Tuesday, February 3, 2026

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Train Dreams


  • IMDB link: Train Dreams
  • Tagline: "Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century."
  • My Best Picture Project

    This movie reminds me a lot of A River Runs Through It, but slower-paced. Lovely places, interesting people, and more ... dreamy, and given the title, that makes sense.  It is also more tragic, but I don't want to spoil the movie.  I haven't read the novella, so I can't speak to how well the movie adapted the source material.

    The movie is about an orphan who becomes a logger, and eventually marries, has a child, and he encounters a lot of strange people and strange events.  He witnesses the anti-Chinese racism of the early 1900s and encounters loggers of all ages.  At the start of the movie, he is young and notices the old loggers; later, he becomes an old logger and is taught to use early chainsaws by the young loggers.

    There was also a hint of Rip Van Winkle in the story - he occasionally comes out of the woods to see how the world is changing.  He sees TVs for the first time on one of those jaunts and finds out men have gone to outer space.  Another time, he rides in an airplane, and he ponders how everything is connected.

    I don't exactly identify with the main character - he's a logger, and I'm not. But he likes his cabin in the woods, and given the chaotic political events happening right now, I totally get that.   He's also a genuinely good man, and such people are rarely depicted on screen, perhaps because they aren't especially interesting. The movie makes up for that by making everything around him weird.
    
    The acting is excellent. William H. Macy played an old demolition expert in a standout, funny, and sad performance.  Cinematography is also great - the woods of the Pacific Northwest are almost a character in their own right.  

    It's a good movie, and I do recommend it, but expect the strange and tragic odyssey.



(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

  1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
  2. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 2)
  3. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 3)
* Rankings can change.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Sunday, February 1, 2026

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Sinners


  • IMDB link: Sinners
  • Tagline: "Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back."
  • My Best Picture Project

    Ohmygod. This movie was spectacular.  Seriously, do yourself a favor, and if you haven't seen it, pop some popcorn, grab a beer, and sit back and enjoy the story, the creepiness, the acting, and most of all, the music.  This was a horror movie with history, symbolism, and unexpected themes; a near-perfect example of entertaining and riveting storytelling that tells a simple story with complex and multi-layered meaning.

    Now, how to talk about this movie without giving too much away?   

    Director Ryan Coogler set the movie in 1932, and the main characters are WWI veterans-turned-Capone gangsters-turned-southern-speakeasy owners. Michael B. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack (get it?) who return home after years away, intending to open their own club.  It's sometimes hard to tell the twins apart -- one memory hint that might help as you watch the movie is that Smoke wears a blue hat (smoke is often blue), and Stack wears a red hat (smoke stacks are often made of red brick).  Anyway, they enlist their cousin, a gifted blues musician, to be their opening act.

    From there, everything goes to hell, as the movie sneaks its way from a wonderfully moody period drama into a monster movie with carefully crafted visuals and hints that observe all the rules of vampire lore (though it does speed up the turning process, from hours to minutes). Coogler also sneaks in other lore (hoodoo), and visual homages to other monsters - there is a scene of the undead singing that reminds me a little of Michael Jackson's Thriller video.

    The acting is excellent.  As always, Jordan creates a powerful presence on screen, but the entire cast is stand-out, including Delroy Lindo, Miles Caton, Halee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, Jayme Lawson, and Wunmi Mosaku They rounded out the story nicely. 

    I also want to call out Jack O'Connell, who played an important villain; he slipped between Irish and a peckerwood accents seamlessly (it makes sense, I swear).  I kept wondering how the actor could do such a perfect Irish accent, but then I found out that it's his natural accent, and the convincing, skillful part was the rural American South in his voice.  The movie also uses Irish history as an important theme. The main vampire is Irish. They drink Irish beer at the speakeasy, and it's more than just a thematic element; it's also a plot device (I can't say much about that - that would give too much away). It goes even deeper; Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, was Irish, but more than that, Irish history mirrors African American history very closely. Coogler layers in the parallels and connections beautifully.  Even small details like inclusion of the Choctaw are important (the Choctaw raised money to help the Irish during the Irish potato famine of the 1850s. 170 years later, the Irish raised money to help Native American communities hardest hit by the COVID epidemic). 

