Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 13. The word origin today is cliffhanger. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. A cliffhanger is a story or situation in which the film is shown in parts or segments. So it could have many parts. It could have just two or three parts or could have 10 parts and at the end of each segment it leaves you... It leaves the audience in suspense. So that they will be more certain to want to see the next part. So it leaves you in anticipation. Oh my God. What's going to happen next. Oh No ! What happened ? What's going to happen ? So kind of like that. So let's continue. The origin of cliffhanger comes from the serial films which were popular in the first half of the 20th century. This, this series was shown in chapters and each part was screened at a movie theater for a week and the next week would have a continuation. So this was really before the days that people had TVs in their house. So this was a way that the movie theater got people to come back every week to watch it. So I remember, I remember even I think, I think I talked with my father about this. He said that people will go to the movie theater all day. They'd be there for six or seven hours during the day. And they'd show a lot of shorts. They show a lot of cartoons and stuff. But they they showed a lot of films like this with they would show 5 minutes and then it was a really action part and again people wanted to see it. So this, this way they would be more encouraged to come back the next week. So now of course since TV got invented it kind of took away from this but this is what it originally came from. So let's continue here. This was all done again before the advent of television. So television wasn't you know , televisions didn't appear in people's houses until maybe the early 1950s and then only a few people had them. And it wasn't really until the late 50s or early 60s that you know, most people started having TVs. . They were affordable at that time. So of course at the end of each chapter, the hero or a likable character was left in a perilous, perilous means dangerous situation. And then you know, they cut it off and they probably say to be continued. So that's how they would leave you in suspense. Okay. Let's continue. The term cliffhanger itself did not appear until the mid 1930s and of course the term alludes to the idea of the hero hanging on to a cliff and, and cutting it right off at that scene. And then you know leaving the audience in suspense. I think there were few of the serials I did even see when I was a kid where that's exactly what happened. The good guy would be fighting the bad guy. the bad guy would hit him. He'd fall, he just catch on maybe hanging right on the end. That was your typical idea. That's where the term cliffhanger came from. Of course, there were a lot of other dangerous situations. I think another typical one where the bad guy ties up some girl on the railroad tracks and the Train is coming and then cut it off. Boom ! To be continued. So anything like that was referred to as a cliffhanger. Okay. So let's just give one example here. The end of part one was a real cliffhanger. Okay good. Anyway I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
A2 US suspense movie theater bad guy theater week people English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (16) Cliffhanger 8 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/05/15 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary