Thread: To film or to filmatise

Originally Posted by Johanna

But when I was looking for the audio an e-book. I realised that the book has just been filmatised (in 2009) apparently! Somehow it ruins the pleasure of reading a book (I think) to know that it's been filmatised.

Johanna... I am way off topic here but I have NEVER seen nor heard the term filmatised and thought... "OMG, me not know a word like this... how stupid of me." Yet when I searched for it I did not see it as an "English" word. So please help to educate me and let me know how you came about this interesting word!


This is a split-off from the topic: Ilya Frank Method for Language Learning?. (L.)

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Yet when I searched for it I did not see it as an "English" word. So please help to educate me and let me know how you came about this interesting word!

Hope your headaches are easing up. I was really sad to hear that you've been under the weather. I hope it was just a temporary thing.

Yeah, it's definitely a real word... I did not know that it was not used in US English. I would have thought that it would be in use with a "z" instead of an "s".

I've just "picked up" the word, I guess! From a paper or the news. I stopped working on my English several years back. It's good enough. But sometimes I encounter a word that I don't know and I learn it without thinking about it.

This is a word that BBC uses a lot. They know of a good book or play and they decide do filmatise it (=make a film or a TV series of it).
Filmatisation is another word that's related to the first word. For example: I discovered an excellent filmatisation of "Love in a Cold Climate" by Nancy Mitford. It was produced by the BBC a couple of years back and is available to download. Highly recommended.

But Rockzmom, actually, you use a lot of American specific expressions and slang that I am only very vaguely aware of!! Interesting, and I like it, but I don't always understand some of it right away.

Initially I thought that I should stick to simple and clear English on this forum, and stay away from colloquialisms and the like..

But all the Russian members said that they prefer "normal" English, not a "dumbed down" text. So I decided to write exactly as I normally would and not worry about whether or not everybody can follow it... I imagine you are doing the same thing!

I have learnt some US expressions from a American technical podcasts that I listen to. Basically a bunch of techie people discussing the latest technologies. ("This week in Tech") They use A LOT of US specific slang that I wouldn't otherwise come across. Because it's not a professional broadcast they speak as they normally would, instead of trying to sound professional.

Some examples:
"My bad!" (=Sorry, my mistake!)
"Sedgway" (=a cue, opportunity to switch to a different topic).
"pet peeve" (=complaint, grievance, annoying thing, favourite thing to whinge about.. )

And many more that I can't remember right now.....

Originally Posted by Johanna

Yeah, it's definitely a real word... I did not know that it was not used in US English. I would have thought that it would be in use with a "z" instead of an "s".

I was not doubting it was a word, I was thinking it was more a word in another language though.

Originally Posted by Johanna

But Rockzmom, actually, you use a lot of American specific expressions and slangs that I am only very vaguely aware of!! Interesting, and I like it, but I don't always understand some of it right away.

Next time I do that, just ask me because if your don't understand me chances are others don't as well!

Originally Posted by Johanna

"Sedgway" (=a cue, opportunity to switch to a different topic).

hehehe... Sedgway is actually spelled, segue and we over here on this side of the pond do not pronounce it with a "d" so it is like "segway."

Originally Posted by http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/SEGUE

Main Entry: 1se·gue
Pronunciation: \ˈse-(ˌ)gwā, ˈsā-\
Function: verb imperative
Etymology: Italian, there follows, from seguire to follow, from Latin sequi — more at sue
Date: circa 1740
1 : proceed to what follows without pause —used as a direction in music
2 : perform the music that follows like that which has preceded —used as a direction in music

Now while that talks about music we use it to go into a different topic without pausing, sort of like how we have now segued into words from your method of language topic without starting a new thread. We do it her ALL the time when we go off topic because someone asks a question about something that was in a post within a thread and then we NEVER get back to the main topic of the thread! But if you think about that video Basil posted yesterday and how it transitioned from one type of music into the next so amazingly, that would be a use of segue.

Originally Posted by Johanna

"pet peeve" (=complaint, grievance, annoying thing, favourite thing to whinge about.. )

okay, I know we spell favourite/favorite, we also spell whinge/whine or was that just a typo???

Originally Posted by Johanna

But all the Russian members said that they prefer "normal" English, not a "dumbed down" text.

Actually, we have forum members with all the levels of knowing English. ) But I think that for most active members natives' posts are not hard. That's why they are active in topics where people write in English. ))
Нельзя угодить всем (you can't please everybody).

I realised that the book has just been filmatised (in 2009) apparently!

I have a question. Are there any synonyms of "to filmatise"? Are the words "to film", "to screen", and "to cinematize" used in this meaning? BTW the Russian verb is "экранизИровать", there is also an expression "снять / снимать фильм по ..." (роману, повести, рассказу etc).

Haha, thanks for explaining all that!

My spelling of segue was insane! I had never seen it written - just heard it used a lot in those podcasts.. That's what I thought the spelling was.. Seems to be a popular word in the US but I have never heard it used in Britain.

