Why did they choose to call a play writer a playwright, and not playwrite?

Why choose "wright" in this instance? In many ways, yes, it's the obvious and clear choice; but I think it's only superficially the obvious choice. It is clearly not the only choice, and, I submit, not necessarily the most logical choice.

It's even an almost insulting.

What saay ye, learned denizens of the Lounge?

From wikipedia

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is someone who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance.

The term is not a variant spelling of playwrite, but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright). Hence the prefix and the suffix combine to indicate someone who crafts plays. The homophone with write is in this case coincidental.

The term 'playwright' appears to have been coined by Ben Jonson (see his Epigram 49, 'To Playwright<1>') as an insult, to imply an inferior hack-writer for the theatre. He always described himself as a poet. It later lost this negative connotation.

:shrug:

some sort of derivative of 'wrought' and doesn't that mean 'to create'? Or I could be way off base...it's been known to happen. I've never really thought about it before, though.

:shrug:

Write would, to me, imply more of it being an artistic creation as opposed to a mere craft, like pounding out barrels or ships or fire pokers.

A "wright" is someone who makes or repairs something.

Of course, I suspect you knew this already.

The term 'playwright' appears to have been coined by Ben Jonson (see his Epigram 49, 'To Playwright<1>') as an insult, to imply an inferior hack-writer for the theatre. He always described himself as a poet. It later lost this negative connotation.

A serious writer was a poet. Those who wrote plays were just low brow craftsmen entertaining the masses. There was an age-old European bias against acting and theater in general, dating from the Middle Ages where "acting" was a degenerate profession. Good people thought of actors as one of the questionable professions, like prostitutes, lawyers, money-lenders, etc. Much speculation on why. Two basic trends of thought are: one, actors often portrayed unsavory things (kissing, sex, murder) on stage, not to mention that the whole concept of acting was a bit dodgy--after all, it wasn't farming, it wasn't useful to anyone, and it was basically pretending you were something other than what you were. The second reason was that actors were like gypsies--they wandered from place to place, they sold you a product you didn't need, they lied about the quality of the product, and they probably stole a few hearts and a few goods on the way out, after having deflowered a couple of virgins.

Plays were dodgy, therefore play writers were dodgy. The bias hung on through the Shakesperean era, though by that time theaters were becoming stationary buildings. Actors are playwrights were still often in debt, still had spotty work records, and still were likely to deflower nearby virgins.

Combine that with the fact that most plays were written in vernacular, were not very poetic (Shakespeare aside), and you had a profession that no one wanted to elevate by calling it writing. So the term "playwright" was used, to imply a common laborer who made plays instead of wheels or whatever.

Even now, as I'm sure you know, screen and script writing are not thought of as as lofty a pursuit as literary novels or poetry, at least not in any university program.

I knew of the gypsy life, etc., but not the social side of it.

Then it does make sense to call them wrights, and not put them in the realm of artists.

And your're right about screen and script writing. Of course, much of the low status of the screen and script writers IS very well earned by them.

Thanks much for the info!

True, but that's more the fault of the business execs who decide which scripts to buy. We've both seen (though we often disagree on exactly which ones :) ) movies with exquisitely written scripts which explore complex philosophical issues with emotional honesty and beautiful language, and we've both seen the worst writing possible hit the literary best sellers list. I don't blame the writers for the horrible crap filling our movie screens--I blame the movie execs who skipped over the well-written scripts on the market in favor of the one they could work the most sex scenes between hot celebrities into. True, those are writers who would better serve America by serving them at the local Olive Garden, but it's not the fault of those playwrights that their crap gets bought while the better writers really are working at Olive Garden.

If you see what I'm getting at.

Thank you!!!

:rofl:

but it just didn't play right. :P

:hi:

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

they call it a "douchebag" and not a "douchesack."

previous posters have already said the same thing