9 March 2017
McGuffin
[mak-guhff-in]
noun
1. an object or event in a book or a film that serves as the impetus for the plot
Word Origin
coined (c. 1935) by Sir Alfred Hitchcock
Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.
Contemporary definitions for mcguffin
noun
in film, a plot device that has no specific meaning or purpose other than to advance the story; any situation that motivates the action of a film either artificially or substantively; also written MacGuffin
Word Origin
Alfred Hitchcock’s term, based on a story where this device was used in a story set on a Scottish train
Dictionary.com’s 21st Century Lexicon
Copyright © 2003-2014 Dictionary.com,
Slang definitions & phrases for mcguffin
MacGuffin
noun
A plot or movie device that raises a seemingly crucial question in the minds of the audience, but may well be a cunning deception : The writers wanted a MacGuffin which would set up a series of absurd rules for us/ You still haven’t told me what the McGuffin is. Why were the government and Mr Dsointerested
[1930s+;first used by Alfred Hitchcock, and perhaps suggested by McGuffin, ”a gift that is not to be opened until Christmas,” hence something tantalizing, found by 1925]
The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
Copyright (C) 2007 by Harper Collins Publishers.
Example:
Tarantino has admitted that there is no official explanation behind the briefcase’s contents, and that it was simply written into the screen play as an intriguing McGuffin.
Tarantino A to Zed: The Films of Quentin Tarantino
Alan Barnes
Today’s quotes
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.
– Ernest Hemingway
On this day
9 March 1454 – birth of Amerigo Vespucci in Florence, Italy. Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. Vespucci believed that Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the ‘New World’ or ‘East Asia’ (now known as the Bahamas) and the land mass beyond it, was not part of Asia, but a separate ‘super-continent’. America is named after Vespucci. Died 22 February 1512 in Seville, Spain.
9 – 10 March 1945 – A new U.S. offensive against Japan is launched in which more than 2,000 bombs were dropped on Tokyo over a 2 day period, killing around 80,000 people and destroying 40km2. The attack was known as ‘Operation Meetinghouse’ and is considered the single worst bombing in history. It is also believed the official death toll was greatly understated by both Japan and America for their own reasons. Operation Meetinghouse was only one of a number of fire (incendiary) bombings of Japan between 17 November 1944 and 15 August 1945. The fire-bombings demolished every Japanese city, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were reserved for the atomic bomb attacks of 6 and 9 August 1945. The incendiary and atomic bombings killed at least 2 million Japanese civilians.
9 March 1934 – birth of Yuri Gagarin, Soviet astronaut. On 12 April 1961, he became the first man into space and to orbit Earth while aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.
9 March 1954 – birth of Bobby Sands, member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died following a hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze. He and other prisoners, were protesting against the removal of special category status which conferred a ‘Prisoner of War’ status on prisoners convicted of ‘Troubles-related’ offences in Ireland. Special Category Status meant they were subject to the Geneva Convention so didn’t have to wear prison uniforms or do prison work, were housed within paramilitary factions, received extra visits and more food. During his fast, Sands was elected to British Parliament as an anti-H-Block candidate (H-Block representing Maze Prison’s H-shaped block). Sands was one of 10 hunger strikers to die during the 1981 hunger strike. Died 5 May 1981