    There were only a few minor things that bothered me: one that isn't really the movie's fault, and two that are.  Not the movie's fault: I have some hearing loss, so dialogue tracks in movies need to be really clear for me to understand them, and I'm having more and more difficulty with accents other than my own as I get older. Between the rural Southern dialects and the fact that Michael B. Jordan doesn't move his lips much in this movie (this isn't true in his other roles, so I think it was a character trait that fits the character), I had some difficulty understanding what people were saying. I turned on subtitles, and that solved the issue. 

    Now for the two that ARE the movie's fault - movies today are being made with muddy dialog tracks, and it seems to be a deliberate stylistic trend; I think the moviemakers are trying to be realistic and immersive. That is true of this movie.  I know it's not just my hearing - I can turn on movies made 30 and 40 years ago and have no trouble understanding them, but I do have difficulty with a lot of modern dialogue tracks, regardless of dialect (the TV show Coroner, which takes place in Ontario, is a particularly egregious example).  The rest of the sound design is excellent, though.

    The final problem is that the credits start to roll ... but the movie is not over. There is a VERY extended outtake with another 5 or so minutes of movie that you should absolutely not miss. As we were turning off the movie, my daughter noticed that there were many more minutes left, so we went back in, and I'm glad we did. So, note to Mr. Coogler: don't start rolling the credits until the movie is genuinely over, particularly in non-Marvel movies like this one, where outtakes aren't expected. It's only because of my daughter's quick thinking that we didn't miss the real ending of the movie. The outtake isn't just a small easter egg; Buddy Guy, the real-life blues musician, plays an important part.

    One final note. The tagline includes the phrase, "an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back." Chris and I gave the movie a much higher "important message" score than we might normally give a monster flick because it addresses the virulent racism of the early 1930s.  





(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

  1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
  2. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 2, Chris 2)
* Rankings can change.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Schopenhauer's Cheap Pride

Arthur Schopenhauer
By Johann Schäfer - Frankfurt am Main
University Library, Public Domain.

    There's this thing that happens, where I come up with an idea that I think is just dandy, smart, and incisive, and then I find out someone else came up with it long before I did.  [Big, gusty sigh]

    A few weeks ago, I rewrote the third chapter of Biscuit, and, in an attempt to understand why the Germans supported Hitler, I wrote the following scene between my Grandma Roma, great-grandmother, and great-aunt:

    There was a lull, and then her sister asked with quiet befuddlement, “I don’t understand what the Germans see in him. He’s a sweaty little man with a tiny mustache and a bad haircut that flops into his face.  And he shrieks up on that stage like he is having an apoplexy.  In his letters, has Kuba ever said anything about why people like Hitler?” 

    Roma nodded.  “Jake says it’s because Hitler offers them cheap pride at a time when… how did he put it? Oh. Yes. When they were jobless and starving for empty dignity.”

    “Cheap pride?” Lola asked.

    “You know how people naturally take pride in things they work hard for?” When Roma saw that her mother and sister understood where she was going, she continued. “Well, what if you have nothing like that? No job, nothing to work for, nothing to point to that’s worthy?”

    Teofila put it together first. “Hitler gave them something easy to be proud of, didn’t he? Maybe the only thing in their life for which they never had to struggle.”

    “Yes, Mama,” Roma answered. “You don’t need any personal accomplishments, nor even useful skills.  All you have to do is be born Aryan.”

    Lola finished the idea. “And if you weren’t born Aryan, well then, tough luck.”

    The women were quiet for a long time.

 

    I was really proud of my cheap pride concept.  Germany had been harshly punished for WW1, and the Great Depression hadn't helped matters. Between the reparations and the mass joblessness due to the depression, the people were desperate for something to believe in.  I have always felt that the Treaty of Versailles, which pinned the fault for WW1 on Germany, is what led to the rise of Hitler and the cause of WW2.

