just want to know what happened to her shoes...

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

I'm fighting the urge to bad mojo you for your use of the word "literally".

Tell it to Louisa May Alcott who wrote in Little Women "the land literally flowed with milk and honey."

Tell it to F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote of Jay Gatsby that "he literally glowed."

Tell it to James Joyce who, in Ulysses, wrote of a Mozart piece that it is "the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat."

The use of the word literally in an unliteral way is at least a century older than the objection of modern proscriptive language mavens objecting to it.

Examples above drawn from this article from the editor of the Oxfored English Dictionary. As the article states, the English language is full of words used in opposition to their most...literal...meaning (and it also points out that the literal meaning of "literally" you are calling for is not actually the most literal original definition of the word).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Tell it to Louisa May Alcott who wrote in Little Women "the land literally flowed with milk and honey."

Tell it to F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote of Jay Gatsby that "he literally glowed."

Tell it to James Joyce who, in Ulysses, wrote of a Mozart piece that it is "the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat."

Is the fact that I tried to read something by each of these writers at one point or another but dropped the books out of fear that I might expire due to pure, gasping boredom a good reason to invalidate your point?

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

How dreary language would be if we had to strip out all metaphor or fiction and were forced to only use the factual and precise. Especially since life is so full of ambiguity and appearances often are at odds with an unseen reality. We'd need a whole new vocabulary, one full of words we could never define correctly.

Here's my only possible response: Clipped parcel viola whipple painting acrobat canticle.

[Alex]

In what way does finding them boring (and you'll also have to invalid Twain, Austen, Hemingway, etc.) invalidate the point that this use of "literally" long predates as common usage the decision of some that it is wrong?

How does it invalidate the point that using "literally" in the way you deride is a pretty standard feature of the English language and you've many other words and usages to object to.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Here's my only possible response: Clipped parcel viola whipple painting acrobat canticle.

My heart belongs to dada, for dada treats me so well - Ba-umf

[Strangler Lewis]

Here's my only possible response: Clipped parcel viola whipple painting acrobat canticle.

Good, but not as good as the poems that Euro, Boss Radio, some others and I put together serially while bothering our favorite teacher after high school:

"Cobalt, can you swing dung da?
Optical nose, Erin go bragh.
Brown plague hat, duniwassal, Beowulf.
Ubermensch, bunnyland, Pere Ubu's shelf."

Of the second I only recall a fragment:

"Pig iron, crib death, bang-up dolly.
Runny drippy bibblewang, like smooth Krishna Umbwebwe . . ."

Now that's good pottery.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

Good, but not as good as the poems that Euro, Boss Radio, some others and I put together serially while bothering our favorite teacher after high school:

"Cobalt, can you swing dung da?
Optical nose, Erin go bragh.
Brown plague hat, duniwassal, Beowulf.
Ubermensch, bunnyland, Pere Ubu's shelf."

Of the second I only recall a fragment:

"Pig iron, crib death, bang-up dolly.
Runny drippy bibblewang, like smooth Krishna Umbwebwe . . ."

Now that's good pottery.

Bravo! for myself I could only recollect the first line, in which I thought the words "the boating" appeared before "dung da" - Does a original transciption exist anywhere I wonder?