The Sword and Laser discussion

I wouldn't call any of those misnomers. In most cases they're not even synonyms.

I'm looking at the "Breaking the 4th Wall" vs "Aside".

Is it worth a rant when someone says "I liked how she broke the 4th wall" vs "I liked the aside"?

I don't' think of them as Misnomers as much as they're more like "Proper name" and "Common Name".

Example: I can say I sprained my ankle or I could say "I injured my ~technical name for those muscles~" Is one "Better" than the other?

Kid wrote: "A friend who's an English teacher pointed this out to me, and went on a good 15 minute rant about the way many people use "made up" terms for things in literature."

This is me being super-pedantic, but all words are 'made up' at some point. All of language is simultaneously arbitrary and subjective, and further, it drifts and evolves over time.

Kid wrote: "This is totally me being pedantic, but I did some research and found out what everyone on this forum refers to as a "Frame Story" actually has a real literary term for it.

It's called: EXTRADIEGESIS"

What is a "real literary term" and why should it be preferred over a simple English term that conveys the meaning perfectly well?

world-building - setting

These are two completely separate things. The Shire is a setting; the four branches of hobbits, their history, language, social structures, names, mores, habits, and diet are world building.

I have a Ph.D. from the University of California in English literature. I figger that qualificates me to render an authoritatoid opinion: it's a framing story. Your friend is upset over nothing. Just because a few insecure literary scholars have decided to use abstruse shorthand for a common literary device does not mean it's the only, nor even the correct, way to refer to it.

Furthermore, your friend is simply wrong. A framing narrative is not necessarily external to the diagesis of a story (thuogh it may be so, or may be so to a sub-narrative). So "extradiagesis" isn't even the proper made-up term.

I don’t want to be pedantic about it either, but using a synonym is not using the wrong word, it is using a similar word or phrase. Some of the reasons for different words have to do with where they come from; breaking the fourth wall is a TV/Movie term, while an aside is stage direction. One is a product or the late 20th century and refers to communicating through the camera lens (the fourth wall) to the viewer. An aside does the same thing in a theatrical sense, if made to the audience – made to another character it is more likely to be exposition.

This is not to say that word choice is irrelevant, as our current selection quotes (Mark Twain) “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

I would not treat World Building and setting as the same, but purely on part-of-speech grounds. World building is the act of creating a world, a verb. Setting is the world in which the story takes place, a gerund. The setting is the result of the world building, but I think that a good setting is the result of good writing while a well built world is the result of creative thought.

I don’t mind having multiple words mean the same thing. I mind having the same word to mean different things. Nonplussed means utterly perplexed, but so many people use it to mean non-caring that the word has come to mean both now. As have hoi polloi, and moot – the first meant the common man (emphasis on common); the second, a discussion. Now they are frequently used to mean the opposite, most likely because of confusion with the words hoity and mute.

Still that is part of having a living language. It moves and changes over time. The most important thing is not keeping words “pure” but keeping the words useful. That is why we have always imported words to use when they express something better than we do in English. My current favorite is “Kummerspeck”, which is weight gained from emotional overeating. The literal translation is “grief bacon”.

Kid wrote: "As for proper name versus common name, I'd be down with that if most people (who mis-used the words) actually knew what the proper name was. "

Kid wrote: "Because the "simple English term" doesn't work outside of the subculture of people that actually learned that incorrect usage.

And why one the "real literary term" and the other "incorrect"? Who decided this? Was there a vote? Was it the Council of Nicea or the Diet of Worms?

Here's the thing -- "extradiegesis" is itself a product of a subculture, moreso than "frame story" which is commonly used anywhere people discuss fiction in English. And too, the meaning of "frame story" can be intuited from the term itself, unlike "extradiegesis" which requires a knowledge of both Latin and Greek.

Kid wrote: "Jess wrote: "I wouldn't call any of those misnomers. In most cases they're not even synonyms."

?"

What Sean said:

These are two completely separate things. The Shire is a setting; the four branches of hobbits, their history, language, social structures, names, mores, habits, and diet are world building.

Breaking the 4th Wall vs aside - "Breaking the 4th wall" is a theatre term, and refers specifically to a character acknowledging/speaking to the audience. It is a technical term in its own right.

