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Catttt Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary
Clockwork Game is true
The following text is from the preface of the comic book "Clockwork Game". Does the highlighted sentence mean "this book is telling the truth and, unlike Barnum’s lies about his own shows, is to some degree based on facts"?
Context:
The truth is right there in a word balloon on page 165. “People believe stories, not facts,” says Johann Maelzel, one in a series of owners of “The Turk,” the figure at the center of the real-life, 85-year conspiracy depicted in Clockwork Game. Telling The Turk’s strange story through expressive drawings and apt words, Jane Irwin makes us believe everything, from its first appearance before eighteenth-century Vienna’s royal court up to its blazing finale in nineteenth-century Philadelphia. There’s the supposed chess-playing automaton’s match against Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon’s pragmatic skepticism when presented with The Turk in the wake of his Austrian victories, and Edgar Allan Poe’s article debunking the claim that its prowess was that of a pure
machine. The Turk rubbed elbows with Beethoven and shared an exhibit hall with P.T. Barnum’s Joice Heth, who the fledgling impresario said was the 161-year-old former nurse of President George Washington.
Clockwork Game is true. It’s also, unlike Barnum’s showman’s patter, mostly facts. Though not entirely.
But to paraphrase Maelzel’s lead-up sentence to the aphorism above, the story’s telling is what Jane Irwin
gets right.
Context:
The truth is right there in a word balloon on page 165. “People believe stories, not facts,” says Johann Maelzel, one in a series of owners of “The Turk,” the figure at the center of the real-life, 85-year conspiracy depicted in Clockwork Game. Telling The Turk’s strange story through expressive drawings and apt words, Jane Irwin makes us believe everything, from its first appearance before eighteenth-century Vienna’s royal court up to its blazing finale in nineteenth-century Philadelphia. There’s the supposed chess-playing automaton’s match against Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon’s pragmatic skepticism when presented with The Turk in the wake of his Austrian victories, and Edgar Allan Poe’s article debunking the claim that its prowess was that of a pure
machine. The Turk rubbed elbows with Beethoven and shared an exhibit hall with P.T. Barnum’s Joice Heth, who the fledgling impresario said was the 161-year-old former nurse of President George Washington.
Clockwork Game is true. It’s also, unlike Barnum’s showman’s patter, mostly facts. Though not entirely.
But to paraphrase Maelzel’s lead-up sentence to the aphorism above, the story’s telling is what Jane Irwin
gets right.
Top answer
Yes, pretty much. The book is mostly facts, but some parts may have been made up or embellished. Barnum's patter is not mostly facts.
- Yes, pretty much.
- The book is mostly facts, but some parts may have been made up or embellished.
- Barnum's patter is not mostly facts.
- Most or all of it is made up.
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4 Answers
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Yes, pretty much. The book is mostly facts, but some parts may have been made up or embellished. Barnum's patter is not mostly facts. Most or all of it is made up.
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Oh, a quick search showed that Barnum had a showman named "Tom Norman" who "...quickly became successful, for his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patter as much as his exhibits". Said that, does "patter" in the above context mean "bullshits that the showman said about the chess playing machine"?
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red appleOh, a quick search showed that Barnum had a showman named "Tom Norman" who "...quickly became successful,I think "Barnum’s showman’s patter" means the showman's patter of Barnum rather than the patter of Barnum's showman.
red appleSaid that, does "patter" in the above context mean "bullshits that the showm
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