You raise an excellent point about how knowing the facts can interfere with a reader's enjoyment of fiction--my father was unable to read science fiction because the chemistry was so frequently wrong in anything written around 1950-70. He would simply put the book down. Now writers hire editors for everything from fact-checking in a particular subject to sensitivity readers to attempt to avoid upsetting readers. Even if they don't catch every single error, at least they are trying. // And to respond to your question of how airports might otherwise standardize announcements that the departure of a flight is imminent? One way might be to say something like: "The current time is [Time ]- if you plan to board [airline/flight number] to [city] - the doors will be closing at [time] and will not be reopened." You could repeat that ad nauseam just changing the current time. But to be honest, I think this is a leftover from the lovely days when you could saunter around an airport and they would hold the plane for you just because you were on the passenger list.
I love these observations. How do moments of "heightened sense" differ from epiphanies? I think they generally do, although the two are similar. I think of epiphanies as generally being moments of profundity, while these kinds of discoveries are more ones of consciousness. Many times epiphanies are quite simple, however: I realize some trait has been governing some behavior of mine that I didn't understand, for instance. In any event, just as with an epiphany, you have absolutely nailed each case here and the particular offender and proven the ridiculousness beyond the shadow of a doubt. And that is the fun for the reader here, I think.
I guess I fall into a trance hearing "mild to severe psoriasis." It doesn't sound strange in the context of a commercial, or at least hasn't to this point. And I don't think it sounds normal because the actors are professionals and pulling it off.
Why is this language adopted in the first place? I wouldn't think it is legally necessary to establish the range. Is the point so that anyone in the range will identify and take heart listening to the ad? That seems farfetched. You'd think the inanity of the range would turn people off.
Now that you've alerted me to it, I certainly join you and call to an end to all "last and final calls." I am generally of the mind that stupidity is not and is never o.k. But we should at least consider the possibility that the phrasing is most effective in waking people up and helping them make their flights, stupid as it is. I think we hear that sing-song, we've heard it before, we know the solemnity, and we snap to attention. But I guess if this is the argument, then the sing-song could take any sound, so long as we came to learn it.
Of course, the philosophy behind the repetition is truly that a warning twice stated and repeated works better than just one. An alarm bell doesn't beep just once. And I guess saying that it's the "last and final" imbues it with more seriousness. I suppose it's an attempt to scare. But it is dishonest.
How could it be rewritten? "This is your last series of warnings to board Flight X"? And then the attendant could engage in a numerical countdown of warnings?
I'm really not sure the familiar sing-song is the best way to light a fire under people to get them to board, anyway. The Southwest approach while directing the cabin is to be disarming, after all. I assume that generally works best in communication. But when stakes are on the line, a disarming and spontaneous message might fall flat, and think of the danger that would ensue! And if you, as a passenger, heard a repeat of one of the supposedly disarming lines, the airline would be caught in its phoniness!
On the verisimilitude topic, I got fatigued writing fiction needing to research each and every subject. It seemed tedious; legwork. The lesson I took was to only write about things I know and care about.
I started a John Grisham book about baseball once. In this book, which was set in a specific year, it was evident that the minor leagues didn't exist, when in fact they actually did in that year. This was not acceptable to me. When these things accumulated, it was crippling to the work, in my mind. I suppose Grisham may have been internally consistent, but I think the default in a work is reality, particularly if you set the work in a known place and time. I don't know how a writer would credibly go about canceling the assumed facts, anyway.
You raise an excellent point about how knowing the facts can interfere with a reader's enjoyment of fiction--my father was unable to read science fiction because the chemistry was so frequently wrong in anything written around 1950-70. He would simply put the book down. Now writers hire editors for everything from fact-checking in a particular subject to sensitivity readers to attempt to avoid upsetting readers. Even if they don't catch every single error, at least they are trying. // And to respond to your question of how airports might otherwise standardize announcements that the departure of a flight is imminent? One way might be to say something like: "The current time is [Time ]- if you plan to board [airline/flight number] to [city] - the doors will be closing at [time] and will not be reopened." You could repeat that ad nauseam just changing the current time. But to be honest, I think this is a leftover from the lovely days when you could saunter around an airport and they would hold the plane for you just because you were on the passenger list.
I love these observations. How do moments of "heightened sense" differ from epiphanies? I think they generally do, although the two are similar. I think of epiphanies as generally being moments of profundity, while these kinds of discoveries are more ones of consciousness. Many times epiphanies are quite simple, however: I realize some trait has been governing some behavior of mine that I didn't understand, for instance. In any event, just as with an epiphany, you have absolutely nailed each case here and the particular offender and proven the ridiculousness beyond the shadow of a doubt. And that is the fun for the reader here, I think.
I guess I fall into a trance hearing "mild to severe psoriasis." It doesn't sound strange in the context of a commercial, or at least hasn't to this point. And I don't think it sounds normal because the actors are professionals and pulling it off.
Why is this language adopted in the first place? I wouldn't think it is legally necessary to establish the range. Is the point so that anyone in the range will identify and take heart listening to the ad? That seems farfetched. You'd think the inanity of the range would turn people off.
Now that you've alerted me to it, I certainly join you and call to an end to all "last and final calls." I am generally of the mind that stupidity is not and is never o.k. But we should at least consider the possibility that the phrasing is most effective in waking people up and helping them make their flights, stupid as it is. I think we hear that sing-song, we've heard it before, we know the solemnity, and we snap to attention. But I guess if this is the argument, then the sing-song could take any sound, so long as we came to learn it.
Of course, the philosophy behind the repetition is truly that a warning twice stated and repeated works better than just one. An alarm bell doesn't beep just once. And I guess saying that it's the "last and final" imbues it with more seriousness. I suppose it's an attempt to scare. But it is dishonest.
How could it be rewritten? "This is your last series of warnings to board Flight X"? And then the attendant could engage in a numerical countdown of warnings?
I'm really not sure the familiar sing-song is the best way to light a fire under people to get them to board, anyway. The Southwest approach while directing the cabin is to be disarming, after all. I assume that generally works best in communication. But when stakes are on the line, a disarming and spontaneous message might fall flat, and think of the danger that would ensue! And if you, as a passenger, heard a repeat of one of the supposedly disarming lines, the airline would be caught in its phoniness!
On the verisimilitude topic, I got fatigued writing fiction needing to research each and every subject. It seemed tedious; legwork. The lesson I took was to only write about things I know and care about.
I started a John Grisham book about baseball once. In this book, which was set in a specific year, it was evident that the minor leagues didn't exist, when in fact they actually did in that year. This was not acceptable to me. When these things accumulated, it was crippling to the work, in my mind. I suppose Grisham may have been internally consistent, but I think the default in a work is reality, particularly if you set the work in a known place and time. I don't know how a writer would credibly go about canceling the assumed facts, anyway.