Editing 2470: Next Slide Please

{{comic
| number    = 2470
| date      = May 31, 2021
| title     = Next Slide Please
| image     = next_slide_please.png
| titletext = "I have nothing to offer but blood--next slide, please--toil--next slide, please--tears, and--next slide, please--sweat."
}}

==Explanation==
This comic presumes that many famous quotes are actually excerpts from {{w|Slide show|slideshow presentations}}, and the text they were reading was split across multiple slides. Splitting sentences across multiple slides can often be a useful tool if there are images accompanying it, which could explain the specific placement of many of "next slide, please" comments. For example, in the quote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," one can imagine the speaker starting with a slide that showed the prosperity of some people then, in the middle of the sentence, switching to a slide of many people's destitution. When using images this way, it is often better for timing purposes to have control of your own slides. However, Randall claims that, in these speeches, the person making the speech wasn't controlling their slide presentation, so they had to ask the operator to go to the next slide. A common way to ask this is to say "next slide, please", but these requests would have been edited out of the historical transcripts. The comic imagines the places where the slide breaks might have been, and inserts that request.

Most of these quotes are drawn from speeches, which could conceivably have been accompanied by slides or other stage directions ("pause for laughter"), but the list is quite ridiculous as it includes works of literature, where the reader is the one who turns pages as necessary, and speeches from periods of history, such as the {{w|American Revolution}} and {{w|Julius Caesar|Caesar's}} {{w|Veni, vidi, vici}} speech, which predated slide projectors{{Citation needed}}. Even in the quotations that take place in an era with slide projectors, every single one is an instance where the speaker was, quite famously, recorded live &mdash; said recordings would show there were in fact no edits, and certainly not any instructions for a slide projector operator. See details in the [[#Table of quotes|table]] below, including the quote in the title text.

The phrase "Next slide, please" is perhaps in a sweet-spot of utility and performance. A rehearsed presentation, with speaker and 'slide handler' working with a tight script, could probably do without off-stage prompting at all, or the better lecturers with an oft-repeated talk could set it all on timings knowing they can keep the changes synchronised with their speech, or vice-versa. But when a cue is necessary, an unambiguous signal should be used, and an audible 'clicker' (or a small and briefly flashed light) has been used historically, especially with pre-electronic slide-shows where the slide-operator at the back of an auditorium needed to clearly discern the intent of the person at the lectern.

In the United Kingdom, {{w|Chris_Whitty|England's Chief Medical Officer}} caused some amusement on social media with the constant use of the phrase in coronavirus presentations, culminating in the availability of many mugs and cards with his image and this slogan on, and a campaign[https://uk.gofundme.com/f/buy-chris-whitty-his-own-next-slide-please-clicker] to purchase an automatic clicker for him instead.

