MAJOR goof
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avenark — 20 years ago(November 20, 2005 12:15 AM)
Maybe it's insane of me to point this out, but the word "easy" can be used as an adjective and as an adverb. So "everything came too easy" is actually totally fine. But this is debatable, since I looked it up in Webster's and Oxford, and Oxford did not have "easy" down as anything more than an adjective, though Webster's did.
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lizardking1726 — 20 years ago(November 20, 2005 12:24 PM)
guys really now, who really cares, its 2 letters, get over it, and whats wrong with that statement it was really fun. Theres no improper grammar there.An adverb can describe an adjective. Same with it was over very quick. Adverb describes and adjective. it would be like me saying this board is really stupid and pointless or i cant believe i wasted my time posting on this incredibly uptight board.
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jrtf83 — 20 years ago(January 10, 2006 01:11 AM)
jesus, and they let people like you VOTE?!? haha, j/k. but the problem with the sentence "it was over very quick." is that the proper useage is "it was over very quickly." the issue is not the use of the word very, but with the use of the word quick. I'm not sure what's wrong with saying something is fun though
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jbartelone — 16 years ago(December 02, 2009 01:23 PM)
Van Doren's speech in the movie is condensed for time. In reality it was about 3-4 pages long. The only quote that was added in by Redford for dramatic effect was the phrase:
"I have flown too high, on borrowed wings." It's a wonderful quote, but is not in the original transcript.
Quiz Show remains one of my favorite movies of all time.
Joe -
pogostiks — 20 years ago(December 31, 2005 03:45 AM)
Hi
I have to admit that I too dislike the lack of adverbial use in American speech.
A typical one that makes me go crazy is "I did real good" instead of "I did really well".
The real problem here, I think, is that if you DO talk correctLY, then people begin to suspect you of not being a "regular guy". In America, sophistication - in dress, taste or language - before you are in your 50's, seem to suggest gayness, and heaven forbid that anyone ever be suspected of THAT!
Remember the Apple advertisement: Think Different!
Do you really think that the ad execs don't know that you should say "think differently?"
But they would never use that in an advertisement, because the average American would think it was snobbish!
Ah, America, always bringing things down (even an Apple ad) to the LOWEST common denominator!
PS: If you also wanna call ME anal retentive, go ahead, but just for your information, my problem tends to be the opposite! -
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torreydeluca — 20 years ago(February 04, 2006 04:07 PM)
A long time ago I posted in this thread that I'd once read the transcripts of the Congressional Hearing for an undergrad college paper, and I was pretty sure that Ralph's speech at the end of the film is verbatim to the real van Doren's speech.
I recently got around to looking through my papers and books to see if I could confirm the section in question. Yes, it did take me five months and a rainy weekend with nothing to do to finally look through stuff in my room. I guess this really isn't a hot button issue for me.
Anyway, I don't have the appropriate papers in my own possession. From my search I was able to determine that the full transcript of the hearings is available in a book fully entitled:
Investigation of Television Quiz Shows: Hearings Before a Subcomittee of Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 86th Congress, 1st session, Washington D.C., U.S. Government Priority Office, 1960
The library at the university I work for doesn't have the book, and neither does my city's public library. If one of you has the time (not to mention the motivation!!!) then he/she can look it up and put this to rest. I know that Harvard University has this book - in case one of us is a Crimson and has current access to their library system.
I can tell you that this transcript is 1156 pages long in most published forms, but I can't tell you what page to look on!! -
momlovesannie1998 — 20 years ago(March 21, 2006 04:31 PM)
Hey, Cable. You should see how they tore me up over on the board featuring the television show, the Medium. I posed the same point; the U.S. does not demand excellence in writing therefore the grammar basically sucks. (I know I need a noun after suckser, how about lemons?) Boy, did I catch hell. I agree with you 100%. Two more:
"Everyone is taking their date to the party."
"I am going to lay down now." -
EJF — 19 years ago(April 26, 2006 02:38 PM)
To get back to the original question that was asked, the complete transcript of Van Doren's testimony including his statement and all the questioning was published in the New York Times on Nov. 3, 1959.
The line "I had all the breaks; everything came too easy" does not appear. -
torreydeluca — 19 years ago(May 04, 2006 03:33 PM)
Thanks EJF. I could've done that months ago as the university I work at has all the New York Times editions on microfiche. And the library is only a one minute walk from my office!! Oh well
Over a decade ago I wrote a paper as an undergrad on the quiz show scandals, and had even read that very NYT edition on microfiche. I didn't recall at all seeing the complete transcript of van Doren's testimony. Shows you how well you can trust your memory on these things.
I think when I get a spare moment soon I'll check that statement out. I know that Charlie's original prepared statement was way longer than what's in the movie, but I thought that Attanasio had basically lifted certain parts of it word-for-word. I guess that section in the film about being down in the mud and building a foundation was all Attanasio's own writing, but it sure sounded like something van Doren would have said! -
jgravely — 19 years ago(July 13, 2006 08:20 AM)
"In a way he was like the country he lived in. Everything came too easy."
That's a line quoted a couple of times from a paper one of Robert Redford's characters Hubbell Gardner wrote in the Way We Were. Hubbell Gardner and Charles Van Doren both were golden boys who seemed to have everything. I think it's just a nod to that earlier film.
It's a dirty job, but I pay clean money for it.