This probably isn’t worthy of General Questions, so I’ll put it here for now.
A while back, I was watching Leave it to Beaver, and June says something to Beaver like, “Why don’t you go look at television for a while?” Recently, I heard or saw that again – “look at television” – from a 50’s movie or something. In the early days of TV, did people generally say “look at television” instead of “watch television”, or did I just hear a couple of odd constructions? “Looking at” something seems more passive and casual than “watching” something. Was there some shift from when we merely looked at TV to when we started watching it? Do you ever hear people today talking about “looking at TV”? Did people ever “look at” plays or movies?
I don’t know why I remember this, as it happened 27 years ago, but in the first grade, every Monday, we would have a “Tell the Class What You Did Over the Weekend” discussion.
Every Monday, this girl would say, amongst other things, that she “looked at TV.”
She was African-American, so in my mind, I thought it was an African American expression.
In the 27 years since, I’ve heard it a few times, and if I recall correctly, I have heard it more from black folks than others.
And yet it’s no more common here than anywhere else – possibly less.
This was discussed here last year, and no obvious pattern of usage emerged, except that it was rare.
I still agree with what I wrote then: that when TV first became popular, it took time before there was a consensus on what verb to use for it, and some of the early alternatives are still in use, here and there.
If you had known my Great-Aunt Helen, you’d have added her name to the “others”, as she was of Czech descent. She “looked at pograms* on the television”.
I figure she (and others who used the construction) simply updated the phrase “listening to” (the radio) when the new medium came along.
not a typo – she indeed dropped the first r of the word
Once when I was married to my first husband, we had the following exchange:
Him: “Why are you reading that damn book in here.” (or something like that)
Me: “Well, I’m sitting here enjoying my book while you enjoy watching the TV.”
Him: “I ain’t enjoyin’ it, I’m just lookin’ at it !!”
I thought it odd to put it that way, but he is a bit old-fashioned.
“Look at” television seems odd to me for a couple reasons.
Would the same person say they like to look at a play, look at a movie, look at a baseball game?
“Look at” almost implies a still image or scene to me. You could look at a painting or look at a skyline. Once the image becomes dynamic you are watching it.
Do they also say the like to “hear radio” sometimes?