Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 February 15

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February 15

Unscripted conversations

Richard Dawkins is currently visiting Australia and New Zealand and appearing in a series of "unscripted conversations" about significant matters.

If I may echo Jack Nicholson's query in As Good as It Gets, "Is there any other kind"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

From (very minor) first-hand experience and things told to me over the years, I think it's not unusual for seemingly spontaneous dialogues on radio or television to have had their outlines and a degree of details agreed between the participants in advance. Obviously, media do not want this to be foremost in their audiences' minds, so rarely mention it; thus actual references for it may be hard to find. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.141.181 (talk) 05:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

What’s the Difference Between Unscripted and Scripted Television? from a casting company and Making an unscripted TV programme: checklist from a law journal might work as a reference for "unscripted" versus "scripted" being TV industry terms. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The inane conversations in commercial FM breakfast radio programs are clearly scripted, but not very well. HiLo48 (talk) 05:58, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

People in some jobs (like petition takers and store door greeters) are sometimes expected by their employers to initiate conversations with others using scripted questions provided to them, but this doesn't always work well with me, since if the question in their script doesn't arise naturally from the situation between me and the person who asked it, then sometimes I have no idea what I'm supposed to say or do, no matter how apparently inane or easily-answerable the words of the question are... AnonMoos (talk) 08:28, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

There's a Jack Benny episode in which Mel Blanc plays a door-to-door salesman who starts talking, and every time they interrupt him he has to start his sales pitch all over again. That's from the early 1960s, and the concept is probably a lot older than that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

That's scripted from his side, but the homeowner's responses are obviously not scripted. Apart from this and the above kinds of examples, the only "scripted conversations" I can think of occur in plays and movies. And they're never called that. So I'm left wondering what Dawkins's publicists are trying to get across. If they had left the word "unscripted" off their material, would anyone assume Dawkins and his interlocutors - presumably not trained actors - were repeating pre-determined and rehearsed dialogue? Just like in a play, except not placed within a dramatic context? No, nobody would think that, imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Now I come to think of an interview I heard with one of Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G scriptwriters. He mentioned that most of Ali G's responses actually were scripted, but you would have to write jokes based on all theoretically plausible feedback, and that it was really hard to do. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:23, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Given that Dawkins is a bit of a polarizing figure, the "unscripted" term is likely meant to be understood that he'll be speaking off the cuff and may say things that are interesting/salacious/rude as a result. That is, this conversation will likely be less sleep-inducing than a rehearsed discussion on evolutionary theory. It ties to the desired result of the talk: if the goal is to, say, educate, the discussion could well be lightly scripted or even rehearsed beforehand to ensure that the correct points are made. That's likely not the goal here, though; it's implied that the viewers might be treated to an impromptu verbal contest between ID/evolution or any one of the other topics he's notable for having views on. Matt Deres (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to "critique" Dawson, but his recent (unthinking, I think) pro Corona vacines opinions, simply show his age; I just write, because had to laugh about Jack of Oz comments. Like fellow user Bugs Bunny he is one of the sadly very rare always great and bright moments on Wikipedia.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. But without getting into a debate, your contention that a pro-vaccine attitude is a sign of advancing age (and presumably disintegrating mental capacity), says more about you than him. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:51, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Does your referring to Dawkins as "Dawson" show us something?  --Lambiam 10:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Ralf got Dawkins confused with Richard Dawson. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

We should indeed not trust the latter's "recent opinions" about anything.  --Lambiam 12:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Without being "pro" or "con" right now on any position that Dawkins has ever taken, I find his habit of never bothering to learn anything much about any subject other than evolutionary biology, yet feeling free to pontificate dogmatically about any subject whether he knows anything about it, to be rather annoying. I would not be much interested in scripted or unscripted conversations with Dawkins, unless the topic was evolution only... AnonMoos (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The section "Books cited or recommended" at the end of The God Delusion lists 168 books. One should assume that Dawkins has taken note of the arguments presented in these works. I should add – not specifically in defence of Dawkins – that talk shows are filled with pundits immodestly offering their often baseless opinions about basically any topic. The main culprit, in my opinion, are these talk shows and their hosts, by solliciting such opinions from non-experts. Guests who, out of appropriate modesty, regularly decline to comment will not be re-invited.  --Lambiam 11:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)