aboutness

plural aboutnesses

1. countableuncountableThe relevance of a text to its reader.First known use First attested in the early 20ᵗʰ century.

   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

   1 more example

   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