Barry Norman

[hirez]

You know what really grates? English people speaking of 'movies'.

I still don't know what a 'major motion picture' is. As opposed to what? A minor still picture? Such as a postcard?

There's some grim bollocks disguised as language and no mistake.

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

English people speaking of 'movies'.

... and "the men's room". Ooh, that one winds me up something chronic...

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Odd. 'Movie' has always been one of my pet hates. Still, language will evolve. And Woss is a sychophantic arse of the lowest order, but I do enjoy his dress non-sense.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Major motion picture; as opposed to a corporal motion picture, which is about people being beaten up, and a private motion picure, which is released onto the interwebs when couples undergo an acrimonious split.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Presumably a motion picture would contain instruction on the Bristol Scale.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

"It's the bog you po-faced colonial scum!"

[markeris.livejournal.com]

Quite right. Fillums is the correct word after all.

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

The one that really annoys me isn't "movie", it's "ass".

It's not even the fact that ass is a donkey, not your hinquarters that annoys me. The problem with ass is that the fucktards who decide what is and is not suitable for broadcast before the watershed have deemed that ass, despite being American for ARSE is suitable for broadcast before the watershed, whereas arse, that being English for arse, is somehow more offensive and hence only appropriate after the watershed.

Thus the media is proliferating the use of ass, which is the WRONG FUCKING WORD FOR FUCK'S SAKE. And we're surprised that no fucker can pass an English GCSE? When we set examples like this?

...erm, I think I might be disproportionately irritated by this:)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

No, you're quite right. Carry on.

Further - I believe that American swearing in an English accent is entirely wrong and makes the swearer look and sound like some eighties metal wannabe. (I can't even bring myself to type the M-word.)

British English is blessed with a fine set of expletives ideal for occasions from village fete hammer accident to busted cambelt on wet Sunday night. Lunging for the everyday Americana displays a terrible paucity of imagination.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, does this mean you are divorcing me?
:O

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Movies and Arse.

The Yanks didn't quite invent cinema, but they certainly took it to heart in a big way. So they get to name it -- seems fair enough, IMHO.

I have an arse though, not an ass. If it were an ass it would be bigger and probably wearing polyester.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

American swearing in an english accent can be good, as long as it's done for effect in proper RP, thus exaggerating the incongruity.

Picture, if you will, Brian Sewell saying "Yo, bitch" - that works. Whilst Tim Westwood is just a dick.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Re: the movie/film dichotomy, I think it's a matter of context. All films are films, but not all films are movies. For example "The Third Man" is a film, whilst "The Rock" is a movie. Although I only use "film" because I'm BRITISH, GOD DAMN IT.

"Motion picture" annoys me no matter what the context. But I must say, some films (although usually "movies") do resemble a large pile of excrement...

[outerego.livejournal.com]

As a child I went to the Pictures, as an adult the Cinema. The "movies" is Americana, and has that _sartain_ mystique about it.

I associate the terms in a different ways, and despise the term "motion picture". But it's not grim bollocks, it's, well, stupid, as you say, what else is it? It's assinine, it's ludicrous...it's Holywood. It seems so terribly old fashioned,too! I think Borges would think it a hoot and Umberto Eco would write a semi-autobiographical novel (at least 600pp) about it.

What else. The flicks? (but not les flics, that's something altogether different). I could think of a dozen different nom de guerres that my parents saw these "moving pictures" under. Were they under they influence of foreign nationism? Were they being swindled out of their _Scottish_ roots? Even after years of seeing stars eat sandwiches I was still served my jeelly pieces (although I genuinely fear for children who eat baguette a confiture from Waitrose).

Word wars like this are like conspiracies... which side are you on? When did the war _really_ begin?

When I first went to the cinema,my parents filled me full of excitement, I was going to the pictures, there were moving pictures, flickering on a wall...

Which side was I on?

[outerego.livejournal.com]

p.s. I hope you don't mind that I've added you to my friends' list. As matter of etiquette, if you object, I'll take you off, but I rather enjoy your perspective on life!
[We have met in real life,briefly, but I doubt that you will remember me. I used to have long black hair, dressed in black went to Whitby, etc...:-)I think Your wife once snapped a picture of me in a rather drunken state with a youthful Slimelight DJ at a a gig/festival in London some ten years ago.]

[smogo.livejournal.com]

They've started saying "arse" on EastEnders lately. This is good.

[outerego.livejournal.com]

Sshh!

[nemesis-to-go.livejournal.com]

It seems so terribly old fashioned,too!

It does, doesn't it? 'Motion picture' is a bit like 'horseless carriage' or 'flying machine' - one of those we-haven't-got-a-name-for-this-new-fangled-invention-yet words.

One of the ironies of the USA is that while it's such a bold and thrusting nation, the language often seems curiously old-fashioned. American English preserves old words like 'gotten' or indeed 'oftentimes' which to our ears sound like the language you'd hear in a royal proclamation round about the reign of Charles I.
And have you noticed how many Americans spell 'shop' as 'shoppe'?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Righty-ho, skip. Nod's as good as a wink to a blind watchmaker, etc.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

"Have you seen the size of my donkey?"