Comments on: CALLING FOR WORDS

By: chris yukna

chris yukna — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:08:48 +0000

This is quite common among writers. Not only that, but everyone has an extensive vocabulary that they don’t use. We apply the principle of least effort utilizing the most limited vocabulary we can get away with. In addition, the words used and their frequency produce a sort of genetic signature to our prose.
Frank, your blog is sort of a corpus of your vocabulary and since it is collected and in one place you think that you can see your limits clearly. But since it is chronological you can also take a peek at the progress and sophistication you have gained. chin up old chap
Now back to your problem, cyberspace has some cognitive aids that you can use from time to time to add an little chaos into the system. Take “quirky” pretty humdrum.
(note: adding nonsense words that rhyme (also called echo or flip flop words) in each of your reviews is one way to spice up your articles The actor’s “singsong” delivery somehow added to the “hurly girly” …)

Let’s see: How many times have you actually used quirky?
google says just four and you can see for yourself if you use the following url:
site:http://www.franksfilms.com quirky
BTW google says you have never used “best film of the year” hmm?
Back to quirky
Now goto http://translate.google.com/ for a one on one translation
quirky in Italian is bizzarro (but you knew that), in German schrullig (among others).
Okay no one is going to understand a film’s schrulligstats but if you retranslate back schrullig you get “maggoty” I bet you have not used that in FranksFilms
and even
“she’s becoming more and more of an oddball”
hows that for whismical?
At Babelfish http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
whole phrases can be translated then decrypted back into English for that otherworldly air.
Sure you could just go to any number of thesaurus sites like
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
and come up with
“Deviating from the customary”
does sound like you…
And if you have all day and nothing to do, put your mundane over used word into the Wordelizer and close your eyes.
Some last words of advice
Remember, if you are really lazy: just select words stochastically in any Microsoft office document and active the synonym function! (long live whoppie tech)
I hope I have helped/benefited/accessorized/subsidized you.
Guilelessly yours
chris
ps did you notice how I shamelessly plugged my own webpage?

By: Shedemon

Shedemon — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:58:29 +0000

I’m a big fan of profanity myself. If the movies you review aren’t G or PG then fuck it – go for broke – roll about, nay, wallow, in the joyous filth of human verbiage. I suggest just trolling http://www.urbandictionary.com/ from time to time. Take the word “hooha” for example. Great word, highly underused. Discuss the film in the context of the amount “hooha” it has. Use and misuse words, it’s like cooking – sure you didn’t think cinnamon would work in that curry but it did didn’t it…

By: An Anonymous Asshole

An Anonymous Asshole — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:03:02 +0000

You’re a creative person, so create! Don’t let the English language limit you. A tongue designed to shout defiance at the monkeys in the next tree is necessarily going to peter out on you when you try to explain for the umpteenth time that some obscure art film is really, really… er… good. Your path in this should be clear; it’s time for the creative to get really creative; start making up your own words. This is the strength of humanity; we can expand our lexicon to take into account new information.

Consider the cromulence of the rachition you want to juilify. How can you grak your fudsisses without kenching your tugrips overly much? The answer is dubinkingly obvious! Just add a little rouchier ghing and you are good to kique. In the end, all that matters is that you wououlou to your vision, and rilk to your fuxwoks. If your readers don’t like that, then they can just go reighton themselves!

In closing, I forget where I was going with this.

By: Joe C

Joe C — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:58:28 +0000

We at Bose, have started collecting some words that my boss seems to make up at meetings. Some are just the squishing together of two other words, but some are more unique. I myself came up with the term ‘ Naturally Mathletic’ to describe my four year olds’ seemingly good grasp of addition and subtraction at that early age. others are:
WORDS;

Sliption

Hookey things

Oversizedness

Englishification

Metricification

Uniformized

FEAable – which means something you can perform an FEA Analysis on

Mathletic

Outcert

Excert

Realisticness

PHRASES;

Dog boning

Rub noses with you

You never know unless you know

Supple fertile environment

What the functionality?

They kept on continuing

That was about it. It should be noted that none of these came from George W. Bush, but that may also be a source for you if you are looking to stretch the boundaries of the English Language and its usage.

By the way, it is ok to use the same words over and over, as long as you are truthful in your opinions. You are always going to be you, so you will probably continue to like what you like, and will therefore continue to recommend similar (to some degree) movies, and that will naturally lead to some repetitive vernacular. I prefer the repetition to the potential that you switch genres on us and start watching slasher films, just so you can use words like Gore-fest, blood and guts, fountain of blood, squinchly, etc, instead of ‘quirky and funny’.

You just try and use a word like squinch in a sentence without talking about the sound a knife made entering the body of someone who likely just lost their virginity. What is it with those movies always equating sex and death anyway? But I digress. . .

The value in your reviews is not in the quality of the vocabulary, but the quality of the content. Don’t forget you are in this for the greater good of humanity, and you watch many of these movies so that we don’t have to. Maybe as a change of pace you could write up a couple of reviews for some movies you hated, just to use some more dirisive words for a change, then when you switch back to movies you like, it might seem more fresh to you.

In any case, don’t give up the fight. I, like many others likely, look forward to your witty repertiore, and am always happy to read your reviews, even if I’ve seen the words used before.