culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

THE RHETORICAL ARGUMENT CALLED CULTURE
also look up the closest Romanian noun which is oroare (DEX: 729) and
although it has not become the translation suitable for film-goers and filmcritics,
its semic notes of „dezgust, repulsie, aversiune, scârbă” show that one
cannot rely only upon groază to obtain the complex meanings of the genre
discussed here. The lack of necessity to find a corresponding Romanian label for
thriller also shows the helpful compression of all of the following ideas
transmissible at the same time with the utterance of the word: (1) thrills are
provided by one single-minded goal – to avert a danger, as a rule a lifethreatening
one; (2) plots involve characters coming into a shadowy conflict
with each other or with outside forces; (3) characters are criminals, convicts,
losers, stalkers, victims, prison inmates, menaced or battered women, terrorists,
cops, psychotic individuals, drifters, private eyes and so on, people who are in
their downs and often on the run; (4) the most frequent themes are acts of
terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit of criminals or a romantic triangle; (5) the
focus of the crime-related story is more on dangers than on the detective side.
Practically, there can be no word to put in a nutshell so much of the genre
specificity.
3. Another suggestion of sub- is indicated by WNED as ‘falling nearly in
the category of’. It is surprising to put together the Romanian talcioc and the
number of ways in which an American can indicate the event of a yard-sale. We
can record at least this from Wikipedia: a garage sale; tag sale; attic sale;
moving sale; junk sale. There is, indeed, a vague similarity with „a vinde la
talcioc”. The event in both cultures is informal, it is scheduled for used goods, it
is geared by individuals who are not willing or under an obligation to obtain a
business license. One may further think of those goods: they are unwanted but
usable, they are new or at least like-new for most of them, they are on display
for passers-by. This is where the similarity stops. In America the important
pretext is spring-cleaning, which could make of it a hygienic idea or, secondly,
moving into a new residence, which could be energetically the creation of a
fresh energetic input after sweeping aside the old, stale energies stored in
objects. The Americans’ sales venue is typically a garage, but also a driveway, a
front yard or a porch; for a Romanian ‘squatter’, the business is set up in a
highly trafficked area, not on their own property and it is highly dependent on
fair weather (on the weekends, perhaps). Since bargaining or haggling about
prices is routine and the greatest joy too, the items, as a rule, do not have price
labels affixed. As for the percipient observer of Romanian conduct vs. American
conduct, a reserved attitude of the former is the least one can bring forth. Let us
quote a passage from an article in a youth magazine (eu/ro