taboo words in the NYT

[Jonathan Lighter]

Flynn says it's a phrase his pop used.

JL

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: taboo words in the NYT
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the NYT Book Review of 9/19/04 (p. 18) had to cope with the title of
Nick Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir, and opted
for two kinds of ellipsis:
Another Bull _ _ _ _ Night . . .

[i didn't understand the second ellipsis, taking the ellipsis dots to
be part of the title. but a google search showed me my error.]

Vendela Vida's review begins by addressing the title question:
-----
It takes guts to give a book a title that many publications, including
this one, can't print in its entirety. The title of Nick Flynn's book
gives the (not wholly inaccurate) impression that it's the memoir of a
20-something urbanite, and no doubt it will lure a young -- and
fortunate -- audience. It would be a shame, though, if potential
readers dismissed the book because of the title alone -- its source, by
the way, is quite unexpected -- because Flynn has written a potent,
distinctive autobiography.
-----

booksellers, book discussion groups, other book reviews, Wisconsin
Public Radio, and many other sources just use the damn title, without
apology.

annoyingly, vida doesn't supply the unexpected source of the title, nor
could i find an explanation in a quick google search. presumably, it's
explained in the book. (i haven't read it yet, but i read pieces of it
in The New Yorker, where it was titled "The Button Man". maybe
"another bullshit night in Suck City" was in there, but i don't recall
it.)

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)


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