another SOTA or two

[Jonathan Lighter]

And now, "revisionist dramaturgy."

JL

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: another SOTA or two
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Laurence Horn wrote:
> >
> > A new, evidently quite literate and charming play on Broadway, "The =
> > Lyons", was reviewed in the Times today:
> > =
> >
> http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/theater/reviews/the-lyons-by-nicky-s=
> > ilver-at-vineyard-theater-review.html
> >
> > It's a "savagely sentimental portrait of familial loneliness" by Nicky =
> > Silver and starring Linda Lavin, which is fine, only the family in =
> > question consists of Curtis Lyons, Lisa Lyons, Ben Lyons, and Rita =
> > Lyons, which according to the way I was brought up would make the family
> =
> > (and thus the name of any eponymous play) "The Lyonses".  Alternatively,
> =
> > the members of the family would consist of "Curtis Lyon", "Lisa Lyon", =
> > etc.  Apparently this didn't bother either the playwright or the =
> > reviewer, who doesn't mention it.  Has this shift now become inevitable?
> >  (Well, I suppose the play could have been called "The Lyon's".
>
> The link was split. Here is a short link:
> http://goo.gl/hkA3P
>
> Comment: After a prescriptivist grammarian saw the show in preview and
> alerted the playwright. Nicky Silver added another scene: Daddy Lyons
> who is dying of cancer is acclaimed by his fellow family members as
> "The Lyons", the reification of the positive attributes of the family.
>
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