    Then, today, the following quote by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer came across my Facebook feed:

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; pride in his own nation suggests he has no qualities of his own for which he can be proud, otherwise he would not reach for what he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen.  He who possesses significant personal merits will see clearly the ways in which his own nation falls short, since its failings will be constantly before his eyes. But that poor beggar who has nothing in the world for which he can be proud, as a last resort, latches onto pride in the nation to which he belongs, and is ready and glad to defend tooth and nail, all of the nation's errors and follies, thus reimbursing himself for his own lack of accomplishments."

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860

    Well, okay, then.   Looks like I didn't come up with the idea first; Schopenhauer did, more than 100 years before I was born. [Another big, gusty sigh].  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though. The Ecclesiastes principle states that "there is nothing new under the sun," and Mark Twain might have said, "There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope."   While I might not have come up with the idea first, this does tell me that human nature doesn't really change.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, January 25, 2026

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - F1: The Movie


    In case you aren't aware of the definition of a Formula 1 race car: It's an open wheel, single-seater car built under strict rules (the "formula), to be the pinnacle of speed and aerodynamics, etc. They are also expensive, with a 2026 budget cap of about $215 million. That's why the drivers and cars are just COVERED with sponsor logos.

    This was a fun, mesmerizing movie that really drops the viewer into the driver's seat of a race car going nearly 200 mph, and that's really saying something, because I have no interest in racing whatsoever. I don't exactly hate it, but I can't imagine being a fan, either. I can see wanting to be a race car driver (that might be kinda fun), but I can't imagine anything more boring than watching cars make multiple laps around a track. My husband liked the movie better than I did, but he's an excellent driver, and well, I'm not.

    But Hollywood is pretty good at making things that I'd never be interested in real life, cool, exciting, and interesting on the silver screen. I hate boxing, but I love Rocky. I dislike horse racing, but loved Seabiscuit and The Black Stallion. I'm not interested in planes except for how they can get me where I want to go, but I enjoyed Top Gun. F1 is like that. Mesmerizing, fun, and exciting, but a little thin on story. 

    This movie is the grown-up version of Pixar's Cars - the old, wily racer has stuff to teach the young, cocky driver, but in this case they are teaming up to win an F1 race.  F1 isn't as character-driven as I like in an Oscar nominee, but it did a great job of developing characters with some really excellent visual motifs and just the right kind of repetition, of showing us stuff, and sometimes telling a story or two. It had a lot of heart, showing us the hopes and dreams -- and sometimes failures -- of two amazingly talented racers.

    The racing sequences and the visuals are thrilling - and very realistic. The filmmakers filmed each race at each of the real-life races - they set up a fake pit/booth between the real Ferrari and Mercedes areas, and filmed the pit scenes while the actual race was underway.  The fake race cars were real, driven by the lead actors in real life, and had many bespoke cameras mounted on the cars.  The sound design effectively supported the story, though the race scenes were auditorily overwhelming -- not just loud, but chaotic.  My only real gripe is that the quiet scenes were too quiet, and the racing scenes were too loud.  I'd leave the sound as it was for the racing scenes, but raise the volume of the quiet dialogue scenes.

    I also hate the title, which is kind of stupid. "F1" by itself would have been OK (if unimaginative), but they tacked "The Movie" on the end, just in case the audience forgets that it's not: The Game, The Car, The Driver, The Race, or The Comic Book.  There have been many other F1 racing movies, and the title doesn't set this one apart from them, so why bother? Personally, I think a great title would have been The Greatest That Never Was (a not-so-nice nickname given to Brad Pitt's character). It's clever, and it's got some wonderful irony going for it. Or maybe The Never Was if we are going for a pithier title.

    I enjoyed the movie, and I do recommend it (well, if you might enjoy thrilling, very dangerous first-person racing in cars that drive really, really fast), but this is movie-candy, and is probably not meaty enough to win (not unless the other nominees just suck, which I doubt).  



(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

  • F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 1, Chris 1)
Not yet watched:
* Rankings can change.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

2026 AMPAS Best Picture Nominees - Initial thoughts, trailers, and other miscellany

    Every year, my husband Chris and I try to watch all of the AMPAS Best Picture Nominees and review, rate, and rank them prior to the awards ceremony, which is on March 15, 2026. Here are this year's nominees.

