Sketch Anglais

Higgins

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According to French Wikipedia "Kitsch" evolved from saying "Sketch Anglais" in German over and over really fast. Since "Sketch Anglais" is
a mix already...it's all very confusing:


http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch


Not only that but the origin of kitsch is "Anglais Sketch" which must have been concocted in some language other than French or in French but while imitating a non-existent language concocted of French and English.
 
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ColoradoGuy

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Well, that may or may not be how the word arose, but are you trying to say something about what the newly arisen word actually describes? Don't be shy, now.
 

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First, that is not the origin of kitsch; that's folk etymology.

The origin is Germanic; See the AHD. The OED also suggests a German origin.

Second, again Sokal, I ask: do you have a point?
 

Higgins

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Jeez

First, that is not the origin of kitsch; that's folk etymology.

The origin is Germanic; See the AHD. The OED also suggests a German origin.

Second, again Sokal, I ask: do you have a point?


No, no point. Or perhaps a very very minor point: I thought "Sketch Anglais" or "Anglais Sketch" seemed like an unlikely origin for "Kitsch". I also thought it was a little bit comical....funny...which is no real excuse, I know, but there you have it.
 
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Higgins

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Out on a Lem

Well, that may or may not be how the word arose, but are you trying to say something about what the newly arisen word actually describes? Don't be shy, now.

Topics: the Word "kitsch"...possibly slightly comic inventiveness by the French at some point?

the stuff that is "kitsch"...I think the French Wikipedia site on S. Lem
has Lem saying that American sci-fi is "kitsch"...I'm not sure what it means, but if it means "fun stuff to buy in junk shops" then it seems to qualify and I write Sci Fi so I should know...is this a question? What is my point? I'm not sure but I found this on S. Lem and simulacra:

http://www.transparencynow.com/introlem2.htm
 

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This might be a more reliable source to the origin of kitsch. Certainly, I knew it as a German word -- I learned it from my German next-door-neighbour, who also believed it to be such.

Though its etymology is ambiguous, scholars generally agree that the word "kitsch" entered the German language in the mid-nineteenth century. Often synonymous with "trash" as a descriptive term, kitsch may derive from the German word kitschen, meaning den Strassenschlamm ausammenscharren (to collect rubbish from the street) [2] The German verb verkitschen (to make cheap), is another likely source. Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary defines kitsch in the verb form as "to render worthless," classifying kitsch objects as "characterized by worthless pretentiousness." Other potential sources also include a mispronunciation of the English word sketch, an inversion of the French word chic, or a derivation of the Russian keetcheetsya (to be haughty and puffed up).

from: The University of Chicago: Theories of Media [Website]
http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/kitsch.htm
 

Higgins

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This might be a more reliable source to the origin of kitsch. Certainly, I knew it as a German word -- I learned it from my German next-door-neighbour, who also believed it to be such.

wow...great essay...(that which you cite on that site) which continues:


"Throughout the twentieth century, certain artists and critics have offered affirmative accounts of mass culture. European and American modernists, notably Fernand Léger and Stuart Davis, incorporated images of consumer advertisements and packaging into their paintings. Their industrialized abstract visual languages suggested a fundamental accordance between avant-garde art and mechanical production. Walter Benjamin believed that the masses could take advantage of new forms of artistic production made possible by modern technology to transform the existing power structure, using kitsch as a weapon against the self-alienation wrought by fascism. Later in the century, Pop artists seemed to embrace kitsch by using mass-production techniques to reproduce subject matter drawn from urban/suburban popular culture and commercial life. The intellectual study of mass culture was pioneered by Marshall McLuhan whose notion that "the medium is the message" annulled the supposed hierarchical distinctions between art forms. With its ability to mirror and manipulate reality, kitsch fits into McLuhan's idea of media as an extension of the human sensorium, seeming to have a life of its own but actually reflecting our own self-understanding. [17]"

Thanks to large doses of anti-Fascist Kitsch, I have avoided self-alienation and moved on to reflecting on our own self-understanding.

IS this a Question? Do I have a point?

How about:

Have I avoided self-alientation via large doses of anti-Fascist Kitsch and have I moved on to reflect on our own self-understanding?

Or ask yourself in the second person:

Have you avoided self-alienation via large doses of anti-Fascist Kitsch and have you moved on to reflect on your own self-understanding?
 
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