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Title : "It’s curious that booing is absent from modern theatre, because it’s as old as European drama."
link : "It’s curious that booing is absent from modern theatre, because it’s as old as European drama."
"It’s curious that booing is absent from modern theatre, because it’s as old as European drama."
"The earliest reports of audience booing were recorded at the annual festival of Dionysus in Athens where playwrights competed to win prizes for their efforts. The verdict was delivered by the crowds who howled (that is, booed) at the worst dramas and cheered for the best.... [These days a]udiences have developed alternative ways to express their dissatisfaction. Coughing is the commonest method.... Noisily turning the pages of the programme tells your neighbours that you’re unimpressed by the antics on stage. Fiddling with sweets or rattling your ice cubes has the same effect. Snoring is sometimes heard in the stalls – surely the most lethal form of theatre review.... We are confused about booing. We enjoy the sound because it represents a revolt against authority, against celebrities who misbehave, and against poor taste. Yet we also consider it discourteous and even vulgar...."Writes Lloyd Evans, in "Three cheers for booing in the theatre" (Spectator).
The oldest meaning of the verb "boo" — going back to the 1500s — is "To low or bellow as a cow does" (OED): "The ungodlye colleges of priestes..that dayly boo and rore the holye scriptures" (a1555).
The familiar meaning, to make the sound "boo" to express disapproval or contempt, goes back only to the early 19th century: "The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet" (1833).
The familiar meaning, to make the sound "boo" to express disapproval or contempt, goes back only to the early 19th century: "The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet" (1833).
Why — of all the animal noises — did the sound of a cow come to dominate audience noisemaking? We use it — if we ever use it — without even knowing that it once was understood — at least in English — as the sound a cow makes.
I've got to wonder if the booing that went on in ancient Greece was the sound "boo" and whether it was imitative of a cow. Perhaps some other animal, more familiar to the Greeks. A goat? "Maaaaa." Of course, the animal sounds are represented by different letters in different languages.
And even within one language, the letters used to represent an animal's sound can change over time. Apparently, back in the 1500s, the cow said "boo."
And are you old enough to remember when the frog did not say "ribit"? Are you old and as up on pop culture as I am to know that "ribit" as the sound for a frog was a complete innovation that can be ascribed to a single comedy sketch that came on TV one night in 1968?
I was pleased to see that the OED corroborated my memory. Its entry for "ribit" has as its first quote:
c1968 in Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (annotated T.V. script for rebroadcast programme) No. 8. 62 That's right. Ribit! I am. I am a frog.
(The sketch is too long, so feel free to scroll to 5:30 to get to the "ribit" part.)
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"The earliest reports of audience booing were recorded at the annual festival of Dionysus in Athens where playwrights competed to win prizes for their efforts. The verdict was delivered by the crowds who howled (that is, booed) at the worst dramas and cheered for the best.... [These days a]udiences have developed alternative ways to express their dissatisfaction. Coughing is the commonest method.... Noisily turning the pages of the programme tells your neighbours that you’re unimpressed by the antics on stage. Fiddling with sweets or rattling your ice cubes has the same effect. Snoring is sometimes heard in the stalls – surely the most lethal form of theatre review.... We are confused about booing. We enjoy the sound because it represents a revolt against authority, against celebrities who misbehave, and against poor taste. Yet we also consider it discourteous and even vulgar...."
Writes Lloyd Evans, in "Three cheers for booing in the theatre" (Spectator).
The oldest meaning of the verb "boo" — going back to the 1500s — is "To low or bellow as a cow does" (OED): "The ungodlye colleges of priestes..that dayly boo and rore the holye scriptures" (a1555).
The familiar meaning, to make the sound "boo" to express disapproval or contempt, goes back only to the early 19th century: "The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet" (1833).
The familiar meaning, to make the sound "boo" to express disapproval or contempt, goes back only to the early 19th century: "The whole school raised a yell, booing, hissing, and scraping feet" (1833).
Why — of all the animal noises — did the sound of a cow come to dominate audience noisemaking? We use it — if we ever use it — without even knowing that it once was understood — at least in English — as the sound a cow makes.
I've got to wonder if the booing that went on in ancient Greece was the sound "boo" and whether it was imitative of a cow. Perhaps some other animal, more familiar to the Greeks. A goat? "Maaaaa." Of course, the animal sounds are represented by different letters in different languages.
And even within one language, the letters used to represent an animal's sound can change over time. Apparently, back in the 1500s, the cow said "boo."
And are you old enough to remember when the frog did not say "ribit"? Are you old and as up on pop culture as I am to know that "ribit" as the sound for a frog was a complete innovation that can be ascribed to a single comedy sketch that came on TV one night in 1968?
I was pleased to see that the OED corroborated my memory. Its entry for "ribit" has as its first quote:
c1968 in Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (annotated T.V. script for rebroadcast programme) No. 8. 62 That's right. Ribit! I am. I am a frog.
(The sketch is too long, so feel free to scroll to 5:30 to get to the "ribit" part.)
Thus articles "It’s curious that booing is absent from modern theatre, because it’s as old as European drama."
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