UBC graffiti (1969)

[Joel S. Berson]

Not achieving the same classiness, but:

Books or plays that do not achieve the best, and
their authors.  A game suggested by the Boston
Globe Sunday Magazine column by Gail Caldwell,
“Currents: A little learning”, early June, 2000.

Examples:

·        Dicken’s “Tale of Two Strip Malls”
(which does not achieve the excellence of his “Tale of Two Cities”)
·        Stendahl’s “The Pink and the Grey”
·        Faulkner’s “The Whisper and the Irritation”
·        Dostoevski’s “Misdemeanors and Reprimands”
·        Updike’s “Rabbit, Skip”

(I have 44 more of my own, mostly poorer.)

Joel

At 10/15/2005 08:43 AM, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject:      Re: UBC graffiti (1969)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Has anyone heard any *new* book-author jokes
>?  (_The Da Vinci Code_ doesn't count.)
>
>Or is this an obsolete genre ?
>
>JL
>
>Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
>Subject: Re: UBC graffiti (1969)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 18:20:49 -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> >On 10/14/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> >>
> >> Book titles are also very big among the john set.
> >> Revenge of the Lion by Claude Balls.
> >> Treasure in the Toilet by I. P. Nicols.
> >> Disaster at the Cliff by Eileen Dover.
> >> Crabs, You Say by Ivan Offelitch.
> >> Russian Revolution by Ubin Jakinoff.
> >> Moscow to Leningrad in Three Minutes by U. Bitchur Kokoff.
> >
> >"From Under The Stands," by Seymour Harriass.
> >"Line in The Sand," by Won Hung Lo.
> >"Yellow River," by I. P. Dailey
> >
> >Hm. These somehow don't seem as side-splittingly funny as they did
> >when I first heard them in elementary school.
>
>Nonetheless, you and your schoolmates were taking part in a folkloristic
>tradition going back at least to the 17th century. See:
>
>Charles Clay Doyle, "Title-Author Jokes, Now and Long Ago"
>Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 86 (Jan. 1973), pp. 52-54
>http://www.jstor.org/view/00218715/ap020344/02a00060/
>
>This follows up on the work of Dundes and George, who also catalogued
>Confucianisms, wanton daughter puns, etc.:
>
>Alan Dundes and Robert A. Georges, "Some Minor Genres of Obscene Folklore"
>Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 75 (Jul. 1962), pp. 221-226
>http://www.jstor.org/view/00218715/ap020294/02a00060/
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>
>
>---------------------------------
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