(no subject)

[cleolinda]

So I'm doing my reading for this afternoon, and I come across this, randomly, in the middle of Kenneth Burke's sociological exploration of proverbs:

"Mencken's book on The American Language, I hate to say, is splendid."

I almost don't want to tell you any more, because that one line is so awesome. However: "I console myself with the reminder that Mencken didn't write it. Many millions of people wrote it, and Mencken was merely the amanuensis who took it down from their dictation. He found a true 'vehicle' (that is, a book that could be greater than the author who wrote it). He gets the royalties, but the job was done by a collectivity."

Man, I could really go for a saucer of cream right now.

Comments

[draconifers.livejournal.com]

MMmm, saucer of cream....

So this book is for educational reading, or just light-reading?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

For the class I have in two hours.

[draconifers.livejournal.com]

hee

>random< 'splendid' is my new word

[bunnymonkey.livejournal.com]

Me. Ow. That's awesome. And preserved in print forever.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

And seriously? It comes out of NOWHERE. Proverbs proverbs proverbs hiss scratch RRRRRROWR. I am so going to have to ask the professor if there's some kind of feud here we need to know about.

[starlady42.livejournal.com]

Teehee. We finished reading PLF this week for my Burke class and when I came across this passage I was all "hey, that sounds familiar..." so I had to come find this entry. Anyway, I asked my prof and apparently there WAS a feud -- a minor one at any rate -- Mencken was a supporter of the Germans in the run-up to WWII and Burke (as both an American and a leftie) was peeved. It just added insult to injury that Mencken's book was apparently too good to be ignored, so he threw in the comments this time around (he uses Mencken again in the PLF essay, but refrains from personal commentary that time).

Anyway. Just a virtual wave from another Burke student. *wave* :)

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

There is no bitchiness like literary bitchiness. :)

Of course, if Mencken were an LJ writer today, Kenneth Burke would be all like 'lol dude you suk'

[t4-flirt.livejournal.com]

There is no bitchiness like literary bitchiness. :)

Oh how I <3 you right now. That should be in writing somewhere.

[redmapletree.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. Even dignified writers deserve to have hissyfits, apparently.

[punzerel.livejournal.com]

I love literary catfights between authors. The highlight of my Modern Phil. class was when Locke snarks in a delightfully snooty, erudite way about Descartes.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Argh, I'm still reading Lovecraft! Why do you tell me these things? Torturess! Now I have to go read Mencken, AND Atwood's book on writing.

[mysticowl.livejournal.com]

Want a funny story about sayings? This happened to an acquaintance of my parents back in Russia. He was writing a thesis on the history of swearing and swear words. And well the paper was good, but... it's full of cursing, so no institution agreed to accept it as a thesis work. One day, this guy meets up with an old friend, they're having dinner, drinking, he starts quoting his paper. Since it's mostly a stream of swear words, he gets arrested for disturbing the peace. So he's in prison, a doctoral candidate among criminals, and there he finds his most interested audience. The criminals practically took notes. (I would too, no offense to you English-speakers, but when it comes to cursing Russian leaves you in the dust.)

[elbales]

Plenty of other languages leave English in the dust, too. I understand Italians can curse like whoa.

Wonderful book on the subject: Your Mother's Tongue, by Stephen Burgen. I think it's out of print, but if you can get hold of a copy, do. It's hilarious.

[k-joy.livejournal.com]

that's until you get to hear Maltese cursing. I swear you will be dumbfounded. Nothing like a bus driver swearing at you at half six in the morning...

[edda.livejournal.com]

*prepares to take notes*

Examples, please?

[mysticowl.livejournal.com]

Of Russian curse words? Bah! What kind of girl do you take me for? I do not say such words. Besides they tend to fall into two categories. Curses you can translate into English literally and curses you can't translate at all.

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

Saucer of cream.. mmm.

[emilytarot.livejournal.com]

He. What a fabulous bitchy, "Oooo, lookie my double edged sword!" Compliment. ^^ Why, sounds like something Harold Bloom would say!

I read that book years ago, if I remember correctly, it really was truly cracklike.

Why does he loathe to like it so, does he explailn?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. That's half the paragraph right there, and the paragraphs before and after are completely unrelated. He just had to get his haterade on there for a few sentences, apparently.

[yarha.livejournal.com]

"Mencken's book on The American Language, I hate to say, is splendid."

It's better than "Despite the author, the book doesn't suck."

What's up with the saucer of cream? Sounds, yaknow, cattish..cat-like..something.

Yarha, Praised with Faint Damns

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

What's up with the saucer of cream?

Translation: "My, that was catty."

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Aha! I deliberately *refrained* from putting it that way. :) But there's no getting anything past you: that word did float across the convoluted folds of my mind. :p

Yarha, Exercising Subtle Diplomacy

[7-at-heart.livejournal.com]

You're from somewhere in the United Kingdom right?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Alabama, actually. : )

[7-at-heart.livejournal.com]

Really? Wow...for the longest time I thought you were from the United Kingdom...why is the publisher for your book British though? Are you in England now or something? Or am I just quessing wrong again...?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Nah, I get asked that all the time. It's just that a British publisher proposed the idea of a book in the first place, after someone sent him a link to my journal. I've never lived anywhere else but Birmingham, AL. : )

[7-at-heart.livejournal.com]

Weird, lol. Well that's cool. I saw that you said Ya'll a few times, but I just assumed that random British people said it. No wonder!! lol. I think it's cool that you got someone to look at your parodies. They're pretty funny. I wish I could think of something to write as funny as that! :)

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

You're not totally wrong in assuming that random British people use "y'all". The word is enjoying a surge of popularity across the pond. I've been seeing it on a lot of British blogs lately.

[7-at-heart.livejournal.com]

I don't know many British people on lj...you probably do though. How many people do you have in your friends page?

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

Hee! I don't actually know anyone in the UK, through LJ or otherwise. I just read a lot of blogs. I have a total of maybe eight LJ's on my friends page...and three of them are Cleo's.

Sad, ain't it? :o)

[7-at-heart.livejournal.com]

Lol!

[t4-flirt.livejournal.com]

you were prolly British in another life.

lord knows when i first came across your journal and m15m I thought you were a brit for a few moments there. LOL

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

I just had a weird image of you, having made it big with the book, being forced onto a parade float with Big Al and Aubie, and you're whaling on them with a Nerf bat...like a giant Whack-A-Mole game.

Must. Sleep.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

How was the class? Do you know any of your classmates?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was fine. I knew two of the girls pretty well, from two previous classes we'd had together, and one of the guys was in the last Dr. T class I had, about a year ago. The class itself was okay--it was just one of those days, where it was like, "The good news is that we're going to read more sensationalist fiction. The bad news is that the bookstore totally didn't have that, so I had no idea. The good news is that we don't have a midterm paper. The bad news is that I just spilled a Mountain Dew all over myself..." I plan to elaborate in my next entry. : )

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

I think it's great that last century's trash is this century's lit. My bookstore never has all the books the profs have ordered. When you ask at the desk, they blame the profs. When you ask the profs, they blame the bookstore. Eventually, books appear, usually about a month into the semester. By then everyone has found alternatives that cost less.

Depending on where the Dew landed, and the color of your pants, and how far to the nearest change of clothes, that could be a very embarrassing accident.