X marrying Y <> Y marrying X?

[Mark Mandel]

I wrote:

> But that's linked to the asker, not to the male per se. Quote from
> memory, from _A Civil Campaign_ by Lois McMaster Bujold:
>
> [Ekaterin:] Lord Vorkosigan!
>
> [Miles:] Yes, my lady? Yours to command!
>
> [E:] Good. Will you marry me?
>
> I feel no linguistic anomaly here, only the social one, which of course
> is deliberate on the part of the author.

Jim Landau replied:
> You forget that Miles had already proposed to Ekaterin and been told in
> no uncertain terms that she did not want him to ask her again.  So the
> only way they could get engaged would be for Ekaterin to ask.

True but IMHO irrelevant. She asked, "Will you marry me?", not "I will
marry you if you still want" or "May I marry you?".


> Somewhat more on-topic: The main theme of Bujold's latest "The Sharing
> Knife" series (two books out so far) is miscegenation.  No, it is NOT an
> allegory of the US experience; there is no history of slavery or
> Separate-But-Unequal.  Instead the plot arises out of a more general
> state of ignorance and xenophobia.
>
> (TSK is a good read but Bujold would have done better to condense the
> two books into one.)

Somewhat less on-topic: (Many of us agree with your opinion of TSK.)
She's finished the edits on the 3rd book of the series and sent the
ms. of the 4th (and apparently final) book to the publisher.

m a m

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