Timeline for What does "movie/film" actually mean?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
22 events
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| Apr 10 at 19:56 | comment | added | user8356 | "Movie" has encompassed many things over the years. It never meant just Hollywood productions shown in movie theaters. There have always have been home movies, amateur movies, documentaries, student films, industrial movies, scientific recordings, and many other sorts of filmed or recorded moving images that people have and will call "movies." A single word always can always be further qualified, so it's best in my opinion not to try to limit it in the first place. So to the OP, I wouldn't be so quick to say the teacher is wrong. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 23:22 | comment | added | user428517 | The word "movies" technically comes from "moving pictures". However, that's not what it means nowadays. Television certainly consists of moving pictures, but TV shows are not movies, and absolutely no native speaker would call them such. Language is not rigid. Common usage defines meaning. | |
| May 25, 2015 at 2:03 | vote | accept | Vun-Hugh Vaw | ||
| May 23, 2015 at 7:10 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | and films for TV and films made for TV | |
| May 23, 2015 at 7:08 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | In British English film is used for cinema, DVDs and TV. | |
| May 5, 2015 at 3:26 | comment | added | Vun-Hugh Vaw | Thank you for all of your comments. No, I don't "want" a single umbrella term or something. I do want to know if "movie/film" can be that umbrella term, and that's it. I have argued with a Vietnamese teacher of English (who is not so good at speaking English and is just an average Vietnamese like everyone else); he insisted that "movie/film" could be a cover term for any type of cinematic video (just as one can expect from a Vietnamese), and last time I checked, it didn't seem to be the case. I asked this question just to make sure I wasn't the idiot. | |
| May 5, 2015 at 0:58 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglish/status/595392030412517376 | ||
| May 4, 2015 at 17:35 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Dan Bron: Or just 'video'. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 15:38 | history | edited | Tushar Raj | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 4, 2015 at 15:30 | answer | added | Tushar Raj | timeline score: 5 | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:49 | comment | added | John Lawler | @David: Words or phrases develop for things or activities we do or need or want to talk about, for whatever reason. This, to say the least, varies a lot from group to group, and from person to person. The result is a mostly unfilled matrix, with resources for speakers to fill slots with their own nonce terms as needed. Some of them stick, some of them don't. Words are not designed to stick around, any more than animals are designed to become fossils. It happens pretty much arbitrarily, and very, very rarely. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:40 | comment | added | Dan Bron | @DavidPugh "video media". | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:29 | comment | added | David Pugh | @Josh: But it would have to cover Lena Dunham's "Girls" as well as "Game of Thrones". Also, ghod help us, the Jerry Springer Show. Motion pictures? I don't think so. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:21 | comment | added | GEdgar | Amazon has a section like that. It is called "Movies & TV". | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:14 | comment | added | user66974 | @DavidPugh - probably motion pictures . | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:11 | comment | added | David Pugh | I'm puzzled. You want a single umbrella term for movies and TV shows, in the way that "footwear" can cover hiking boots, sandals and stilettos? I don't think there is one. English is like that: an amazing number of words for styles of walking, but some thumping great holes. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:04 | comment | added | Kris | Movie and film are both legacy terms today, vestiges of the past with various meanings depending on context and usage. 1. For the contemporary meaning and usage of these two terms, please see a more specialized glossary rather than a general English dictionary. 2. As for whether the Vietnamese word phim translates to English movie or film, yes, both words do have that meaning in contemporary usage. See also: simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film | |
| May 4, 2015 at 14:01 | history | edited | user66974 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 4, 2015 at 14:01 | comment | added | Vun-Hugh Vaw | No. I'm asking a comprehensive yet simple definition of those synonymous terms. I listed the names of some TV shows, so my point is basically about the difference between "movie" and "TV series", and if "movie" can be cover term for cinematic videos in general. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 13:58 | comment | added | Dan Bron | Are you asking about the distinction between "a movie" and "a film", or the distinction between movies and films and other forms of video media? To answer one of your questions: no, TV shows like "Charmed" are never referred to as "movies" or "films" by native speakers. | |
| May 4, 2015 at 13:58 | review | First posts | |||
| May 4, 2015 at 17:35 | |||||
| May 4, 2015 at 13:54 | history | asked | Vun-Hugh Vaw | CC BY-SA 3.0 |