In yesterday's post (Sunday Snippets - the end of the internet?) I concluded "In a world where constant improvement and change is seen as a given, it can be hard to recognise that stability, not doing new things, can be of very real value."
kvd, that master of the arcane, pointed out that the phrase "In a world where..." had been popularised if not indeed invented by American voice actor Don Lafontaine. This story provides examples of its use in film. While I was unaware of the genesis of the phrase, I had no doubt absorbed it from the ether.
This got me thinking. Sue and I were in London in 1979 when the film "Alien" was released. There were billboards across London all carrying the tag "In space, no one can hear you scream." I was totally struck by the tag. It was just so evocative, creating an atmosphere of fear. Since then, the tag has become cliched, but in 1979 it was fresh, still glowing.
So as a starting point for today's discussion, what are some other examples of tags or phrases that so grabbed that they moved into the cliche class? Alternatively, what are some lines that resonated with you and why?
As always, feel free to go wherever you like. Red herrings always welcome!
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15 comments:
In space, no one can hear you scream. At least if, for some unexplained reason, in a situation of direst threat, you decide to turn your radio off...
Call me Ishmael. The story I'm about to tell is such a whopper that I'd better not give you my real name.
For the Time Being: In Greek mythology, only one person fitted this criterion, and that was Chronos (that's the spelling I was brought up with). As a Titan, his story didn't end well, especially as he had the bad judgement to have both Zeus and Hera as his children. Dr Who may end up better off but he's running through lives like a spendthrift through the family fortune at the moment. For the time being, anyway.
Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I read through all that just to get to this?? Like he only just realised she was a whinging empty termagant?
"This, too, will pass" - something my mother used to say, anytime I skinned my knee, or missed a layup, or lost a brother.
But I see Google insists upon 'shall' not 'will' - so who am I to know what my mum said/meant? Except it somehow helped, a bit, at the time.
kvd
I fear that Greek mythology is best summarised as Gods and Goddesses behaving badly! And as for Homer's wine dark sea, this has caused much puzzling - http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/20/science/homer-s-sea-wine-dark.html. So you managed to string together a whole series while poor kvd was limited to one and then Google tells him he is wrong!
I am not prepared to lay money on it, but I'm backing kvd's mum over Google. I was always taught that 'shall' could only be used in the first person, otherwise it had to be 'will'.
As for wine-dark sea, I have sailed on the Aegean and had my breath taken away by the depth of colour. The contrast of the bare arid baked land against the sea,'' Mr. Fitzgerald said, ''gave the sea such a richness of hue that I felt as though we were sailing through a bowl of dye. The depth of hue of the water was like the depth of hue of a good red wine. So I associate the expression with the richness of hue rather than a specific color. I've been content with that as my personal interpretation.. I'm with Mr Fitzgerald here.
Last Wednesday I was phoned by 'Jenny' from a publishing company advising that the discount available for my $300 advert was expiring if not paid by 5 p.m. She said she had been trying to contact me for over a week (my landline has an answer machine) and wasn't it lucky I was in.
So I asked her to email the advert, which she did, and also her invoice which helpfully contained her mobile number, bank details for EFT, and an ABN.
Used our friend Google, and ABN lookup, and reverse phone search, and decided it was a scam. (I'm slow that way :) - and thought no more about it - until last Friday at 3 p.m. when 'Vicky' called...
Go back to top; replace phone, ABN, and bank details and this time $500 - and unfortunately for 'Vicky' she also copied in another local company's invoice with mine. I rang them, and they said they had been plagued for a couple of days for the same advert.
So I rang Scamwatch and passed on all details for both contacts. Funny thing is that the first contact was from Tumbi Umbi and the second from Toowoon Bay - not that far apart. So I'm thinking maybe Jim is moonlighting running small business entrepreneur classes on the Central Coast?
kvd
I guess we have the same sort of thing in Oz, but this always fascinates me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8&feature=youtu.be
- and do wait for the auto follow-on "One woman, 17 accents".
Just for fun.
kvd
We do have regional variety in Oz accents, kvd, but they didn't have the chance to settle in the same way because of shorter history and people mobility and then mass media. Really did enjoy those two pieces. I can only recognise a few of the accents unless I hear them in isolation. Otherwise they blur.
I'm not moonlighting on the South Coast, kvd, I can't do the accent!
On shall and will, I have always interpreted will as more determined, more a positive assertion. This WILL pass. Shall, by contrast, is softer. This shall pass - the meaning is that we must endure through; we can't do anything about it. I'm not saying I'm right, just how I move with the feel of words.
Oh, 2t, inclined to agree with you on wine dark.
Central, not South, Coast Jim. But I understand why you made the slip :)
Herewith a survey in which I scored 24. I had to 'Australianise' some of the questions, but it was interesting to think about the explanations attached to the questions:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz-2/
kvd
Just saw this article which references the 'survey' I mentioned. I didn't comment on the particular point earlier, but I was pretty sure my smoking habit increased/inflated my score, judging by the attached explanation - to the survey, not this article:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smoking-still-a-burning-issue-outside-the-middleclass-bubble-20160412-go479n.html
kvd
"In the Odyssey, Homer famously describes the “wine-dark sea.” But why “wine-dark” and not deep blue or green
In 1858, a scholar named William Gladstone, who later became the Prime Minister of Great Britain, noticed that this wasn’t the only strange colour description. Though the poet spends page after page describing the intricate details of clothing, armour, weaponry, facial features, animals, and more, his references to colour are strange. Iron and sheep are violet, honey is green.
So Gladstone decided to count the colour references in the book. And while black is mentioned almost 200 times and white around 100, other colours are rare. Red is mentioned fewer than 15 times, and yellow and green fewer than 10. Gladstone started looking at other ancient Greek texts, and noticed the same thing — there was never anything described as “blue.” The word didn’t even exist."
I'm not sure that's the case, Debbie. The colour one is a funny one. I found in Greece that blue is used on vases and on walls. It's hard to imagine that they did not have a word for the colour.
Debbie, at Jim's insistence, I've trudged to "the end of the internet" and on the way back stumbled upon this:
The ancient Greeks had the word κυανός, which means "dark blue" -- specifically the color of the mineral azurite, which was highly prized for jewelry and statuary. It's the root of our word "cyan." And the Greeks weren't the only ones; the Hebrews had the word t'chalet, as in Numbers 15:38:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue.
Even today, the tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl, is always decorated in blue. (And it is no coincidence that the Israeli flag is blue and white.)
See here for the whole thing - which even mentions that "wine dark sea": http://skeptophilia.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/a-case-of-blues.html
kvd
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