the Shandy-Lack theory revisited

[Dennis Preston]

Who needs this more recent evidence? In Louisville KY years ago there
was a proctologist named Assman. I'm a believer.

dInIs



>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>Subject:      the Shandy-Lack theory revisited
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>To refresh your memories: some time ago I called your attention to
>the Shandy-Lack hypothesis of Onomastic Determinism, first proposed
>by ca. 1770 Walter Shandy in the novel Tristram Shandy, and
>elaborated ca. 1950 by the British ornithologist David Lack.  Shandy
>held that one's name determined the future tenor of one's life, and
>Lack, by citing a number of ornithologists whose names were the
>names of birds or parts of birds, showed that it specifically
>determined one's career choice.
>A mounting accumulation of additional evidence -- for instance a
>story in the NYTimes a few years ago that cited a fisheries expert
>named Herring -- justifies referring to this now as a theory.
>
>In any event, the August 24/31 2007 issue of the Times Literary
>Suppl. reviews a book on the bad effect of 500 years of destruction
>of habitat and bounties put upon supposed pest species has had on
>English wildlife.  The book is called "Silent Fields", and is by a
>naturalist named Roger Lovegrove.
>Need more proof be called for?
>
>(Published by Oxford U Pr., and sounds fairly interesting.)
>
>GAT
>
>George A. Thompson
>Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
>Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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