===Table of quotes===
{| class="wikitable"
!Quote
!Attribution
!Context
|-
| "Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"
| {{w|Patrick Henry}}, {{w|Give me liberty, or give me death!|at the Second Virginia Convention}} on March 23, 1775, as part of the American Colonies' War of Independence from {{w|Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain}}.
| A quotation from his speech to convince the {{w|Second Virginia Convention}} to provide troops for the {{w|American Revolutionary War}}.
|-
| "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."
| {{w|Ronald Reagan}}, {{w|Berlin Wall Speech}} (1987).
| A speech calling for the opening of the Berlin Wall. This speech was later well known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union. <br>In the comic Ronald Reagan is shown next to his slide with a picture of the wall.
|-
| "It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."
| ''{{w|A Tale of Two Cities}}'', novel by {{w|Charles Dickens}}. 
| This is the opening lines of the novel, and one of Dickens' most famous quotations. At the current pace, the opening introduction would have 13 "Next slide, please" instances. 
|-
| "We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."
| {{w|First inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt|Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt}} in 1933. 
| A speech outlining {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}}'s plan to recover from the Great Depression. The correct phrasing of this speech is: "the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself".
|-
| "To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."
| {{w|To be, or not to be|Quotation}} from the play ''{{w|Hamlet}}'' by {{w|William Shakespeare}}, Act III, Scene 1. 
| This speech, in which the character Hamlet contemplates committing suicide, is considered a soliloquy, even though Ophelia was in the room reading a book. 
|-
| "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."
| Shakespeare's {{w|Sonnet 18}}.  
| One of the most famous of Shakespeare's 154 known sonnets. A sonnet is a type of poem and it requires specific rhyming and pacing. The inclusion of "Next slide, please" breaks the poetic flow and unbalances the length of lines, making it unpredictable when a rhyme is supposed to occur. 
|-
| "We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."
| {{w|Winston Churchill}}, ''{{w|We shall fight on the beaches}}'' speech.
| On 4 June 1940, after the disastrous first weeks of the {{w|battle of France}}, Churchill had to acknowledge a military disaster but convey confidence in victory and will to fight. <br/>In the comic Winston Churchill is shown next to his slide of a beach. The beach image shown, shows [[Ponytail]] sitting under a parasol [[Cueball]] sitting on the sand with a drink and a kid playing with a beach-ball, as opposed to {{w|British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_the_Second_World_War#Coastal_crust|the rapidly fortified}} sea-fronts [http://ww2.brightonmuseums.org/defence-measures/ of wartime Britain].
|-
| "Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."
| {{w|George H. W. Bush}}, {{w|Read my lips: no new taxes|spoken at 1988 Republican National Convention}}
| A significant part of Bush's political platform was the opposition of new taxes. However, after winning the election, he was unable to keep this promise and ultimately did raise taxes in 1990.
|-
| "That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."
| {{w|Neil Armstrong}}, when he stepped off the {{w|Apollo 11}} lunar module and onto the surface of the Moon. 
| The "next slide, please", could be proof of a fake moon landing, although Neil Armstrong strongly insisted that the speech be made on location.{{fact}}  The positioning of the "next slide, please" was placed at the intended comma, although there was also a small gap within "one giant" which could also be a potential placement in the audio clip.
Armstrong, it should be noted, claimed to have said "That's one small step for '''a''' man, one giant leap for mankind" and that the '''a''' should be included in the quotation, [https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/armstrongs-famous-small-step-quote-explained-64311878 at least in parenthesis].
|-
| "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
| {{w|Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears|Spoken by the character Mark Antony}} in the play ''{{w|Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar}}'' by Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 2. 
| Takes place after Julius Caesar suffered a few stab wounds in Act III, scene 2. If it were a presentation, the pictures would need to be created between scenes, although the play implies there would barely be enough time in response to a recent event. 
|-
| "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."
| ''{{w|Pride and Prejudice}}'', written by {{w|Jane Austen}}.
| Opening line to the novel, introducing marriage as a motif (and problem) in the novel.
|-
| "Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."
| {{w|Julius Caesar}}, wrote his famous sentence {{w|Veni, vidi, vici}} in a letter after defeating Pharnaces II (47 BC). The sentence literally means, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
| Caesar used this phrase to refer to a swift, conclusive victory at the {{w|Battle of Zela}}. This is the only "next slide, please" which has been translated into a different language (Latin, in this case).
|-
| "I have nothing to offer but blood—next slide, please—toil—next slide, please—tears, and—next slide, please—sweat." (title text)
| Winston Churchill, ''{{w|Blood, toil, tears and sweat}}'' speech.
| From 1940, shortly after he was appointed the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, when asking for a vote of confidence in the new all-party (unity) cabinet.
It would have to respond to the continuing challenges of the {{w|United_Kingdom_home_front_during_World_War_II|war-footing}} and active conflicts of WW2. The country had already been at war for eight months and was yet to experience Dunkirk, prompting yet another of Churchill's defiant speeches (mentioned above).
|}

==Transcript==
:[A list of 12 quotes is given. Above is a large header with a question, and then a description, before the quotes follows. The text above the quotes is centered:]
:<big>'''''Did you know?'''''</big>
:''Transcripts of famous quotes often''
:''leave out the slideshow instructions.''
:''Here’s how these lines actually sounded:''

:[The first six quotations, are written so they fit around an image of Ronald Reagan standing next to his slide showing six segments of the Berlin Wall. A large arrow points down on to the middle segment of the wall. There is something on the ground in front of the wall, could be puddles or debris. The image is to the right, and the two first and last quote goes above and below the image, while the other three stops to the left of the image:]
:"Give me liberty or give me—Next slide, please—death!"
:"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down—Next slide, please—this wall."
:"It was the best of times—Next slide, please—It was the worst of times."
:"We have nothing to fear but—Next slide, please—fear itself."
:"To be or—Next slide, please—not to be, that is the question."
:"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art—Next slide, please—more lovely and—Next slide, please—more temperate."

:[Below those five quotations is three more quotes to the right of an image showing Winston Churchill standing next to his slide showing a beach. The sun and three small clouds are over the ocean which has white waves on the black water. Ponytail is sitting under a parasol to the left, Cueball is sitting on the sand to the right with a drink in his hands, and behind him is a kid running after a large beach-ball.]
:"We shall fight—Next slide, please—on the beaches, we shall fight on—Next slide, please—the landing grounds..."
:"Read my lips—Next slide, please—no new taxes."
:"That's one small step for man—Next slide, please—one giant leap for mankind."

:[Below this picture is the last three quotations, without any pictures:]
:"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! Next slide, please. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
:"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of—Next slide, please—a good fortune, must be in want of—Next slide, please—a wife."
:"Veni, vidi—Velim, pictura proxima—vici."

==Trivia==
* The Blood, toil, tears and sweat speech was the topic of [[1148: Nothing to Offer]] and lists additional items; at the current pace, "next slide, please" would be placed between each item, making that extra-long speech even longer. 

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ronald Reagan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] <!-- in the beach picture -->
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
 <!-- in the beach picture, the last is a child, thus not another Cueball -->