[HPforGrownups] Re: Shrek and the HP Trailer!

[Lindsay Stirton]

No: HPFGUIDX 20093


 
> While we are on the subject of trailers ... why is something that is
> seen as a preview ... before the main feature ... called a trailer?
> This would make more sense if it were shown *trailing* the movie.

At the risk of going off-message, I can answer this one. Originally,
trailers did indeed come after the movie, and that is how they got their
name. Someone somewhere noticed that moviegoers would leave the movie
without seeing the trailers, and had the bright idea of switching them to
the beginning (with the double benefit that fewer people would miss the
beginning of the main feature). Generally in America they are now called
'previews' (or so I am told). Conservative Brits didn't see why they should
change a perfectly good word, and steadfastly continue to call them
'trailers'. It would be interesting to see whether the French (who
officially frown on les mots Anglo-Saxons) refer to 'les trailers' or 'les
previews' but I don't have my dictionary to hand.

Lindsay Stirton