"the reveal"

[Evan Morris]

Don't ask me how I know this, but the climactic moment of "makeover" TV
shows, whether home or personal, is known as the "reveal" and is used in
teasers (e.g., "Coming up, the reveal, when Doreen's friends and family
see the new Doreen!").



Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> On Feb 15, 2009, at 7:36 AM, i cited:
>>>   There was insufficient lead-up to the reveal at the end and the
>>> perpetual name-droppingness of all the references was supremely
>>> annoying.
>>> apps.facebook.com/facebookshelf/people/1049054081?reviews_page=4
>> note the nouning of "reveal" here.  fair number of relevant hits,
>> including this one from a site of tv tropes:
>>
>>   The pivot in any plotline is often The Reveal. A character is
>> revealed as another character's mother, a god, or secret suitor or
>> arch nemesis in disguise. More broadly, the audience is given new
>> information which had been withheld to create suspense. The Reveal
>> changes the nature of the plot, often pushing it from suspense towards
>> action. A good reveal will also create a new set of questions and
>> further suspense.
>> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheReveal
>
> This sense has been around for a while, and it will surely be included
> in the soon-to-be-revised OED entry for "reveal". Earliest I'm finding
> at the moment is this 1975 description of Allen Funt's "Candid Camera"
> (snippet view on Google Book Search, but looks legit):
>
> ---
> 1975 _New Times_ 4 (Jan-Jun) 52 But now the final coup, Allen's
> trademark-- the "reveal. "Madame, did you know that at this moment you
> are on nationwide TV?"
> http://books.google.com/books?id=GyRXAAAAMAAJ
> ---
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
Evan Morris
words1 at word-detective.com
www.word-detective.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org