Whinge (complain, moan) is right, I think.... It's a different word from "whine", isn't it?

I guess my English is a lot more British than I thought it was!

I was engaged for a while to "Mr Very Posh & Pretentious Oxford Graduate" who absolutely hated it if I used anything but Queen's English... Any trace of US English or "common" speech was really provocative to him. Every now and then he had an outburst and taught me rather advanced vocabulary relating to history, aristocratic habits and law (specialities of his). I had no issue with this, but it was not until later that I realised I sounded like a horrific snob to most of my colleagues and people who were not from his social background... Oh the joys of life in England.... Sigh! I'm getting out of here in 2010, mark my words!

Originally Posted by Zaya

Are there any synonyms of "to filmatise"?

"To make a movie out of it" (the book). Kind of long winded compared to экранизИровать.

Originally Posted by Zaya

Are the words "to film", "to screen", and "to cinematize" used in this meaning? BTW the Russian verb is "экранизИровать", there is also an expression "снять / снимать фильм по ..." (роману, повести, рассказу etc).

"To film" means to shoot the film (снять / снимать).
"To screen" means to show the movie to an audience.
"To cinematize" means Never heard of it.

Originally Posted by sperk

Originally Posted by Zaya

Are the words "to film", "to screen", and "to cinematize" used in this meaning? BTW the Russian verb is "экранизИровать", there is also an expression "снять / снимать фильм по ..." (роману, повести, рассказу etc).

"To film" means to shoot the film (снять / снимать).
"To screen" means to show the movie to an audience.
"To cinematize" means Never heard of it.

To animate!

it-ogo

Thank you very much, sperk!

Originally Posted by Johanna

Whinge (complain, moan) is right, I think.... It's a different word from "whine", isn't it?

Actually and oddly enough, it is the same word! See #2! I never would have thought it would be spelled with a "g" in it!!

Originally Posted by http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whine

Main Entry: 1whine
Pronunciation: \ˈhwīn, ˈwīn\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): whined; whin·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hwīnan to whiz; akin to Old Norse hvīna to whiz
Date: 13th century
intransitive verb
1 a : to utter a high-pitched plaintive or distressed cry b : to make a sound similar to such a cry <the wind whined in the chimney>
2 : to complain with or as if with a whine <always whining about the weather>
3 : to move or proceed with the sound of a whine <the bullet whined…across the ice — Berton Roueché>

Originally Posted by rockzmom

Originally Posted by Johanna

But when I was looking for the audio an e-book. I realised that the book has just been filmatised (in 2009) apparently! Somehow it ruins the pleasure of reading a book (I think) to know that it's been filmatised.

A little of topic but I think literature is dying because authors write books nowadays with an aim of turning it into a movie in order to cash in. That's why we don't have any more Dostoyevskis or Hawthorns.

'Filmatise' seems to be a very recent, more or less colloquial word for 'adapt something into a movie'. It's not in any of my dictionaries, and not even a search "define:filmatise" on Google turns up anything.

I get 3700 matches for the word itself and 177 for the version with z, so the word does get used, obviously, but it's not officially recognized yet, apparently.

Robin

Originally Posted by bitpicker

'Filmatise' seems to be a very recent, more or less colloquial word for 'adapt something into a movie'. It's not in any of my dictionaries, and not even a search "define:filmatise" on Google turns up anything.

I get 3700 matches for the word itself and 177 for the version with z, so the word does get used, obviously, but it's not officially recognized yet, apparently.

Robin

Exactly. I had never heard it before either. I willing to bet that it will become more popular and will probably start showing up in dictionaries in a few years. We do make up new words sometimes in English. Unlike the French, we don't have a committee to keep our language "pure".

And the "real" words for this are "adapt" or "adaptation".

Even the French make up new words, they just don't want to import foreign ones. They can talk about computers, e-mail and other 'new' technology without resorting to words we can understand if we don't know French...

'Filmatise' may get widespread use or die out. It's actually not such a bad idea to have that word; in German we have 'Verfilmung (n.), verfilmen (v.)' which is mostly the same thing as the Russian word mentioned above (yes, we have nasty suffixes, too).

Robin

I absolutely love the Russian noun экранизация, precisely because there isn't an equivalent word in US English -- instead we typically say "the movie version." On the other hand, US English has the word "novelization" -- meaning a book based on the screenplay of a movie. (I can remember, as a 9-year-old boy, reading the novelization of Halloween, which I wasn't allowed to watch!)

Needless to say, novelizations aren't considered great literature; the only "respectable" novelization I can think of would be Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey -- which was based on the Stanley Kubrick film, which was in turn based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel." But that's a special case.

Wow, I'm a native English speaker and this is a new word for me! For anybody who is learning English, I would just like to add that I have never, ever heard this word before. If I wanted to say "make it into a movie," I would say just that. For "they filmatized the book" I would say "they turned the book into a movie." And if I heard "they fimatized the book" before I read this thread, I would have not have understood. Hope this helps.