"point-device"

[Joel S. Berson]

Perhaps my source for the LLL quotation -- NYTimes, January 1, 2010,
Excerpt, 'The Lexicographer's Dilemma', By JACK LYNCH (which I didn't
mention, but may be of interest to this list) -- didn't have access
to the Quarto.  Nor do I; I'm away from my desk.  But I thank Robin
Hamilton for the folio (that is, leaf/side) citation -- it will help
Jesse, and Jack didn't give a citation.

Joel

At 1/1/2010 11:45 AM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
[quoting me]
>>Perhaps the OED would like to replace its current quotation from
>>Shakespeare for "point-device" C (adj), from "As you like it", with
>>the following:
>>
>>Love's Labour's Lost, as it appeared in the First Folio of 1623:
>>
>>He draweth out the thred of his verbositie, finer then the staple of
>>his argument. I abhor such phanaticall phantasims, such insociable
>>and poynt deuise companions, such rackers of ortagriphie. . . . this
>>is abhominable.
>
>Or perhaps the earlier Quarto of 1598:
>
>_Peda._  He draweth out the thred of his verbositie, finer then the staple
>of  his argument. I abhorre such phanatticall phantasims, such insociable
>and poynt deuise companions, such rackers of ortagriphie, . . . this is
>abhominable, ...  [F4r]
>
>Whether the changes of Q1 "abhorre" to F "abhor" and Q1 "phanatticall" to F
>"phanaticall" reflect a return to the authentic authorial spelling, or the
>introduction of scribal corruption, I leave it up to the gentle reader to
>infer.
>
>Incidentally, if the OED must give terminus ad quem dates -- "a1616
>SHAKESPEARE As you like It (1623) III. ii. 370" -- even an ultra-cautious
>dating of "ante 1605", rather than the somewhat redundant a1616, the year of
>Shakespeare's death, might have been ventured.  For my money, I'd go for
>"c1599" for AYLI.
>
>A citation from the Quarto edition of _Loues labors lost._ would at the
>least obviate this infelicitous uncertainty.
>
>Robin Hamilton
>(Holofernes' Fellow Pedant)
>
>>Seems amusingly ... what?  self-referential?
>>
>>Joel

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