Family Motto: Spero meliora. (Loosely translated as, "I hope for better things")
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Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Trailer
Will Independence day, the sequel be as good as the original? It's on screen next June. Here is a sample.
I was forced to research this 'Independence Day' thingy before I could even attempt to foul this Handy Comments Facility with nowt but a bare semblance of my normal inane invective.
The result?
The idiom, "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"
It makes no fucking sense to me. I am well aware that English is a highly idiomatic language, but this expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements is beyond my understanding.
So far I have deduced that the phrase can be reconfigured as a declarative statement, rendered in the form of a simile:
"Restitution of a debt is like a female dog."
Followed by the standard affirmation query:
"Is this not so?"
Restitution is very much like a female dog, is this not so?
Female dogs are fine, from what I have been able to gather through my short life to date, though they do pee funny. Is the urination quirk part of the idiom?
Why? Why should they spend inordinate sums of money to make 'something original' that may flop at the box office? If you were a shareholder in a Studio, would you countenance that sort of behaviour? I don't think so. You'd want them to produce whatever makes money - a lot of money - in order to increase your wealth.
The Movie Industry is not a Charity (or Government Institution like the BBC). It must act in such a way that maximizes the probability it makes money. They know what sells, and they produce it. Get used to it Bucko, it ain't changin' any time soon. Innit?
Bollix to you, Mounter of Moose. There are still many books/stories still to be filmed and new books seem to be written all the time. What they have run out of is the guts to take a chance for fear of financial lose. And as a shareholder, I am thankful. It used to be:
AND! The viewing public has become ever so stupid in the last 50 years or so. Witness that Blue-Cat People epic, Avatar! Nowt but the childishly simple "White Messiah" and "Noble Savage" constructs embedded in an equally puerile story of Good versus Evil. The special effects notwithstanding, the story line of that movie would have been laughed out of the theatres back in the 40s and 50s. The folks who pay good brass for movies in the theatre want dumb, simple story lines - FAMILIAR simple story lines so they don't have to pay attention to the plot at all - surrounded by the gew gaws of computer generated mayhem.
"The viewing public has become ever so stupid". Couldn't agree more. I've listened to grown men at work talking about Transformers and it made me very sad.
If we are being pedantic, the original Shakespeare is "For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar". A petar or petard being a sort of crude mortar for undermining fortifications which by all accounts was more dangerous to the user than the enemy. It is becoming common for popular idioms to be misquoted nowadays. One of my favourites is "one foul swoop" instead of "one fell swoop" which I presume relates to the swoop of the raptor which fells its prey in a single decisive action.
Could 'one fell swoop' refer to cutting the Gordion Knot rather than the act of a raptor? That too was a single decisive action rendering an otherwise quite intractable problem moot! I have never heard the 'one foul/fowl swoop' variant.
I thought I had used the 'petard' idiom quite well. I am the resident arsehole pedant regarding misuse and abuse of the Queen's English 'round these parts and being caught in a lexical error is quite funny. I received a taste of my own medicine. Granted, it was delivered with a polite 'spoonful of sugar' which was quite unlike the vile and insulting way in which I would have delivered the admonition, but 'hoisted by my own petard' is not altogether malapropos in this case. Innit?
I don't see much swooping involved in cutting the Gordian knot! One foul swoop to me sounds more like a divebombing seagull voiding its intestines on one's head and as for a fowl swooping, I have kept chickens in the past and found them to be thoroughly incompetent fliers. However whether hoisted or hoist I guess you are right.
You read too much Shakespeare; it is Gordion Knot. Gordion being a better transcription from the Greek directly into English. Gordian, with the 'a' is how one would spell the word in English IF transcribing from the Latinized form of Gordius,founder of the city of Gordium, capital of Phrygia.
When I translate "...Γόρδιος...." I retain the final omicron. The Latin lumpen would have it transmogrified into an 'a'. I think that blasphemous.
Perhaps someone could make a film about the wisdom of SR? I have an image of an aged man, with a long white beard, wearing just a loincloth, sitting on the peak of an (almost) unclimbable mountain who, with one fell swoop, utters his own brand of pedantic knowledge to anyone willing to climb up and see him. I'd go and see it, as long as Transformers isn't on at the same time! Penseivat
I envision you as a long nosed, elegantly coiffed Afghan pawing through your leather bound library whilst disdainfully inhaling a puddle of Armagnac in an immense crystal snifter. AND if the occasion should demand, you could probably also lift your leg over your shoulder and lick your own balls...
Was the original any good?
ReplyDeleteNo! How the Yanks saved the world thanks to the infinite adaptability of Mac software as I understood it.
DeleteIt was lucky the aliens used Windows the first around. If they've changed to Linux we're stuffed!
ReplyDeleteI was forced to research this 'Independence Day' thingy before I could even attempt to foul this Handy Comments Facility with nowt but a bare semblance of my normal inane invective.
ReplyDeleteThe result?
The idiom, "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"
It makes no fucking sense to me. I am well aware that English is a highly idiomatic language, but this expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements is beyond my understanding.
So far I have deduced that the phrase can be reconfigured as a declarative statement, rendered in the form of a simile:
"Restitution of a debt is like a female dog."