Sound FX, likewise, is a film/theatre/tv term and doesn't mean onomatopoeia. It means, literally, sound effects. Someone throwing an axe into a watermelon in order to simulate the sound of someone being punched. A prop guy rattling a steel sheet backstage to simulate the sound of rain. It's got nothing at all to do with words sounding like what they mean.

Kid wrote: "Did my friend react strongly or maybe in the eyes of other people, over react?

Yeah, maybe. But come on, dude. You've gotta be trolling, right? :)..."

Nope. You can look it up. Right there on my author page. Would you like a copy of my dissertation on the Theology of Supernatural Literature?

Your friend isn't simply "overreacting." Your friend is wrong. And you're substituting ad-hominem attacks ("lazy," "trolling") for discussion. This does not impress me with your diligent care about language.

I've never encountered anyone saying "worldbuilding" when they meant "setting." When someone says "worldbuilding," I assume they mean worldbuilding.

Your original point seemed to be that there are "made-up" words and "correct" words - my point was that your list of "made-up" words are legitimate technical terms.

Please provide examples of people using "world building" when they mean "setting".

In any case, what you're suggesting there is completely different from using "frame story" and "extradiegesis" interchangeably since both terms mean the same thing, but one is plain English and the other is the sort of obfuscatory language Orwell always ranted about.

Kleenex is not a misnomer, it was a misnomer in that it was a brand of tissue, rather than the tissue itself, but the widespread use of the word has made it clear what one is referring to when they say kleenex.

The issue of brand name versus generic descriptor is a purely legal issue of trademark law. For language purposes, if a person uses a word and is understood, I would argue that they used the right word.

My point is of course my opinion on the matter. The French cultural authorities in charge of maintaining the French language would probably agree with you. They do not like cultural drift in language, especially not the pell-mell way English tends to deal with form and meaning.

Actually you can argue that world building is often misused when people want to talk about what an author does to establish the setting.

Take the Shire. It's a setting. It's a place that is very very well developed and also well described. It's a setting that is very critical to the story. But when Tolkien wrote about it, one might say he wasn't "World Building" he was just "developing his setting".

Or take the Hunger Games. Perhaps we might go on and on about the "World building" that Collins did to really build up a sense that this was a horrible terrible place and all the details that make it "come alive" when we read. For that book the setting is an intricate part of the story. But it's not totally accurate to discuss that setting using the term "world building" as though that is separate from the tried and true "Setting".

However, I think that when we discuss literature if we choose to talk about an author's world building it is a way to put a spotlight not only on how the setting is an important part of the work, but that (generally) it's very different than our own.

If I write a story that takes place at a Starbucks, the setting is important but I'm also building mostly on a known setting. If I put a story in some far future space kingdom then the setting is also important but requires a different skills set to fully utilize.

All that said, I do think this is mostly just academic teapot tempesting.

1.) You - and your friend - are still wrong about the meaning of diagesis.
2.) Since the critical use of "framing story" predates the use of"extradiagesis," you're wrong about calling people "lazy" too.

To be honest Kid, you come off looking like an ass from your posts, starting with your first post then your "loltroll" reply.

P.Aaron started of friendly then got annoyed, and I don't blame the guy.

Kid wrote: " thought diagetics was used by Plato back in ancient Greece. Isn't that a bit before English criticism was around?..."

Yes, but the term "extradiegesis" was coined by Genette in narratological studies, not in Aristotle.
Whereas the term "framing story" appears in contemporary criticism of Shelley's "Frankenstein," throughout the 19th century.

So you're simply wrong. "laziness" did not prompt people to 'start' using "framing story" when there was some other, already extant proper term. It is "extradiegesis" which is the neologism here, originating in just the last few decades from a desire to provide a different vocabulary with which to discuss metanarrative, when the term "framing story" had already been around for centuries.

Final note: your friend also doesn't seem to understand what the term means. Extradiegesis refers to a metanarratological level one step 'outwards' from the primary diegesis. Not all framing stories or narrations fit that description, particularly in the case of those which pass between levels of narrative. Arguably, the only truly "extradiegesic" level would be that of the reader and author, i.e., the real world.

Moral: Matthew 7:3

I'm a little lost here, can someone perhaps give a layman's description of Extradiegesis vs Frame Story?

