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From: Boebert@MIT-Multics.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: written vs. oral
Message-ID: <1974@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 8-Jun-87 20:49:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1974
Posted: Mon Jun  8 20:49:20 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jun-87 06:07:26 EDT
Sender: taylor@hplabsc.HP.COM
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

There exists an interesting counterexample to the notion that written
communication is a subset, approximation, or description of oral
expression.  The counterexample (this may be too strong a term) is the
dialog written by the celebrated "hard-boiled" author James.  M.  Cain.
When scanned by eye on the page it fairly crackles with tension; when
read aloud it is flat as a pancake.  This phenomenon was first noted by
Raymond Chandler (no mean writer of dialog himself) in his comments on
the difficulty of converting _Double Indemnity_ into a screenplay.  I
noted a similar thing when I attended the opera that was made from _The
Postman Always Rings Twice_.  You can experience the same phenomenon
from the other direction if you sit down and read the screenplay from
some movie that you thought had terrific dialog (in my case, _The
Hustler_); it seems totally banal on the page.  The very notion of
rhythm, as well as the emotional nuance conveyed by that rhythm, seem to
be different for for eye and ear.