File under: Say it ain't so

[Federico Escobar]

"Unpick" also struck me as an interesting choice of words. It was probably
suggested --I'm speculating gratuitously-- by the ideas of precision and
care conveyed by "picking a lock"; since the alleged precision of Austen's
style was "undone" by the new study (which I'm surprised it took 200 years
to perform), then it was "unpicked."

I also noticed that the author seemed inexplicably surprised by the blots
and crossings. The explanation I supplied was that it was a way of opposing
the description of Austen's writing process offered by her brother:
that "everything
came finished from her pen". She probably emphasized the blots to unpick
people's idea of publisher-ready mansucripts flowing steadily and
unblotchedly from Austen's pen.

F.




On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: File under: Say it ain't so
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Note too Prof. Sutherland's use of "unpick" to mean "undo" (generally).
> (OED
> allows for a "fig." sense, but the below has no metaphorical context):
>
>
> "Austen's unpublished manuscripts unpick her reputation for perfection in
> various ways: we see blots, crossings out, messiness -- we see creation as
> it happens, and in Austen's case, we discover a powerful
> counter-grammatical
> way of writing."
>
> Fascinating is the gratuitously defensive phrase, "a powerful
> counter-grammatical way of writing." All writers (with the famously alleged
> exception of Shakespeare) blot, cross out, etc., all the time. Irrespective
> of any later editorial improvement, that is not a weakness in Jane Austen's
> writing. It just shows she had no word-processor.
>
> BTW, a second look an hour later reveals that Yahoo has nonsexistically
> replaced the invidious "male editor" headline.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: File under: Say it ain't so
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > What a wimpy headline. Try this:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101023/ten-jane-austen-novels-polished-by-mal=
> > e-a56114e.html
> >
> >
> > "Jane Austen novels 'polished by male editor'"
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
> > >wr=
> > ote:
> >
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> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> > > Subject:      File under: Say it ain't so
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> > ------
> > >
> > > "Jane Austen's style might not be hers, academic claims"
> > >
> > > <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11610489>
> > >
> > > Paul Frank
> > > Translator
> > > Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
> > > Espace de l'Europe 16
> > > Neuch=E2tel, Switzerland
> > > paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
> > > paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
> > >
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> >
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> >
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> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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