aboutness
nounUS /əˈbaʊt.nəs/
Etymology From about + -ness.
1
The relevance of a text to its reader.
- The experience of attending to how a good film works is a matter of understanding the composition and the inexhaustible flow of "aboutnesses," relevancies to the world that emerge from the interaction of qualities of meaningfulness that attend such a web of forms and connotations, such a design.1982, William Cadbury, Leland A. Poague, Film Criticism: A Counter Theory, →ISBN, page 19:
- Movie critics provide a good example of aboutness judgments. When some critics rave and others pan, it is not because they have seen different physical texts; rather, all the technical knowledge, topical knowledge, emotions and beliefs of each critic are being engaged in the construction of a response to the physical text.1996, Brian C. O'Connor, Explorations in Indexing and Abstracting, →ISBN, page 147: