subversive, adj.

[Jonathan Lighter]

And another ex.  Here it's closer to "purposefully unconventional":

1995 Peter Kuch _Bruce Dawe_ (Melbourne: OUP) 2: By calling his first book
of poems _No Fixed Address_, Dawe chose to introduce himself as an
intinerant in the Republic of Letters. Characteristically, it is both a
disarming and a subversive self-image.

(The upper-case style led me to expect "Republic of the Congo.")

JL

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 5:51 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: subversive, adj.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> An "early" example: "critical of convention or complacency."
>
> 1963 Albert J. Guerard _Hardy_ (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice -Hall) 1:
> A
> subsversive writer without intending to be one, he was honored at the end
> by
> the Establishment, with burial in Westminster Abbey and the Prime  Minister
> as a pallbearer.
>
> Thomas Hardy, "subversive."  "Without intending" it.  See what I mean?
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
>  > OED defines this solely as "Having a tendency to subvert or overthrow;
> > tending to subversion."
> >
> > But anyone who's had the misfortune to read much postmodern critical
> theory
> > over the past, say, ten or fifteen years, knows that _subversive_  is a
> > favorite word of praise in the much diluted sense of "transgressive"
> (also a
> > fave) or "defiantly unconventional."
> >
> > A random ex. from Google Books, 2005: "The Los Angeles Times's Kenneth
> > Turan recognized the arrival of a major, if subversive, talent within the
> > heart of the studio system."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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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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