"Skit" or "Sketch?" And Is It Important?

Definitions of skit on the Web:

• a short theatrical episode
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
• Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes, or 'sketches', commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a small group of comedic actors, either on stage or through a video medium such as television.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skit

You say "to-may-to," I say "to-ma-to," you say "sketch," I say "skit..."

Does it matter? To some it does. To a few, the word "skit" is a four letter word. Here is a real email received from a visitor that addressed what they felt was a real problem on my site: the use of the term "skit" to describe a short drama. Read my reply under it for my thoughts on it, and why I use one more than the other. Let's "skit" serious for a moment...

The Email:

Hi, Fred.

Thanks for the valuable (and free) resource of Christian scripts; however, there's something greatly to be desired of your site, and that is in your use of the word "skit."

Not to be a stick in the mud, but skits are something pre-schoolers do in school and is viewed as "juvenile" performance. Sketches are short dramas performed on stage or in churches. I hope you will reconsider the way you view serious drama.

Regards,
Dean

My Response:

Hello, Dean!
Thanks for writing, and for your input.

I appreciate your concern and desire to protect the way dramatic material is viewed, and I agree with your assessment. I do hold this view of serious drama, and I am serious about drama. I personally prefer the term "sketch," as you do, for what I write.

However, the reason I use "skit" so often is because, in my experience with what people are looking for, it is the word that many use and associate with short sketches. The number one keyword people use to find this site is "skit," and it's the one most people put into the search engines when looking for short comedic or dramatic stage presentations. "Sketches" is used much less often, and getting them there to the resources is more important to me than teaching them an issue in semantics. The word "skit" is tops in my visitor keyword tracking, and the word "sketch" doesn't even appear until way down the list, around the 75th or so. You can see this here, in the "all keywords" column: http://extremetracking.com/open;ref2?login=skitman which is the tracking service I use to fine-tune my keywords.

I think it boils down to the perception people have, and their concern over the perception others have of them. It's like the term "Trekkies," the usage of which by the media irritates true Star Trek fans to no end, who prefer to be known as "trekkers." To them, it's important. But to the world at large, it's all the same, because varying degrees of fandom are not something comprehended by most. Likewise, ask an ordinary church person or drama team director the difference between "skit" and "sketch" and they'll probably not be able to draw a distinction, unless they say one is a pencil drawing! :) The two words have come to be interchangable in meaning, if indeed there ever was a difference.

So, although "skit" may seem to some to be diminishing the art, I feel that through common use (or abuse) it has come to be regarded by the world at large as the same as "sketch," and more frequently used. It is only among us artists (a sensitive lot) that the term may be seen as derogatory, and I have learned to have a thick skin about it when people come to the site looking for "a little skit." That thick skin comes in very handy when they try to compliment something I've written by calling it "a cute skit!" My teeth grind, but I grin and thank them anyway.

I wish more people were as discriminating as you, but unfortunately they are not! When they want a sketch or short play to do in church, they go to the web looking for "skits." And I'm right there, saying "Let's Skit Crazy! (TM) and so on, at ChristianSkitScripts.com.

While it is generally true that many people perceive a skit to be "a little act done by kids," or something done for Talent Night at church camp, the goal of this site is raise the public perception of skits, and to elevate the skit to an art form, by offering superior skit scripts. I suppose it's up to the more discriminating among my visitors, like yourself, to decide whether my material rises above the term, or wallows around down in the lowbrow muck with it. Only you can judge that! I hope you judge it to be quality, which I strive for.

Thanks again for writing, and I hope you enjoy the site, except for that!

-Fred Passmore

In an fine article entitled "It's Not Just For Kids," Chuck Neighbors makes some great points about the way people view drama as "kid stuff." He has some some of the same beefs I do about the light way that church drama is viewed. But on the "skit or sketch" subject he says, "Don’t call the plays 'skits' and don’t call them 'cute.' Drama, sketch, play and vignette are much better alternatives. A skit sounds like something done at camp on talent night—let’s leave it there."

I totally understand where he's coming from. But for all the reasons listed above, I don't fight against the usage of the term, I have adopted it. After all, it's just a word. It's the associated meaning, the slight that is inherent in it, that needs to be changed. "Skit" or "sketch," it makes no difference, if what it refers to is perceived as less than meaningful. So I continue the challenge to churches to elevate their performances to the place where all enjoy it and see it for what it is, or can be: a life-changing ministry that shares Scriptural truths in an accessable way.

And to be honest about it, the reason that so many church people view skits as kid's stuff, is because that's how it has always been presented. If their opinion is to change, we must work to make it happen. And using "sketch" over "skit" won't mean a mushy hill of refried beans if we don't!