What do you mean?
That reading is highly unlikely.
That is how I understand it too, and it makes perfect sense. "Foreign film" here is a category/genre (like "fiction" or "porn").
In which case the original sentence would be nothing short of ungrammatical. Never mind the fact that 'foreign film' (singular) is inelegant when describing a category films (plural) - it should be either 'foreign', on its own, or 'foreign films' (plural).
Nope. It's perfectly grammatical.
No, it's not. It's perfectly natural.
Again, no. The genre is foreign film. Foreign films are individual films. Foreign on its own is incomplete.
Then why not 'fiction film' or 'porn film', instead of 'fiction' or 'porn' alone? Why this inconsistency - fiction, porn, but 'foreign film'?
Because language is not consistent.
Just because we say "porn" doesn't mean we can't say "foreign film" (I don't think "fiction" is used to refer to films/movies). "Foreign film" is definitely a category/genre, and the original is definitely acceptable.
Interesting! I don't find it weird or affected in the least, and certainly not ungrammatical.
Can you try to pinpoint the difference?
Perhaps, although johngiovanni seems to be okay with it.
?
I did not. All I knew was what the OP explained - a friend of a friend saying it...
LOL. This is Calvin and Hobbes, one of the most famous US comic strips around!
I don't think anyone here is doing anything of the sort. I am not "giving" the sentence an interpretation, nor do I find the sentence in any way "weird." When I read it, I immediately understood the meaning with no effort whatsoever.
The second sentence has a totally different meaning so comparing it to the original in terms of which is more natural doesn't make sense. As for the first, no one said the original is necessarily more natural. Both sentences are equally natural, and they basically mean the same thing, although there's an ever-so-slight difference in nuance, because "foreign film" is the genre whereas "foreign films" are the individual films (seen as a group, of course). It's the same as the difference between "I like fiction" and "I like fiction books."
The description in the OP makes it quite clear that they are talking about a particular Japanese film, not about a whole category of films. For the speaker "that Japanese film", as already described, may easily be "that foreign film". I do not see how the second sentence may be discounted as 'not making sense' in the context given.
It makes perfect sense to say "that foreign film is inaccessible" when talking about a film that has already been defined.
I never said it didn't make sense; I said it was highly unlikely. (I think you misunderstood the "not making sense" part of my last post, but it doesn't matter.)
If only this principle had been applied more thoroughly by omitting "that," we wouldn't be engaged in this debate.
Exactly. Plus, it's a joke. It's only funny if it's a generalisation.I never said it didn't make sense; I said it was highly unlikely. (I think you misunderstood the "not making sense" part of my last post, but it doesn't matter.)
Actually, now that I think about it, I do think that reading doesn't make sense! The only thing that Calvin tells Hobbes about the movie is that it has a "Japanese cast"; he doesn't specify which particular movie it is. How could Hobbes know what "people say" about that particular movie if he doesn't even know which movie it is?! All he knows is that it's a Japanese movie, so he makes a statement about foreign movies in general.
Another important point is that in American English, we rarely use the word "film" to mean "movie."
If only this principle had been applied more thoroughly by omitting "that," we wouldn't be engaged in this debate.
That's actually probably the most powerful argument against boozer's reading, but also the most difficult to prove. Logical and lexical arguments aside, boozer's reading simply falls flat and just doesn't work. It was only after analyzing the sentence and context metalinguistically that I identified the other arguments I presented. This one I intuitively felt.
It's unlikely he's heard people speaking about the accessibility of that specific film since he didn't even know the film existed before his friend mentioned it. More likely, "film" is uncountable in this case, as per the Oxford LD's definition:
Oh, come on, Boozer, make a little effort! Elroy, Velisarius, Johngiovanni and Scrawny Goat have all tried to persuade you that "foreign film" is a perfectly normal expression. I agree with them. At what point will you accept you might have been mistaken?
Drumroll....... and have you changed your mind now that you have seen the context?When you press the thumbnail, you get nothing but the thumbnail.
When you press the link, however, a cartoon opens. Had no idea there it made any difference.
Your link is dead for me, too, but I have seen it now.
Ah. In American English, we almost never use the word "cinema."
This might be a browser issue. I'm using Safari and clicking the thumbnail opens up the comic for me.When you press the thumbnail, you get nothing but the thumbnail.
Trying to answer this makes my head hurt. I'm teetering between "equally likely" and "plural somewhat more likely."
I agree.
Part of the joke lies in the contrast between the boyish eagerness for sensational violence and the mature reflection on the limitations of people's attitudes.
Ditto.
I do not know about 'oriental', but I would certainly have expected 'cinema'.
Yes, so have I and that was my point. It's the "people say" that made me stop and think, because I don't think that in Britain "people say" exactly that.
Using 'people say' as a reference to critics elevates the speaker to a position which dismisses the critics as ordinary people, pedestrians on the cultural highway.
So do I. That is why first, in post 31, I quoted meaning (b) (abstract); and secondly. in post 46, I was taking meaning (a) (countable) into consideration as well:
Both definitions of 'cinema' are valid. My suggestion is that the countable meaning lends the abstract meaning of 'cinema' a nuance which is not quite matched by 'film'.