    Note: The movie title/headings will take you to the IMDb page for that movie.

Bugonia 

Tagline: "Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth."

    Yeah, Emma Stone (star) and Yorgos Lanthimos (director) like both working together, and making weird movies (like the brilliant, imaginative, and somewhat obscene Poor Things two years ago), and this movie seems entirely on-brand for those two.  My prediction, not having seen, nor knowing anything about it ... she probably IS an Alien.  Available on streaming (Prime, etc.).
 




***

F1: The Movie 

Tagline: "A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver."

    The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was abut Formula One racing, and that it has father-son-type relationship in it.   Looks like Top Gun on wheels, which means I'll probably like it well enough, even though I'm uninterested in racing. Available on streaming (Prime, etc.).




***

Frankenstein

Tagline: "Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation."

    Years ago, I saw the Guillermo del Toro exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the man loves Frankenstein so much that he has a bunch of Frankenstein sculptures, drawings, and other art in his house. It's safe to say that he loves (is obsessed with?) Mary Shelley's book, so I'm rather excited to see this one, as there is no worthy movie version. Hopefully, that is about to change. Available on streaming (Netflix)




***

Hamnet

Tagline: "After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss."

    I adore movies that show how real life influences Shakespeare's plays (Shakespeare in Love, I'm looking at you!). This one looks to be more tragic, as it depicts the death of Shakespeare's real-life son, Hamnet, and how it may have influenced what many consider Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, Hamlet. It also seems to be more about Shakespeare's wife Anne/Agnes, which is nice because she's often overlooked in favor of her more famous husband.  In theaters, and not yet available on streaming.




***

Marty Supreme

Tagline: "Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness."  

    It appears to be an underdog movie about ... ping-pong?   The third movie in a row that Timothee Chalamet starred in a Best Picture-nonimated movie. In theaters and available for pre-order on streaming.




***


One Battle After Another

Tagline: "When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own."  

    I know nothing about this movie, other than it's got Leonardo DiCaprio in it (shrug). Available on streaming (Prime, etc.)




***


The Secret Agent

Tagline: "In 1977, a technology expert flees from a mysterious past and returns to his hometown of Recife in search of peace. He soon realizes that the city is far from being the refuge he seeks." 

Last year's Portuguese-language nominee wasn't available on streaming before the Oscar ceremony, and I never got around to seeing it, so when I realized this was another movie out of Brazil, it seemed like the Cosmic Movie Gods were shaking their finger at me in reprimand. This movie looks like a lot of fun - it's a crime drama/thriller with some comic elements (it's a work of fiction set against the backdrop of the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s), but it'll still be a lot of work to watch with subtitles. In theaters and available for pre-order on streaming.




***

Sentimental Value

Tagline: "An intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art."

    This looks to be a movie about a movie-maker who neglected his children in favor of his art.  I'm a fan of Stellan Skarsgård, so I'm looking forward to it. The movie appears to be in Norwegian (odd as Skarsgård is Swedish) and English. Available on streaming (Prime, etc.).




***


Sinners

Tagline: "Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back."

    Another partnership between Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan (both of Marvel's Black Panther), and this one is getting a lot of buzz, with a record-breaking sixteen nominations.  It appears to be a horror movie (the only horror movie to ever win best picture is The Silence of the Lambs, which I contend is one of the finest horror movies ever made), mixing 1930s-era Jim Crow, Southern Gothic elements, Blues ... and vampires?  It looks just scary enough that I'll watch it on a weekend during daylight hours. Available for streaming (Prime, etc.).




***


Train Dreams

Tagline: "Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century."

    This feels similar to A River Runs Through It, which is an excellent coming-of-age movie. This seems just as beautiful, too, though it looks like it is more about the other end of life, the regret for the passage of time, the losses, and a changing world.  It's also got William H. Macy, who is always great. Available on streaming (Netflix).





