Pei; was Re: "Turn on"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>>Is there a long story behind Pei's lack of official recognition? I've
>>never heard it. I always assumed Pei "got no respect" because of his
>>extremely outspoken prescriptivism and his obvious enjoyment of
>>linguistic oddities at the seeming expense of method.
>
>The titles of his books are "The Story of [...]," not "The History/The
>Grammar/A Textbook of [...]," etc. These books, by his own admission,
>are mere stories. In my lost youth, l found them very interesting and a
>lot of fun to read, as, apparently, you and many others also did. Yet,
>any mention of his name seems to call forth negative reactions ranging
>from hoots of derision ("Surely you can't believe that Pei has anything
>of merit to say!") to mild, corrective commentary such as yours. It's
>as though his writings were the "Mein Kampf" of linguistics instead of
>merely the "Readers Digest."

I wonder about that too. I kind of liked "The World's Chief Languages",
which was just a series of capsule descriptions, but interesting (to me)
and AFAIK one of a kind among books for the layman ca. 1960. I recall one
linguistical type virtually hissing and spitting about it back then. What
was so offensive about it? I still don't know.

Was Pei associated with Nazism or Fascism or Communism or some other
unacceptable political position? The analogy which comes to my mind right
now is some people's objections to the music of Wagner. I've also
encountered some fulminations against Kipling which may be analogous. Never
gave it much thought until now.

-- Doug Wilson