That is a nasty term or art. Glad I’m not in the business. I hope it never gets out into wider circulation. A “cute meet” would be much better, but is still nasty.
What’s wrong with the concept?
I thought it already was a relatively well-known and widely-used term among people who read about and talk about movies, like “MacGuffin” or “idiot plot.”
Yes, and usually used as a verb phrase, as in “Meg Ryan and [pick an actor] meet cute in this new film.”
It is. It’s been a Hollywood term since the 1940s. It’s pretty funny that someone thinks it’s a new phrase that started within the last year. I think I first heard it in reference to “You’ve Got Mail” from 1998.
Which demographic doesn’t (much) include me. Hence my ignorance. Thanks for the info.
As @needscoffee says, as a verb phrase it’s not too bad. As a noun phrase “meet cutely” would be a lot closer to normal English: [Actress] and [Actor] meet cutely in [Movie]".
@Miller: A “meet cute” to me sounds far too much like the Midwestern social event called a “meat shoot”
Which was not something I had ever heard of until I encountered it in person. Whodathunkit?
I was wondering why he found the concept nauseating, not the term.
I only mean the zany, contrived, rom-com stuff.
But if you dislike a trope, it can be very helpful to have a label for it, so that you can identify what you dislike.
"How come. . . " If ya wanna know ‘why,’ just ask ‘Why. . .’
Yeah, why didn’t Shakespeare just write “Why are you (named) Romeo?” instead of all that high-faluting “wherefore art thou” wordiness?
Yeah, the m-c (I can’t even type it) is unrealistic romantic fluff.
The danger is that, after watching those schmaltzy movies, someone will bump into someone at a Starbucks and spill their Whadafucciccino all over both of them, and think “Sigh… this must be The One!”
Exactly, and that starts the trope of the lovable goofy guy romantically pursuing the object of his affection
creep stalking his poor victim.
Genius! Pure genius! I’m totally stealing this.
[curtsies] Thanks, it just came to me…
… as a student wandered into class fifteen minutes late with some frothy Starbucks concoction.
I don’t care for the following turn of phrase used in this example: “As a doctor, people should still be wearing facemasks.”
This, I guess, is supposed to mean something like: “As a doctor, I’m of the opinion people should still be wearing facemasks.”
It’s really not that difficult to type another couple of words on your phone. Or is it? There sure seems to be a lot of folks who are violently offended if anyone suggests they write consistently in an comprehensible manner.
One often hears that, “Words matter.” I’m kind of a outlier in that I believe that sentences and paragraphs matter, too; that indeed, any string of letters and characters one presents to the world has import (maybe) so it’s best to put those letters and characters together in such a way they’ll be most easily understood.
Others believe that anything they write–even random nonsense–is just peachy and if it doesn’t convey a clear thought? Well, that must be the reader’s fault and they had better adapt to the Brave New World of “whatthehellbusinessofYOURSisithowIwrite?”
Around these parts you’ll sometimes hear (read) the snarky admonition, “Try reading for comprehension!” I think we could use more appeals to, “Try writing for comprehension.”
I see that all the time at my job too. “Sorry I was late, there was a line at Starbucks.” As if that was a universally acceptable excuse for failure to plan ahead and resulting shitty workmanship and imposition on your fellow workers.
A line at a familiar understaffed Starbucks at 8am at a packed airport? Who could have predicted such a surprise!?!?! Apparently fairly few of my cow-orkers.
Yes to all this, but aren’t people more or less quoting Daffy Duck being all those things when they use the phrase?
OTOH I may quote Daffy Duck more often than other people. It would explain a lot of blank looks.
Side hustle. I hate it, hate hearing it.
In an interview before he died
I talked to him before he died
He went to France before he died
Well, DUH! Unless either you’re a necromancer or he’s a zombie, it happened before he died. Now it could have happened years or minutes prior to said death, but come on.