Name: English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (16) Cliffhanger
Uploaded: 2019-05-15T16:26:49.000Z
Duration: 3 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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