Art in Reality TV

Art has a way of making its way into all sorts of things. I used to think art was only paintings, artistic drawings, photography, and sculptures. But I'm starting to see that art is in more places than those activities.

I was watching a reality TV competition show (Master Chef) last night and started to think of the art behind video editing. Video editors look through so much video from multiple cameras, trying to find the right or exciting pieces and putting them next to certain statements or events that add to it in a beneficial way. Then they also choose music or noise to go quietly along with it to bring out certain emotion.

I remember a summer college roommate, when we were discussing who had TV rights that night and I really wanted to watch a reality TV show, tell me that reality TV shows are fake and therefore worthless to watch. It made me think. It seemed like a good argument at the time.

However, if reality TV shows—especially competition shows—are part art, then why should they be 100% real? Art is not "real." It is a reflection of or a statement about reality. So if the shows make me think about the reality of emotions and human psychology and just the beauty of certain things, then I think it's worth it. Plus, sometimes it's fun to guess who the producers would want to win, and it can be entertaining when you see what they are doing (trying to make something very ordinary seem scary).

Part of why I've been thinking about this is the new show Siberia and if it's worth watching.

Also, a long time ago, during my English capstone course in college, the professor asked what is the point of reading fiction stories when they aren't real. He didn't give us an answer, possibly waiting for us to find it ourselves.

A friend in college was also asking a similar question. I had a little trouble answering then, even though I always enjoyed it myself. Now I feel like part of the answer is: "It's art!" People love to look at and appreciate art.

Confession of a Proofreader

A moment ago I became paranoid that, when wanting to write about a punctuation mark, I'd end up using the word for a very sad medical problem! Is it "comma" or "coma"? It's funny how one letter difference can be a completely different thing. I had it right this time—"comma."

Recently I noticed someone in a forum unintentionally writing "defiantly" when he meant to write "definitely."

I mention this not because I care if people make spelling errors (well, except for at work when I am asked to find those), I just love to marvel at how language works, origins of words, and how that influences things. For instance, in Roy Peter Clark's book The Glamour of Grammar, he mentions how both words "glamour" and "grammar" derive from the same word.

Awesome Word Spotting: Sizzle

Crazy, amusing, and fascinating words are on display in Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea. It's actually a fun read for people like me who love words.

Reading that book reminds me to be on the look-out for underused words, the ones that seem to sparkle but aren't as famous or used as much these days.

Here are types of words to watch for:

• A word with meaning that can carry the weight of three or more words;
• Words with enjoyable or interesting connotations;
• Words with aesthetic value in a linguistic sense. To learn more, Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little by Christopher Johnson has a chapter or two on this.

I don't have the patience or interest to hunt for words in dictionaries, but I often end up grabbing a book to read. When I do that, I'll try to be attentive to any words that stand out. Then I'll share them here.

So, the one that I found today is "sizzle"! I haven't read or heard that word in a long time, yet I hear the sound of what it describes a few times a week. This word caught my eye in Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian, "... the sizzle of this world ..." (page 19).