Showing posts with label Words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Words. Show all posts

Friday, May 28, 2010

Why are hamburgers called hamburgers?

Because Hamburg, Germany made the first hamburgers.

Why are B movies called B movies?

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture conceived neither as an arthouse film nor as pornography. In its original usage, during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature. Although the U.S. production of movies intended as second features largely ceased by the end of the 1950s, the term B movie continued to be used in the broader sense it maintains today. In its post–Golden Age usage, there is ambiguity on both sides of the definition: on the one hand, many B movies display a high degree of craft and aesthetic ingenuity; on the other, the primary interest of many inexpensive exploitation films is prurient. In some cases, both are true.

In either usage, most B movies represent a particular genre—the Western was a Golden Age B movie staple, while low-budget science-fiction and horror films became more popular in the 1950s. Early B movies were often part of series in which the star repeatedly played the same character. Almost always shorter than the top-billed films they were paired with, many had running times of 70 minutes or less. The term connoted a general perception that B movies were inferior to the more handsomely budgeted headliners; individual B films were often ignored by critics.

Why are apartments called apartments?

The English word apartment was originally appartemente, from the French language, derived from the Italian appartamento, from the verb appartare -- to separate Appartare was formed from a meaning "to" + parte meaning "part". An apartment (in US English) or flat (in British English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only "part" of a building.

Why are adjectives important?

Why are adjectives important?