Movies Change the Way We Talk
"Bond. James Bond." It's one of the most famous lines in movie history, spoken by every actor who has played the famous spy.
While this isn't something you'd hear in everyday conversation, movies have had a big impact on the way we talk.
Something you might hear in conversation comes from the 1994 film, Forrest Gump. While sitting on a park bench in Savannah, Georgia, the main character, Forrest, says to the person sitting next to him: "My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." English speakers use this to say that life is full of surprises, and you never know what may happen.
A funny way of saying that something is wrong is to quote the 1995 film Apollo 13. In the movie, after experiencing a problem with their spacecraft, one of the astronauts, played by Tom Hanks, says to NASA's Mission Control Center in Texas: "Houston, we have a problem."
Experts are not sure where the phrase "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" came from. Some argue that Sun Tzu, the Chinese general, first said it. But it was made famous in the west by the character Michael Corleone in one of the best gangster films of all time: The Godfather Part II. It means that you should pay more attention to your enemies than to your friends.
If you asked a native English speaker where this phrase comes from, they would probably tell you that it's an old proverb. This shows just how big an impact movies have had on language.
