[WikiEN-l] Conventions and movie vs. film

[Andrew Smith]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Grevers" <lists at dramatic.co.nz>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conventions and movie vs. film


> On Sat, 3 May 2003 21:58:43 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Ehrenberg
> <littledanehren at yahoo.com> gave utterance to the following:
> >
> > This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use
> > movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is
> > really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make
> > redirects from one to another (since some use movie
> > and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a
> > standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie,
> > the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is
> > used. Will one of them detract from our goal of
> > creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when
> > debating these pointless issues.
> > -LittleDan
> >
> I was about to raise my hand in favour of movie for the reason that film
is
> ambiguous but movie isn't.
>
> As to usage, movie is one word I don't regard as an americanism (it
> probably arrived in NZ with the troops during WWII). New Zealanders will
> say they are going to the movies, to see a movie, to the pictures, but
they
> will seldom say "to a film" or "to the cinema". I think "the flicks" has
> almost died out as a term.
>

I'm with LittleDan on this, I don't think either term is ambiguous. I really
can't believe that anyone could be left perplexed by either Dirty Dancing
(movie) or Dirty Dancing (film). And even if they were, spending 10 seconds
reading the article's first paragraph would make it clear.

Like most English people (I think) the word I use is 'film' but I think we
should leave the articles at (movie), or if people prefer then make both
endings acceptable.

Andrew (Ams80)