fifty-fifty

Film Just after I'd finished my film course, I found it quite difficult to talk about movies without dropping related jargon in everyday small talk. I'd always dread being asked about I thought of this or that film because I know at some point I'd inadvertently drag myself into a sentence which included phrases like 'the trajectory of the protagonist' or 'deployment of the narrative structure'. Lately I've managed to keep such things to myself, generally, not necessarily unlearning what I've learnt, but at least with a greater awareness of when it should be used.

Lizzie Widdicombe's Vernacular piece for the New Yorker is a reminder that actually like any jargon, there's nothing wrong with using it, so long as you're in the right company. Not that you could really call something like 'hair in the gate' jargon in the technical sense, but it's certainly words grouped in a way that the general population might not be aware of. My favourite is fifty-fifty since it describes the kinds of films I tend to enjoy, in which there's an element of theatre and the reactions of both characters are on screen at the same time (def, art house).