Re: OT Marx Brothers (was Re: Another Introduction)

On Thu, 2003-05-15 at 04:15, John Cowan wrote:
> Joe scripsit:
>
> > You know, in the UK, 'theatre', unqualified, refers solely to places where
> > plays are performed.
>
> This is true here, too, at least unless the context is unmistakable ("Matrix 2 opens
> today in 15,000 theaters", say).
At least in Melbourne in the context of movies, a theatre would be a
place that plays old movies and movies some time after they've come out.
This is from this kind of cinema's habit of putting 'theatre' in their
name: Astor Theatre; Westgarth Theatre; Progress Theatre

> Movies (only film critics call them films)  ...
I heard a real-life person actually calling them pictures the other day.
It's one of those things we're told Australians do (like rhyming
slang[1]) that you *never* hear.

[1]: I was reading a book the other day, published in 1995, which
*insisted* that Australians *actually used rhyming slang*, and that we
do so more than the English. If we do it's only because it's a part of
the primary school curriculum, so primary school teachers have to know
it (and use it to provide examples), and so do primary school students
(to please their teachers). The only use I've heard of in real life of
it is the odd person asking for a dog's eye with dead 'orse (meat pie
with tomato sauce; note the non-rhotic accent making 'orse and sauce
rhyme). The same book said that we use the word 'darg' (it's survival in
Australia has been, apparently, guaranteed, though it's obselecent in
Scots/tish), which I'd never heard in my life. At least we *know* what
'dinkum' means...

--
Tristan