But isn't all opera twaddle? I was asked.

[Bryn]

No no no no no .... the "t' " prefix denotes a noun, not a verb: it's the glottal-stopped "the" ("Trouble at t'Mill") and is silent; the "t" in "to" is always sounded ("You've got to see this!") - "t'waddle" would mean "the waddle", and would be pronounced "waddle".

(Bibliography: Learn thissel' Lancy, Butterthwaite ed Ferney; Wippett & Flattkapp, 1972.)

Thissel do nicely.

[ahinton]

Thissel do nicely.

"Thissel" sounds more as though it comes from my original neck of the woods rather north of the "northern powerhouse"...

[french frank]

I suspect (read "reckon") that people who claim that Opera is "twaddle" are concentrating on the "story", and expecting the sort of "realistic" narrative that they'd encounter in a film, play, or "story" - and either can't move beyond the often, yes, trivial plots of many operas, and/or beyond the "unrealistic" "why are they singing?" stage.

If one could find someone who a) thought opera was twaddle and b) had a real (albeit limited) knowledge of opera, they might be able to confirm your suspicion. As for, 'Why are they singing? ', I can think of a lot of people about whom I might ask that

[verismissimo]

Thank you - but that suggests to me that the word is itself flawed, in that "trivial" isn't at all the same thing as "nonsense" (or "foolish"). As you say, Life is precious, and isn't (or shouldn't be) trivial, but it is often "nonsense" - and requires us to create the "sense" for ourselves and each other. Art is/can be one of the ways that we do this.

I suspect (read "reckon") that people who claim that Opera is "twaddle" are concentrating on the "story", and expecting the sort of "realistic" narrative that they'd encounter in a film, play, or "story" - and either can't move beyond the often, yes, trivial plots of many operas, and/or beyond the "unrealistic" "why are they singing?" stage. It's the "looking at a Kandinsky expecting to see a hay cart" thing - people trying to transfer ways of experiencing from one Art form to another in the hope of getting the same enjoyment.

Now that's what I call …

[cloughie]

Twaddle = t'waddle.....down to t'pond....

I’ve heard anyone in the north use it - Must be a M25 environs myth!

[Demetrius]

Since we resurrected this thread: no it isn't, but you will have a hard time convincing people who goes into a discussion like this. The primary assumption in this comment is that things are only worth something if the story they present conforms to a unspecific quality that isn't twaddle. So right off, every argument for the musical quality is worthless in the eyes of the person who comes up with that nugget of a question. If you take Turandot as an example: The quality of the story is debatable (what possessed the writer to portrait Kalaf and Turandot as heroes of the plot? It doesn't work in any way or form). The musical brilliance, on the other hand, is not. My first step would be to question the person about what he considers to be quality, or the opposite of twaddle, then take it from there.

As for Harry Potter and Dr. Who ... Harry Potter is well written and a top quality story as long as you don't expect a story to be original in the sense of "wow, that's never been done before!". It is quite good at blending an rearranging of well used tropes (didn't we have a discussion about that word rather recently ). So again: what is quality in you eyes ... if you want Ulysses, you will be disappointed. Dr Who as any TV series suffers from varying quality episode to episode. The continued strength of Dr Who lies in the ability of the actor playing the Doctor, which has been quite consistently high, and in the fact that the time travel setup doesn't seem to get old. It can rip open the imagination of children and adults alike in numbers that Ulysses could not if every person in the world were forced to read it at a weekly basis. The writing for this TV series, on average, doesn't reach the quality of Harry Potter, let alone any of the classics. It doesn't need to, it's qualities lie elsewhere.

[MrGongGong]

Harry Potter is well written and a top quality story as long as you don't expect a story to be original in the sense of "wow, that's never been done before!".

"well written" ?
As free from plagiarism as the works (ALLEGEDLY) of ALW more like

[LMcD]

No no no no no .... the "t' " prefix denotes a noun, not a verb: it's the glottal-stopped "the" ("Trouble at t'Mill") and is silent; the "t" in "to" is always sounded ("You've got to see this!") - "t'waddle" would mean "the waddle", and would be pronounced "waddle".

(Bibliography: Learn thissel' Lancy, Butterthwaite ed Ferney; Wippett & Flattkapp, 1972.)

I googled 'waddle definition' and up came 'Noun ' a waddling gait'.

[ahinton]

If you take Turandot as an example

Puccini's, I presume...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Puccini's, I presume...

