Talk:Skywriting

I've heard its invention credited to a Maj J C Savage. Can anybody confirm? Trekphiler 19:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

"writ large"

"Write large" does not make any sense. "Writ" is a noun that has nothing to do with "written". If you mean "written large", it'd make more sense, but it's still not clear what it means. Does it mean marriage proposals are written with large letters? Does it refer to advertisements and "a general public display of celebration and goodwill" too? "Writ large" is grammatically incorrect (and never has been correct), and even if it was correct, seems completely redundant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.35.77 (talk) 09:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

"Writ large"—not originally inserted by me, incidentally—makes perfect sense. (Not to pursue the tangent too far, but the noun "writ" actually has everything to do with the verb "to write.") In any case, "writ" in this usage is not a noun but a past participle, functioning as would the word "written." The phrase "writ large" is idiomatic and typically used figuratively, though in this case it's both figurative and literal, meaning something like "presented in a more obvious or demonstrative way than usual." Used as a noun-modifier, it appears postpositively, and so clearly describes the "marriage proposals."

The first results page of a quick Google search reveals four dictionary/reference entries for "writ large," as well as two newspaper headlines—one from the Washington Post[1] and the other from Publisher's Weekly[2]. None of those Google results say, though a quick look at the Oxford English Dictionary reveals, that "writ" as a past participle has been around in English a very long time—back to Middle English (and to Old English in a still-recognizable form).

"Writ large" closes the final line of John Milton's sonnet "On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament": "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." It can be found as well in the writings of George Eliot; from Felix Holt, the Radical: "The man was no more than the boy writ large, with an extensive commentary."

To summarize: It (1) makes sense, (2) isn't a noun, (3) has a perfectly clear meaning, (4) definitely modifies "marriage proposals," (5) is not grammatically incorrect, (6) never has been incorrect. This leaves only the question of redundancy.

The sentence in question read, before removal of the phrase, "The message can either be an advertisement aimed at everyone in the vicinity, a general public display of celebration or goodwill, or a personal message such as a marriage proposal writ large." Each of the three semi-parallel sections suggests a basic function of skywriting, and then qualifies or amplifies that suggestion: "an advertisement"—"aimed at everyone"—"in the vicinity"; "a display"—"general" and "public"—"of celebration or goodwill"; "a personal message"—"a marriage proposal"—"writ large." The phrase is, then, meaningful as a part of the way the sentence is constructed, so it is not structurally redundant. Beyond structure is meaning. Could this same sentence have been rendered, "The message can be an advertisement, general public display, or a personal message"? Of course it could, but it would be less informative and less interesting; the phrase is (7) not redundant. —SkipperPilot (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)