Nominalizing an Adjective

Linguistics class…
Professor Pivot: Who can give me an example of an adjective which also has a noun form?
Ann: I heard the word “anodynity” recently. I always thought it was an adjective, anodyne, but someone used it as a noun. 
Professor Pivot: Oh dear, the liberties taken with language these days.“Anodynity” as a noun, you say? 
Ann: Isn’t language is meant to evolve? 
Professor Pivot: There was a time when language adhered to strict rules and conventions.
Ann: Well, Shakespeare played with words and grammar. He invented new terms all the time. 
Professor Pivot: He could bend the rules with poetic license. But today’s rampant word formation lacks such artistry.
Ann: I don’t know. Look at how “google” became a verb. It’s a natural progression. People are just finding new ways to express themselves.
Professor Pivot: The verbification of “google” is a prime example of modern linguistic decay. There’s a danger of losing richness and precision of traditional language.
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Voice-over
A subjective subject. Is it language change, or language decay? Undermining the professor’s argument is that any language was never an immaculate conception. Undermining the student’s view is that neologisms can be clumsy and imprecise.

Ice Cream War in the Past Perfect

A three-sentence story in the past perfect…

It wasn’t until she had politely refused strawberry ice cream three times, but accepted his offer of rum raisin instead, that he realized she actually didn’t like the taste of strawberry. Shares it.

And since the boxes of ice cream flavors always contained strawberry, a competition developed so that he had always given her the strawberry ice cream before she politely exchanged her strawberry for his rum raisin. But still offered him a taste.

This ice cream war became so intense that one night she had completely eaten the rum raisin ice cream while he answered  the telephone.

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Voice-over

The past perfect combines had (the simple past of have) with the past participle of the main verb. Used to show that an action occurred before a specified time in the past. As in: “She had abandoned politeness by the time she stole the ice cream.”

Narrative Arc of The Ice Cream War

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Grammar of film

Shooting stops on the set while the scene is being rewritten by the author/scriptwriter.

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Sven: Dunno why you employed him to adapt his own book into a screenplay. Haven’t you always said, “Writers write books. Screenplay writers pick it up from there and prune the foliage?”

Ingmar: I know, but he’s a friend. And he asked.

Sven: Lots of fine descriptive sentences but too long. Plenty of clever dialogue, but again too long.

Ingmar: He knows the grammar of writing. But he doesn’t know the grammar of film. His sentences don’t translate into scenes and his paragraphs don’t translate into sequences. That’s why I’ve called in a rewriter.

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Voice-over

A metaphorical way to approach the differences of the grammar of writing and the grammar of film is to deconstruct as follows:

One letter is a metaphor for a frame.

One word is a metaphor for a shot.

One sentence is a metaphor for a scene.

A paragraph consisting of sentences is a metaphor for a sequence of scenes.

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