Tag Archives: stump speech

Code

Code: (n) a system of symbols substituted for other words for the purpose of secrecy

When we’re finally convinced that we cannot establish our superiority over other human beings by clearly stating it out loud, we develop a code.

It is a code we only teach to certain people–the ones we feel are worthy of our intelligence, depth, maturity and spirituality.

We sneer when others try to understand but fail due to either their weakness of character or lack of brain power.

This is why doctors choose to use medical terms instead of practical ones.

It’s why ministers refer to oblique verses of Holy Book, in order to communicate the idea that only they, a few others and God are privy to the translation.

It’s why politicians have a stump speech, and then have a real code of behavior which they enact with their staff and subordinates.

This is one of the reasons Samuel Morse developed a code–so ideas could be quickly passed from one party to another without having to wait for the arrival of a letter by stage coach.

There’s nothing innately wrong with a code.

It would be extraordinarily paranoid to assume that not being familiar with a code of one group or another was a purposeful snub.

But I do think it is the responsibility of kind human beings everywhere to dispel codes and find language, emotions and gestures which have a more universal appeal.

 

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Au revoir

Au revoir: (Fr. exclam.) good-bye until we meet again.

Even though I purposely avoid many of the stumps that come my way from which I could prophesy, today I shall indulge myself by sharing one of my few, but fervent pet peeves.

dictionary with letter A

I hate subtitles.

There are two reasons.

First of all, I think it’s pretentious to have American actors memorize some foreign words, contending that they are pronouncing them correctly.

Secondly, I’ve reached an age when I find myself squinting a bit to try to read the translation placed on the screen, which is often done in an obtuse font, blurry color and flashed so briefly that you’re trying to figure out the predicate from the acquired subject.

I don’t like pretense.

I don’t think you lose anything in a story if your German soldiers speak English.

After all, it’s about the story, right? Not how they pronounce the dialect from the Rhineland.

But I realize I’m in the minority and that the purists out there shake their heads, bemused by my objection.

Still, as far as I’m’ concerned, I would like to say to all those young filmmakers who feel they achieve great authenticity by offering intrusive foreign language into an American film … “Au revoir.”

 

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