Re: CHAT? Re: by. They Have a Word for It!

On Saturday, August 4, 2001, at 05:04 PM, Roger Mills wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>> Hmm--I haven't read the book (but mean to), but I saw the phrase "film at
>> leven" (film at eleven?) in a couple sf stories depicting decaying urban
>
> Has that usage died _already_ from over-use?  Not too long ago, during
> prime-time station breaks or "important bulletin" breaks,  TV announcers
> would come on-screen, go "blah blah blah, film at eleven".  Quite often,
> there would be no further mention of it on the 11 o'clock news.
>
Oh!  <enlightenment>  "Film" as in "video clip," not "movie"?

I never heard the phrase as I was growing up...but then, my parents quite
possibly had no reason to know of it either.  <sheepish look>  That makes
more sense now.

> My local TV channels have the annoying habit of breaking in with
> "important
> bulletins" at the most inopportune times, e.g. just before the Final
> Jeopardy question. They blah blah blah just long enough, so that they can
> rejoin the program for the last 5 mins. of commercials.  They never break
> in
> during the commercials, of course.
<shudder>  Yeah--the Armed Forces Korea Network would *always* have these
random little announcements at the randomest times.  OC all the
"commercials" were military-related informercials or propaganda, sometimes
quite useful for wrapping one's head around WWII trivia.  8-)  I sort of
miss that sometimes...I loathe 95% of the commercials I
barely-pay-attention-to, and if you *know* it's propaganda, you can at
least get some history out of it....

> Another phrase a friend of mine had a lot of fun with (he was in the ad
> game) was:  "Be the first on your block.....etc. etc. "  From about the
> 60s
> I'd guess.
That one I'd heard.  :-)

Thanks too to John Cowan for answering!

YHL, slightly wiser in the ways of the world