Footnote

Footnote is an Israeli film that was nominated for a 2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I was finally able to watch it yesterday and even though I had a feeling ahead of time that I would enjoy it, I was surprised about how much I enjoyed it and for what reasons.

Here is the Netflix summary of the film:

Long-buried tensions erupt in this witty drama, which follows the strained relationship between a reserved Talmudic scholar and his ambitious son -- both professors at the same university -- when the father wins a prestigious award the son covets.

I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone so I won't go into many details other than to say that authorship analysis and word frequency analysis play more of a role in the plot than I would have initially expected.

As I am currently studying investigatory and evidential linguistics for a forensic linguistics MS course at Aston University, this film fit right in with my studies in a most entertaining way. Which is not to say that linguistics is the sole focus of the film.

The film is incredibly well done and should appeal to anyone who is interested in academia, family relationship issues, witty humor, and creative cinematography. I could go on and on...but, just watch the movie.

Moviemash Sequel

Chimpanzee salmon fishing.

Once chimpanzee completes journey to safe cabin in the woods, it is time for salmon fishing.

Thank you, cousin Kristin, for the update on chimpanzee you posted on Facebook. 

Moviemash

Chimpanzee journey 2 safe cabin in the woods.

This picture, posted by my cousin on Facebook, reminded me of Stan Carey's bookmashes.

I especially loved my cousin's comment: "I would see that movie in a heartbeat."

Thanks for the fun, Kristin.

Yummy (?) Portmanteaus

Speaking of portmanteaus, if it wasn't for Yum! Brands I would not have chuckled even once during the excruciatingly painful viewing experience of "Young Adult".

"KenTaco-Hut" anyone?

This fast food combo may be old news to many; however, I can't think of one in Michigan so this triple portmanteau (and especially how it was verbalized in the movie) cracked me up.

Image credit

Contractional Language Change in the Movies

1968 Charles Portis novel

1969 Henry Hathaway film

2010 Coen brother's film

I realize I am way behind the times, but I just saw the Coen brother's remake of True Grit. The lack of use of contractions in the movie jumped out at me so much that I googled the phenomenon immediately. The number of returns on the subject emphasized how behind the times I am. There have been numerous posts about the subject, beginning in December 2010.

Here is an excerpt from Mark Liberman's Language Log post:

What about the current movie version? Does it really avoid contractions entirely, or limit them even more than Portis did? Would such contractionless speech really be an accurate reflection of the way Americans talked in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the 1870s?

I don't know what Portis intended, and I don't know what the Coen brothers did. But I know that that informal American speech in the 1870s was far from contractionless, and in fact I suspect that it had roughly the same proportion of contractions as it does today. Therefore, what Portis (and the Coens?) did was either false archaism or poetic truth — or both.

If you are interested in further analysis of contractions in the 2010 movie as well as some comparisons of contraction usage in the 1968 novel to two other novels, Tom Sawyer and Swan Peak, I highly recommend the Language Log post.

Additionally, Grammar Girl has a related post that covers more about the history of contractions, "there were even contractions before the 1600's, but they usually weren't indicated with an apostrophe", and when to use contractions.

Rusticated From Bollywood

I sure hope the writer, director, producer and actors from 3 idiots are never suspended from the Indian film industry.


I just watched one of the best movies I have seen in...I don't even know how long. I normally get antsy watching movies that are longer than an hour an a half or so; not the case with this movie that was almost three hours short. My teenage son, while complaining about the subtitles and playing a game on his laptop, started to half-watch the movie with me and within the first five minutes he set everything aside to give it his full attention. We laughed and cried together and enjoyed every minute of this delightfully unconventional, joyfully sentimental and extremely intelligent comedy.

Here is the summary from Netflix:
While attending one of India's premier colleges, miserable engineering students and best friends Rancho (Aamir Khan), Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) struggle to beat their school's draconian system, which, in their eyes, unfairly values grades over creativity. Loosely based on Chetan Bhagat's best-selling novel Five Point Someone, this entertaining Bollywood comedy also stars Kareena Kapoor and Boman Irani.

rus·ti·cate
v. rus·ti·cat·ed, rus·ti·cat·ing, rus·ti·cates
v.intr.
To go to or live in the country.
v.tr.
1. To send to the country.
2. Chiefly British To suspend (a student) from a university.
3. To cut or shape (masonry blocks) so as to create a bold textured look, often by beveling the edges to form deep-set joints while leaving the central face rough-hewn or carved with various pointed or channeled patterns.

