OT: ffolliott

[Jonathan Lighter]

Forty years ago I read an interesting psychoanalytical  article about just
this phenomenon.  I don't remember much about it except that the author (a
psychiatrist, not a Freudian literary critic, which meant that he had to
know a little bit about reality) commented on what he considered the
inevitability of constant suggestiveness.

In retrospect it all may have been very foolish, but the article was
published at a time when any academic discussion of the word in question was
a) almost unheard of and  b) regarded as unwholesome.

Maybe Jesse remembers the article I'm talking about. I believe it was in the
_International Journal of Psychoanalysis_, ca 1969.

JL
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 1:47 AM, ROBIN HAMILTON <
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:

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> Poster:       ROBIN HAMILTON <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Re: OT: ffolliott
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > At 2/11/2010 09:15 AM, Amy West wrote:
> > >The other strike against my long-s hypothesis is that
> > the words
> > >themselves often make it clear whether it's f or
> > long-s. There's
> > >actually few opportunities for real ambiguity.
> >
> > Except by the ditsy verger in "Vicar of Dibley".
> >
> > Joel
>
> And of course there's the third line of John Donne's "The Good-Morrow":
>
>       I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
>       Did, till we loved?  were we not weaned till then,
>       But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
>
> I don't know how it plays in the all-too-numerous Donne MSS, but in the
> 1633 edition of his _Poems_, "sucked" is spelled with an initial long-s.
>
> That this may be a deliberate graphemic pun on Donne's part could be
> reinforced by the double-meaning of "country" at the time -- think Hamlet to
> Ophelia, "Do you speak of country matters?"  (I quote from memory.)
>
> Robin
>
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