[Ads-l] a couple of quotations: sources needed

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Sep 3 02:56:02 UTC 2015


> On Sep 2, 2015, at 8:12 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
> 
> An article in the August 14, 2015 TLS refers to an "apocryphal description"
> by Dorothy Parker of the Bloomsbury group as "living in squares, painting
> in circles and loving in triangles".  It's not in YBQ -- i didn't look in
> the other quote books I have, and in general, I don't look things up
> on-line -- sorry about that.


Hmm.  An wonderful line from Dorothy Parker about the Bloomsburys to be sure, whether or not apocryphal (though a shame if it is).  And it is all over the web, without an obvious source.  But it was the phrasing that caused a brief double-take for me.  I took the reference to

'an "apocryphal description" by Dorothy Parker of the Bloomsbury group as "living in squares, painting in circles and loving in triangles"'

as thrusting Parker herself from the Algonquin Circle into the complex group algebras of the Bloomsburys (which she might have enjoyed for a bit).  And all because of the syntactic versatility of "of"; "Dorothy Parker's 'apocryphal description' of the Bloomsbury group..." wouldn't have allowed those same enticing possibilities.

LH

> Whoever said it, it's a witty remark, and all too true.
> It's been taken for the title of a new book on the group, by Amy License:
> Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles.
> 

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