File under: Say it ain't so

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This usage may be notable too:
>
>
> "The manuscript evidence offers a different face for Jane Austen, one
> smoothed out in the famous printed novels."
>
>
> If "aspect" is meant (and it may be) the preposition "for" seems quite odd.
> If something like "publicity image" is meant, I'm not sure that it's in the
> OED, though surely it's frequent enough.
>
> Cf. (evidently) 1972 in GB: Â "Here, the Pulitzer Prize winner offers a new
> face for the American dream." Â And this, from 2004: "Donahue, the memo said,
> offered 'a difficult face for MSNBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in
> presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and skeptical of the
> administration's motives.'"
>
> Relevant GB exx. of "offered a * face for" are all quite recent.
>

Jon, since I have no scholarly reputation or academic reputation for
lack of bias to protect, I can say it.

"The manuscript evidence _offers a different face for Jane Austen_"

is, at worst, evidence of a lack of command of the academic style of
writing, and, at best, a stunningly-inept attempt to make a simple
opinion - "That bitch ain't know how to write shit!" - into a complex
observation worthy of serious  contemplation by other students of
Austen's work.

"The evidence contained in her unpublished manuscripts enables us to
see Austen's finished work from a completely different point of view,
making clear the fact that the bitch ain't know shit about about no
writing. In support of this assertion, I present the following
analysis of her work, based upon her own girlish attempts at
transforming random thought into a coherent sentence." Etc.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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