More spoilers

Continuing on from a comment in my last post, what doesn't constitute a spoiler? What examples do you think are so universally known that no-one at all would not know/mind being told? (In the UK, let's say -- obviously these won't have spread everywhere.)

This is *not* lj-cut, that's sort of the point :)

* Pasion of the Christ: Jesus rises from the Dead. Christians have spent 2000 years telling people, I really hope everyone in this culture has heard about this by now. Of course, some people haven't, but I think this tidbit is generally the first not the last thing said -- no-one says "Hey, you're ruining the ending for the Heathens!"

* Dracula: Dracula is a vampire Dracula is so synonymous with vampire I bet reading this it didn't occur to you that he could not be. Does anyone not known this? And also not know all the other hints?

This is an interesting one, actually, because when it was first written, I think this was *not* obvious, and a different and possibly better horror novel for it.

* Romeo and Juliet: They die at the end Quite apart from the bywordity of them, I heard an amusing exchange about this.

A: blah blah blah die at the end blah
B: Hey! Technically that's a spoiler.
A: Yeah, but everyone knows--
B: I know it's 400 years later, but some people haven't seen the play.
A: And also, IT SAYS SO IN THE PROLOGUE, YOU ILLITERATE MONKEY!

:)

Are those the best? Can you think of anything else more universally agreead not to be a spoiler?

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Film four -- Battle Royale

Every year a japanse school class are selected, and put onto an isolated island, where they are forced to fight to the death. They're issued basic supplies and a "weapon" each -- the weapons range from the useful to the brutal to the ironic to the lateral to the useless -- and sent out at minute intervals. They have explosive collars that kill them if they break the rules, or more than one is left at the end.

I hadn't heard of it before, but it's a weird Japanese film that I definitely liked. However, I'm not articulate enough to say why. Somehow it just spoke to me in a way that other similar films didn't.

Perhaps I don't know what the message of the film is, but agree with it?

Somehow, it just all felt right, despite not making any more sense objectively than other films.

And people tried all sorts of reasonable things one would do in that situation, they just didn't work. And the good guy wore white and the bad guy black. And were cool. And the kids felt real. And the teacher had a marvellous world-weary paternalistic evil to him.

Worth seeing.

I'm assured the sequels aren't -- I don't know anything about them, but it doesn't seem an idea which lends itself to more. The sequel to Hyperion (not quite finished yet) seems to have used up all of the "sequel which actually does successfully answer questions raised by the iconic original" fu available this millennium -- I don't think anyone else need try. ETA: The sequel is finished by Director Kinji Fukasaku's son. It apparently has shades of September 11th.

Is minus 7 prime?

My name:
Yes. Obviously the domain in question is the ring of integers, and the definition of prime for non-natural-number rings includes -7 in the integers.
No. Unless epxlicitely specified, the domain is always the natural numbers, and negative numbers and fractions are no more prime than american presidents or colours.
Moofle. Mu. Your question is malformed. Without specifying the domain, you can't correctly say either.
Even in the integers, -7 isn't prime, even though most mathematicians use that definition.
Even in the integers, -7 isn't prime, and everyone knows that.
Other. I will explain in comments.

This question actually came up in an online multiple choice test. However, another option was a positive prime, so it was clear what they meant. (Foruntately there wasn't an "other" option. Have another vote for "tests where you might know everything about the subject and popular conceptions and misconceptions thereof, but you have to second-guess the level of sophistication of the examiner to get full marks suck!" :))

But mathematical pedantry aside, it illustrates how much context can be important to the meaning of a sentence. This seems about perfectly balanced about what context you assume, but there's a continuum. At one end, the sentence is without context, you interpret it literally.

At the other, you have something like:

Q. Were you telling the truth?
A. Yes!

Where "yes" isn't the answer to *that* question, but a delayed answer to something someone else asked the other day. I think everyone could agree that's a lie. But there are intermediate stages.

If you say a sentence which would be literally true out of context, but in response to a question in a situation where it sounds like a natural reply meaning one way, when the opposite is true, and you intended that, I think that's a lie. But some people think lying is always wrong, but this doesn't count as lying.

OTOH, if you have some reason not to tell the whole truth, and don't volunteer something important, that can be acceptible. It can be misleading, and may or may not be wrong, but isn't necessarily lying.

It seems like people have seized on an overly restrictive notion of the meaning of language, and don't accept how we actually use it.