Talk:Skywriting/Archives/2012

"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 Publishers 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)

The problem is that "writ large" is too esoteric, Milton or not, and will be the subject of constant changes by people who aren't sitting around reading Paradise Lost. Let's use language that is modern and accessible, especially on something as pedestrian as advertising to the masses via the sky. --David Shankbone 17:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

When I have restored the phrase in question it has been in response to incorrect claims that it is bad English, not that it is not everyday English. Regarding these other merits, the phrase presently occurs something like 130 times in Wikipedia, apparently at least 40 times in the mainspace, so it's not all that rare. I was perhaps reckless in mentioning Milton (he's somehow always a lightning rod), but I offered him as much for the humor value as anything, as well as to represent a kind of a balance to the Washington Post, a publication intended to be generally accessible to the common person. Its appearance there in 2006 suggests that the phrase is not definitively archaic or outmoded. A Google News search finds 8 occurrences in just the past day; these include uses in the Los Angeles Times, The Providence Journal, and on Bloomberg.com. Don't get me wrong; I feel the draw of the argument that the phrase is not colloquial, but at the same time, removing correct information or correct language from an article—either because it is wrongly questioned, or in anticipation of such questioning—seems too much like giving in. —SkipperPilot (talk) 18:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

First mass media appearance in "The Wizard of Oz?"

I'm moving this here:

• One of the earliest mass media exposures of skywriting appeared in the 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz, when the wicked witch of the West writes in the skies over Oz, "Surrender Dorothy".

I'm moving it for three reasons. a) It's unreferenced. b) It's not very credible. Skywriting was a fixture in air shows beginning at least in the 1920s--the letter to the New York Times says 1915--and it does not seem likely that it would never have been depicted in newsreels or newspaper photographs or other "mass media" until 1939. c) A nitpick, but perhaps relevant: what is shown in the movie is not real skywriting, but a special effect. The details are in Aljean Harmetz' book on the making of the Wizard of Oz, and was done with a hypodermic needle filled with a mixture of milk and nigrosine, in a glass tank six feet square, filled to depth of three inches with a mixture of water and calla oil. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)