I don't think so - Deme described the "Musical brilliance" as not debatable.

[Serial_Apologist]

What does "twaddle" mean?

My previous doctor - a Dr Twaddle, wiould you believe?!?! I used to cringe when I went into the surgery and would have to ask for an appointment!

[Demetrius]

Puccini's, I presume...

Yep.

@MrGongGong: As to ALW, took me a while to get who you referred to. Anyway, plagiarism. As far as I know, there were to major claims against Harry Potter, one of which relies on the fact that another author in two completely separate works had thought of the word "Muggle", used in a different context, and invented a guy called Larry Potter, who also had dark hair. I would consider this as rather weak. Another, quite a bit stronger, claim was made about a specific plot line of one of the HP books; the court case was dismissed because one side ran out of money to pursue it, I think we can guess which one.

Again, Harry Potter is not original. It heavily relies on tropes, on formulas that have been used before. Which is typical of fantasy writers; or mystery writers, or sci-fi writers. You have an audience that is used to certain concepts: the hoard-protecting dragon, the concept of a weapon of power, the locked room mystery, etc. etc. The audience will recognize them being used or subverted. This does not subtract from their enjoyment of the story. And even the greatest literature is not free of using tropes. The Brontës surely have written some of the more original/brilliant/non-twaddle novels in history. Yet they were very aware of the gothic novel (Ann Radcliffe, certainly, and many more) und used their formulas freely (and cleverly).

[Richard Barrett]

Harry Potter is well written

Actually some years ago I came across a copy of the first book and tried to read it, but gave up not long afterwards precisely because I found it very badly written indeed. I wasn't expecting anything with exalted literary qualities and Im happy to read say a SF novel that isn't well written if the author's imagination is sufficient, but I didn't find that to be the case either: as you've said, you have tropes from various familiar genres, including the well-worn boarding school yarn and playing up to young readers' fascination with bodily secretions etc. etc. wrapped up in pretty nondescript language.

[MrGongGong]

Yep.

@MrGongGong: As to ALW, took me a while to get who you referred to. Anyway, plagiarism. As far as I know, there were to major claims against Harry Potter, one of which relies on the fact that another author in two completely separate works had thought of the word "Muggle", used in a different context, and invented a guy called Larry Potter, who also had dark hair. I would consider this as rather weak. Another, quite a bit stronger, claim was made about a specific plot line of one of the HP books; the court case was dismissed because one side ran out of money to pursue it, I think we can guess which one.

Again, Harry Potter is not original. It heavily relies on tropes, on formulas that have been used before. Which is typical of fantasy writers; or mystery writers, or sci-fi writers. You have an audience that is used to certain concepts: the hoard-protecting dragon, the concept of a weapon of power, the locked room mystery, etc. etc. The audience will recognize them being used or subverted. This does not subtract from their enjoyment of the story. And even the greatest literature is not free of using tropes. The Brontës surely have written some of the more original/brilliant/non-twaddle novels in history. Yet they were very aware of the gothic novel (Ann Radcliffe, certainly, and many more) und used their formulas freely (and cleverly).

http://web.archive.org/web/20071223193628/www.geocities.com/sayswamp/worst.htm

[Demetrius]

That illuminates my point brilliantly

The basic idea is very simple: kid goes to a school for witches/wizards. There are books for children like this with every possible variation of fantasy being. A school setting is just what children's books do.

That a dwelling of witches is on a foreboding mountain - if anyone was plagiarized, it was Goethe, who undoubtedly also got it from somewhere.

That the protagonist is an outsider is also almost universal in books for children and young adults, since this audience often feels like an outsider and likes to relate. That the school has a disapproving teacher ... is unsurprising, really. In fact, the friendly headmaster/tough teacher combo is a staple: look at the school stories of Enid Blyton. Broom flying lessons ... also not the most unconventional idea at such a school. All these are story telling tropes of a certain type of story. Take out the magic parts and the whole setup reflects about 26,4 % of all stories geared towards audiences younger than 16. If you take the magical components into account, it is probably still 5 percent.

The genre is highly formulaic. To find similarities to other works is by no means shocking or plagiarism. But think about this: the first Harry Potter book did not have a massive ad campaign behind it, in fact, nobody expected it to do particularly well. And yet it lead to the enormous success it has been. So, while all these other, similar stories rut in relative obscurity, this book took off, driven at first mostly by audience reaction. Maybe there is indeed a quality about this work that the overs lack, which may lie exactly in the successful blending of tropes and formulas.