Bollywood
n
(Performing Arts) Informal
a. the Indian film industry
b. (as modifier) a Bollywood star
[from Bo(mbay) + (Ho)llywood]

Interpreting a Foreign Idiomatic Reduplication

I recently watched the Argentine movie The Secret in Their Eyes and I can see why it won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I absolutely loved it. The reason I mention the movie is a particular line of dialog that intrigued me.

The phrase "pata pata".

I immediately thought of the reduplicative, idiomatic English expression "chop chop", which to me means "hurry up". The way it was used in the movie seemed to go along with my interpretation. Then I looked it up and the confusion set in.

SpanishDict gives the following definitions for pata:

feminine noun

1. leg (pierna de animal)

• las patas delanteras; the forelegs


• las patas traseras; the hindlegs


• pata negra (cooking); = type of top-quality cured ham

2. foot (pie de animal); paw (de perro, gato); hoof (de vaca, caballo)

3. leg (informal) (de persona)

• a pata; on foot


• ir a la pata coja; to hop


• a cuatro patas; on all fours


• pata de palo; wooden leg

4. leg (de mueble); arm (de gafas)

5. (expresiones) (informal)

• estirar la pata; to kick the bucket


• meter la pata; to put one's foot in it


• poner algo patas arriba (también figurative); to turn something upside down


• tener mala pata; to be unlucky


• pata de gallo; hound's-tooth check material (tejido)


• patas de gallo; crow's feet (arrugas)

And msn encarta Dictionary gives the following for pata pata:

noun South Africa 1. dance sensual dance style: a dance style in which couples feel each other's bodies with their hands 2. music music for sensual dancing: urban South African dance music kwela which people dance to in pata-pata style 3. sex: sexual intercourse ( slang ) [Mid-20th century. < Xhosa and Zuluphatha "feel, touch"] ??? So apparently the reduplication of a word that appears to primarily reference an animal's foot or leg turns it a type of sexual dancing. Interesting. I welcome any explanations. P.S. As previously defined here on this blog "reduplication" is a morphological process that occurs in many languages to different degrees and for different purposes. Basically, it is the repetition of all or part of a word.

Minced Movie Oaths - M***** F****** Snakes on a M***** F****** Plane

While working in the kitchen the other day, I heard my son and husband laughing loudly and reciting a line together along with whatever it was they were watching on the television. My curiosity was aroused so I asked what all the fuss was about. They responded in unison,
"I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane."

I soon learned that they were watching the movie Snakes on a Plane on FX and the line that they were reciting was the dubbed version of a profanity-laced exclamation uttered by Samuel Jackson's character in the theatrical version of the movie.

Here is the television version:


Apparently I don't watch enough television. I got such a kick out of the dubbed line that I googled it and there are numerous sites and blogs that discuss the line; one in particular that labeled it, "the worst overdubbed profanity replacement in TV history."

To give you an idea of how popular this line is, when I went to google the phrase "monkey-fighting snakes", I only got as far as "monkey fig..." before google's autocomplete suggested "monkey fighting snakes". And clicking on "monkey fighting snakes" returns approximately 27,300,000 hits.

Wow.

So I figured what the heck, I may as well google "Monday to Friday plane" to see what that returns too. I made it as far as "Monday to..." before the autocomplete suggested "Monday to Friday plane". While not as impressive as "monkey fighting snakes", "Monday to Friday plane" did return 5,910,000 hits.

The reason I bring up a topic that has already been written about so many times is that (regardless of the opinion of the majority) I do not think this was a poor job of profanity replacement at all - quite the opposite, actually.

If you ask me, it takes a certain amount of linguistic talent to come up with minced oaths that can be dubbed so synchronously while still making some sense semantically. (After all, there are snakes that fight monkeys and there are planes that only fly Mondays through Fridays.)