Non-Fictional Prose Course

Class notes 10-21-2010

pfischer – discussing the issue of Nazi discussion and how it wasn't productive

kgould- it functioned as a healthy way to dialogue, shouldn't have taken as much time as it did

Anne Dalke – use value of name calling and how discussions can be stopped when you name call

platano – discussion about what we should be posting

rachelr – I usually talk about something we discussed and I didn't feel we finished, or a critical response. Something to open the discussion

While watching this film I was struck by the editing - the splicing in of different shots in an almost frenetic way gave the movie a fast pace and a flashy air. The editorial presence of Welles himself was strong as well, and he was shown in some scenes to be sitting at his editing desk going over the footage. The heavy emphasis on editing coupled with the disputed 'real-ness' of the film made me think that I was watching the first example to reality TV, or perhaps the inspiration behind the kind of programs we see today.

 I just thought this little clip of of my favorite shows, "Friends" shows us another side of what reality is. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXr2kF0zEgI

 Listening to the Original Broadcast of War of the Worlds felt like a great Halloween booster. Although I was predisposed to the fact that it was non-fiction or not real in the sense of it actually occurring, I actually started to believe that it could happen. I once heard, that if one can imagine something, than it could possibly happen. I mean how is it that we can imagine something that we've never seen, heard, or touched before? It seems almost impossible that we could imagine animals talking (as seen in Disney movies), mermaids living in the sea, or robots that run police departments, without there being some hidden, unknown knowledge in the back of our minds of such things being in existence.

When looking at the definitions of Reality under the  OED online, I found that their definitions were contradictory to one another. Some stated that reality was based on what is real or true rather than desired or imagined,  making a definitive claim towards reality being based on something that is of so called actual existence. But other definitions explored the varying sense of the word. For instance, one definition ( the first  one on the list) stated that reality was " The quality or state of being real."  This definition, as I said in class, made me question what was exactly meant by "quality." When I looked up "quality" on the Merrian-Webster dictionary, one of the definitions said that quality was "degree of excellence".

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 It was very interesting to listen to other people's experiences with dictionaries in class. It was also interesting to see how different dictionaries sometimes provide different word definitions especially Urban Dictionary. I found myself placing more trust in older dictionaries and those dictionaries that provide the origin of the word. I also trusted the dictionaries that provided me with an explanation and history with the definition not the definition alone. I find it also more helpful when dictionaries use phrases to explain the definition of the words.

 An interesting question came up in my group yesterday when I was talking about the value of both the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and the Urban dictionary. Which one would I choose to reference from here on out if I could only have one?

My first answer was obviously M-W, because it's universally accepted as a credible English dictionary. The definitions are strictly factual, and quite limiting in their meanings. It's difficult to place the words in context. When studying for the SAT a few years ago, I spent a lot of time looking at dictionaries, and even if I had a word's definition memorized, I lacked a thorough understanding of it because there was almost no context to look at. So conversationally, M-W doesn't do much for me.

 Fingo, Fingere, Finxi, Fictus - v., 3rd conj., "pretend, feign, disassemble."; from the Proto-Indo-European word meaning, "to mold."

In Latin, words do not have a direct translation. Instead they have "senses." For example, the "sense" of the adjective, "honestus" is "honorable" or "commendable"; either "honorable" or "commendable" would be an appropriate translation of "honestus", depending on context. Context determines the meaning of a word; words have no concrete meaning on their own - they only have "senses", the innate properties that mean nothing without surrounding verbal framework. 

When I started reading a little bit about the reaction to the War of the Worlds broadcast (I haven't watched F for Fake yet) I was REALLY surprised by the alleged hysteria over the broadcast. Apparently The Radio Project which is a social research project on the effects of mass media on society found that of the approx. 6 million people who heard the broadcast about 25% of them thought it was real and that most of the people who panicked in response to the broadcast thought it meant that there was an invasion by the Germans. Anyway...this might be brought up in the documentary but I look forward to seeing the depiction of these reactions in the film.