***


    Unusually, I know very little about this year's best-picture movies, and I'm going into most of them nearly blind, and I've nearly always had great experiences when that was the case.  The only exception is Frankenstein, as I've read the novel and seen a play (a sequel of sorts to the story) and at least one different movie version. 

Some initial cross-movie trends:

  • Timothee Chalamet has starred in three Best Picture-nominated movies in the last two years (Marty Supreme, Dune II, and A Complete Unknown). He has been nominated for Best Actor for two of those (Marty Supreme and A Complete Unknown)
  • There are 6 period-setting movies: Frankenstein (1800s), Hamnet (early1600s), Marty Supreme (1950s), The Secret Agent (1970s), Sinners (1930s), and Train Dreams (early 1900s).
  • There are 4 modern-setting movies: Bugonia, F1, One Battle After Another, and Sentimental Value.
  • There are 2 movies with languages other than English for some or all of the movie: Sentimental Value (some English and some Norwegian), and The Secret Agent (Portuguese).

    Enjoy!

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Robert and the Kicking Stone

Magical Realism (500 Words): Think of a fantastical image or episode, and incorporate it into a story, which is told in a completely realistic, matter-of-fact, non-magical way. This will have the effect of making the magical appear real. Bring the reader into your world of magical realism by tapping into their senses, fusing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch of the gritty real world with the magical. For example: “Gita’s skin caught the gnarled cedar bowl as she handed him the ten rupees. Smoked ground turmeric and specks of her blood rained on the Punjabi street-market floor and turned into gold.”    

***

    Robert and Miss Turska climbed out of Papa’s taxicab, the big Peugeot 402.  Robert could tell that Mama didn’t want him to get out because they might get lost in the traffic jam, or run into German soldiers or something. But they were driving so slowly, Papa thought it would be okay.  

    Miss Turska bent down and picked something up off the road. “Do you know the game, ‘kick the pebble’?” she asked Robert. She held out her hand and showed him a white pebble about the size of his favorite shooter marble, but not as smooth and not as round.

    “No,” Robert said, staring at the pebble, which kept changing color from white to gray and back.

    “Well, I played it as a little girl.” She dropped the pebble, and it turned gray when it hit the road, sending a spray of black sparks that turned white as it skittered forward.

    Miss Turska caught up to the pebble and gave it a little kick. “See? You kick the stone just a little distance, then do it again.” 

    She gave another kick, and it tumbled forward ksh-ksh-ksh until it hit a little bump in the road, which sent it flying, where it giggled and sent out more sparks, until it hit —BONK—the back of a man’s calf.   

    The pebble fell to the ground and lay quietly.

    The man put down the handles of his wheelbarrow, which was piled high with suitcases, turned, and glared at Miss Turska.   He said something to her in Flemish, but Robert didn’t understand Flemish very well, yet. Then he turned and stomped forward again.

    “I’m sorry, sir.” Miss Turska called after him, snatching up the pebble. “Well,” she said to Robert, “you must be careful not to hit anyone. Do you think you can kick this pebble all the way to France, without doing so?”

    Robert grinned. “Yes, ma’am!”  

    Miss Turska handed him the pebble.  

    Robert looked at the lumpy white kicking stone, then gently drop-kicked it like a football. It shot forward, but stopped just shy of hitting the wheelbarrow man again.   Tiny white flower-sparks bounced out of it.

    “Very good!  The only rule is to never allow the stone to hit anyone.  If you do that, you lose.”  

    Robert smiled at Miss Turska. She was okay. 

    There was a big open space ahead of them, so Robert gave the pebble a really solid kick, but instead of giggling and sending flowers, it just made regular sparks. He looked up. Two men shoved a woman out of their way as they left one of the houses along the road, carrying a lumpy bag. She got up and wailed, “How will I feed my children?!”

    “Are they stealing her food?” Robert asked Miss Turska. “Shouldn’t we fetch the police?” Papa always said that a good man never hurt women, children, or dogs.

    “Oh, yes, my young man,” Miss Turska replied. “But you see, there are no police to help her. They’ve all fled, too.”