Followed by the standard affirmation query:
"Is this not so?"
Restitution is very much like a female dog, is this not so?
Female dogs are fine, from what I have been able to gather through my short life to date, though they do pee funny. Is the urination quirk part of the idiom?
It might be good but it's really time they stopped making sequels and reboots and came up with something original (and not from childrens comics).
ReplyDeleteWhy?
DeleteWhy should they spend inordinate sums of money to make 'something original' that may flop at the box office? If you were a shareholder in a Studio, would you countenance that sort of behaviour? I don't think so. You'd want them to produce whatever makes money - a lot of money - in order to increase your wealth.
The Movie Industry is not a Charity (or Government Institution like the BBC). It must act in such a way that maximizes the probability it makes money. They know what sells, and they produce it.
Get used to it Bucko, it ain't changin' any time soon.
Innit?
Bollocks. They've just run out of ideas
DeleteBollix to you, Mounter of Moose. There are still many books/stories still to be filmed and new books seem to be written all the time. What they have run out of is the guts to take a chance for fear of financial lose. And as a shareholder, I am thankful.
DeleteIt used to be:
Ars Gratia Artis
It is now:
Pecunia Pecunia Pecunia
Innit?
"financial lose"
DeleteYou mean "Financial Loss" I presume.
AND!
DeleteThe viewing public has become ever so stupid in the last 50 years or so. Witness that Blue-Cat People epic, Avatar! Nowt but the childishly simple "White Messiah" and "Noble Savage" constructs embedded in an equally puerile story of Good versus Evil. The special effects notwithstanding, the story line of that movie would have been laughed out of the theatres back in the 40s and 50s.
The folks who pay good brass for movies in the theatre want dumb, simple story lines - FAMILIAR simple story lines so they don't have to pay attention to the plot at all - surrounded by the gew gaws of computer generated mayhem.
"financial lose"
DeleteYou mean "Financial Loss" I presume.
Ooooooops!
Used the verb form rather than the required noun.
Curses!
Hoisted by my own petard!
I can't even claim homophone error.
"The viewing public has become ever so stupid". Couldn't agree more. I've listened to grown men at work talking about Transformers and it made me very sad.
DeleteI am not surprised, it's been my equally sad experience that the great majority of those who would be defined as a 'grown men' are neither.
DeleteIf we are being pedantic, the original Shakespeare is "For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar". A petar or petard being a sort of crude mortar for undermining fortifications which by all accounts was more dangerous to the user than the enemy. It is becoming common for popular idioms to be misquoted nowadays. One of my favourites is "one foul swoop" instead of "one fell swoop" which I presume relates to the swoop of the raptor which fells its prey in a single decisive action.
ReplyDeleteCould 'one fell swoop' refer to cutting the Gordion Knot rather than the act of a raptor? That too was a single decisive action rendering an otherwise quite intractable problem moot!
DeleteI have never heard the 'one foul/fowl swoop' variant.
I thought I had used the 'petard' idiom quite well. I am the resident arsehole pedant regarding misuse and abuse of the Queen's English 'round these parts and being caught in a lexical error is quite funny. I received a taste of my own medicine. Granted, it was delivered with a polite 'spoonful of sugar' which was quite unlike the vile and insulting way in which I would have delivered the admonition, but 'hoisted by my own petard' is not altogether malapropos in this case. Innit?
I don't see much swooping involved in cutting the Gordian knot! One foul swoop to me sounds more like a divebombing seagull voiding its intestines on one's head and as for a fowl swooping, I have kept chickens in the past and found them to be thoroughly incompetent fliers. However whether hoisted or hoist I guess you are right.
DeleteYou read too much Shakespeare; it is Gordion Knot. Gordion being a better transcription from the Greek directly into English. Gordian, with the 'a' is how one would spell the word in English IF transcribing from the Latinized form of Gordius,founder of the city of Gordium, capital of Phrygia.
DeleteWhen I translate "...Γόρδιος...." I retain the final omicron. The Latin lumpen would have it transmogrified into an 'a'. I think that blasphemous.
Perhaps someone could make a film about the wisdom of SR? I have an image of an aged man, with a long white beard, wearing just a loincloth, sitting on the peak of an (almost) unclimbable mountain who, with one fell swoop, utters his own brand of pedantic knowledge to anyone willing to climb up and see him. I'd go and see it, as long as Transformers isn't on at the same time!
ReplyDeletePenseivat
I'm a girl, silly.
DeleteRead this first:
http://sterculianrhetoric.blogspot.ca/2014/05/dr-m-part-i.html
Read this second:
http://sterculianrhetoric.blogspot.ca/2014/05/dr-m-part-ii.html
I'm the one in red.
And they would have to be more than willing to climb up to see me, they'd have to bring Mimosas! (Buck's Fizz)
DeleteI envision you as a long nosed, elegantly coiffed Afghan pawing through your leather bound library whilst disdainfully inhaling a puddle of Armagnac in an immense crystal snifter. AND if the occasion should demand, you could probably also lift your leg over your shoulder and lick your own balls...
DeleteSorry love,
ReplyDeleteCan't be arsed.
Penseivat
No matter.
DeleteThe lesson was learned.
Innit?