anachronism?

[Laurence Horn]

James Clapp is all

>Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if the real objection on the reviewer's part was not to the
>> well-established use of WEIRD as 'uncanny, strange', but to the use of the
>> 'all getting too ...' locution.  Just a guess . . .
>
>My guess too.  The reviewer quoted the whole line ("It was all getting too
>weird; I just had to get out"); and although we can't know the context, the
>line as a whole certainly has a post-1950's ring to me.
>
>Partly it is simply the juxtaposition of words; I'd be surprised if many
>instances of expressions like "getting too weird" or "got really weird"
>could be found from the 1940's or before, especially when not referring to
>anything specific but rather to a general situation ("*all* getting too
>weird"). But partly there is something about the sentiment the words are
>expressing, or the particular use of those words to express that sentiment,
>that is hard for me to imagine in a 1940's setting.  There's a sort of
>vagueness of sentiment and expression that I associate (perhaps unfairly)
>with a younger generation than mine.
>
>I see that *I'm* being vague!  I guess I'm like Justice Stewart and
>pornography:  I can't say definitively what makes this anachronistic, but I
>know it when I see it (I think); I feel sure that I would have reacted to
>this line the same way the reviewer did.
>

Exactly.  It's not as blatant as, say, "This is getting way weird" or "This
is SO not funny", but it's on the way.

larry