--January 18, 2026

***

    Hopefully, the setting is clear, but in case it's not:  It takes place in Belgium, around May 15, 1940. They are heading west toward France, refugees escaping the Nazi invasion of western Europe, and caught up in what was probably the greatest population movement in European history. Think apocalypse-lite crossed with a traffic jam from hell.

    Robert and Miss Turska were real people, though their actions in this story are fiction. Robert was the son of the taxi driver my grandfather hired to take his family to Calais. I don't know his real name or his age, though I imagine him as an eight-year-old. Félicie Turska was my great-grandfather Herman's housekeeper, and later, his second wife. She would have been about 46 when the story takes place.

1939 Peugeot 402 taxi (left) in Paris.
Source.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

1939: Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Tiffany Problem

Apologies to Ms. Darwish for irrelevantly
using her excellent album to refer to a literary concept

    My daughter first alerted me to the Tiffany Problem (TP), but I didn't encounter it in my own writing until last night, when a writer's group workshopped a chapter from Biscuit for me.   

    TP refers to a situation in which the modern audience perceives a name, word, or concept as too modern, so that its use in the text seems historically inaccurate, even if it is not actually anachronistic. In other words, it's something that is incorrectly assumed to be a goof (to use IMDb terminology). 

    The origin of the phrase arises from the idea that Tiffany was a hugely popular name in the 1980s, and so people assume it is modern, when the name is actually quite old (it's a nickname for Theophania, which dates to medieval times). The first recorded example of Tiffany as a girl's name spelled with a -y dates to the 1600s.

Here are the two examples from my writing, and they are from a scene taking place in 1939:

  • She was planning to quit her job when the baby came, and then they’d have no financial cushion at all.
  • As he always did when making a big decision, he did a cost-benefit analysis. He quickly drew a two-column table on his scratch pad and filled it out.

    In the interests of fairness to my readers, I didn't know the history of either phrase before last night.  When they brought it up, I suspected cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was historically accurate, but that's all it was, a suspicion. And I never even thought about "financial cushion." I used both phrases because I didn't think to separate my vocabulary from that of my characters.

    Financial cushion really is a problem - while the term "cushion" has been used figuratively to mean "protective buffer" for a long time (back to the 1800s, possibly earlier), the word "cushion" used in conjunction with "financial" first started appearing in print in the 1940s and 1950s.  It began appearing in official documents in the mid-1960s but didn't come into common use until the latter part of the 20th century.  While it's not impossible in 1939 (word usage always starts before the historical record, which is just when it was first written down), it's definitely improbable. I'll probably just remove the word "financial" (or look for similar period-accurate phrases).

   CBA, on the other hand, is definitely a Tiffany. The concept was first played with by French engineers in the 1700s. A French civil engineer named Jules Dupuit (the guy who helped build the Paris sewer system) pioneered the modern approach in 1844 (though he called it "the measurement of the utility of public works"), and an English economist standardized and formalized it by the late 1800s. The phrase was in common use in English by the 1930s (the practice and term were regularly used in President Roosevelt's WPA projects), and CBAs became part of American federal policy by 1939.  

    Interestingly, despite its origin as a French concept, the modern French version of the phrase, analyse coûts-bénéfices, or sometimes analyse coûts-avantages, didn't go into common usage until the 1950s. So the concept had been well-established for nearly 100 years by the time my story takes place. The cognate was in common use in English but less commonly in French. And given its origin as a French engineering term, I suspect that its use by a French-speaking engineer in 1939 is downright likely.

    The thing is, even though the use of CBA isn't really a goof, it might still be a problem if it yanks readers out of the world of the story.  

    It raises the question of what my role as a storyteller is. On one hand, it's not my fault when readers lack an encyclopedic etymological understanding of every possible phrase I might use.  On the other hand, a good writer immerses her readers in the world of the story, and it would be foolish not to minimize stimuli that yank readers out of that world.

    This is where decision-making gets hard.  My grandpa was an engineer, and I want his story to seem like it's from an engineer's point of view. Using engineering terms that are also in common use just makes sense to me.  But at what cost? (Ha! See what I did there?)

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)