Knit it again, Sam.....

...or how to be memorable in how you say, what you say.  I came across an article in the paper this morning on famous movie lines and why they have become memorable. It seems that a few computer scientists from Cornell University analyzed scripts from over 1,000 movies; fed them into a computer and had the machine do the work.

The answer....you can speak in memorable sound bites, if you: 1. Use the past tense. 2. Use pronouns other than "you." 3. Use front word sounds and vowels rather than gutturals.

So I tried a random sampling of a few famous lines.

"May the force be with you." - uses "you" and the present tense - but lots of labials (front sounds).

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." - I always thought the "my dear" part was actually Scarlett. As in "Frankly, Scarlett I don't give a damn." But then I have always thought that Elizabeth Taylor should have played Scarlett. However, I digress. No "you" pronoun, but present tense and throaty sounds.

"Bond. James Bond." - no present, past or future tense (timeless) - no "yous" - but lots up front stuff, so to speak!

Here's a list of the top 100 famous lines according to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years...100_Movie_Quotes

Just a note about the opening line of this post.  It is actually a mis-quote of a line from Casablanca and my favourite quote may be

"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." from Dead Poet's Society and delivered by Robin Williams in character. I loved the movie because it was about an English teacher who inspired his students to read poetry, the classics. The lines from poetry are as memorable as those from scripts and they are delivered by you.

Queen of the Sky stole from Queen Anne's Lace Knitting

I have many favourites; but the closest to knitting may be from John Keats' Endymion - "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Knit on, again and again.....

Have a memorable day