Is this where, for example, Nick talks about his life as he's relating the story of Gatsby? Or how we get a sense that Coulden is just talking to a therapist for the entirety of Catcher in the Rye?

LoL
;-)

If someone discussing a book with me used the term "extradiegesis", I'd have to ask WTF they mean.
Oh "Frame story" please continue.

We have simple terms so that us lower life forms can understand.
They may not be the correct terms but they are the common usage terms which means they eventually will be the correct terms.
Language evolves over time.

Sound FX sounds cool. Using onomatopoeia in a conversation would make me sound like a wanker ;-) and I'm not sure it can be used as an alternate for sound fx :-?
Doesn't it mean words that a formed from a sound? i.e bang, pop, boom.

Oddly enough, this thread made me smile.

It's called: EXTRADIEGESIS SOMETHING-YOU'VE-NEVER-HEARD-OF-AND-CAN'T-PRONOUNCE

There, fixed that for you.


Nah, just having a laugh. Everyone needs their own little patch of pedantry to guard. Language evolution is all about give and take. Personally, I'll be damned if I ever let then and than become the same word!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_story

Someone needs to update this - no reference to Extradia-whatsit that I could see

Plenty of references to frame story being appropriate for the type of structure we are discussing in Hyperion

I think the point here is not what term was used first, but

1) Is using frame story something we in the S&L forum have made up - answer, no its the common decsription used across the world in discussing this type of story structure
2) Therefore is it lazy or ignorant - absolutely not!

Kid I think you might be missing the point, who is right in the intellectual argument in the end is kind of irrelevant, labelling people as lazy or ignorant for using a perfectly common and accepted terminology (whether or not there is a more correct Latin/Greek description)in the first place was not a smart place to go even if you had been right about the other term being used first/more correctly or whatever.

I use the term "frame story" in this week's video show.

But that's just diegesis. Or is it extradiegesis of this thread.

No I have indigestisis.

Misnomer, lazy, or failed pun?

lol amusing either way! :D

Isn't world-building really called "Milieu" in the writing craft?

Sporadic Reviews wrote: "Isn't world-building really called "Milieu" in the writing craft?"

Yes and no.


mi·lieu/milˈyo͞o/
Noun:
A person's social environment: "a military milieu".
Synonyms:
environment - surroundings - ambience - setting - medium

Yes, it's called milieu. No, it's not "really" called milieu. It's sometimes called that. Other times, it's just called world building.

Don't be afraid of synonyms, people! We don't have to find the One True Word for Everything.

Kid wrote: "Frame Story" came into usage because somebody was too lazy to just look it up.
You really believe that? I seriously doubt that the term "extradiegesis" existed before the term "frame story." Especially since the term "frame story" is very clearly a normal English term with normal English (Germanic) roots, while "extradiegesis" is very clearly, like so much of the English language, a made-up word of Latin and Greek roots. It's not even a good made-up word, because it mixes Latin and Greek, rather than choosing one language. (Don't get me started on the word "polyamory")

Darren wrote: "Extradiegesis is what happens after a bran muffin and a strong cup of coffee."

Fantastic!

Dan wrote: "Don't get me started on the word "polyamory""

Start!

Polyamory means that someone cloned Cleveland Amory.

Serendi wrote: "Polyamory means that someone cloned Cleveland Amory."

Cats, cats EVERYWHERE!

I don't use Frame Story, but I do use a synonym. Framed Narrative. Still pretty much the same and it's a perfect descriptive term for the storytelling practice.

Jonathan wrote: "I don't use Frame Story, but I do use a synonym. Framed Narrative. Still pretty much the same and it's a perfect descriptive term for the storytelling practice."

Basically, use what works for the audience to whom you are currently speaking. Trying to get everyone to call a fork a "multi-tined serving implement" just makes you sound like a wanker, no matter how many letters you have behind your name.

Firstname wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "I don't use Frame Story, but I do use a synonym. Framed Narrative. Still pretty much the same and it's a perfect descriptive term for the storytelling practice."

Basically, use wh..."
Yeah. Pretty much. Better to be understood by the audience. Most common terms are frame story and framed narrative. So they both work.

LOL!