to spew

[Jonathan Lighter]

"_trans._ To say or write abusively or unfairly."

Not in OED.

Looks like it should be "2d. "

2009 A. L. Croutier, "Introduction" to Wilkie Collins _The Moonstone_
(N.Y.: Signet) x: The philosopher H. L. Mansel spewed that this sort of
literature aims at creating excitement alone to satisfy the cravings of a
diseased appetite: "No divine influence can be imagined as presiding over
the birth of Wilkie's work. No more immortality is dreamed of for it than
for the fashions of the current season. A commercial atmosphere floats
around works of this class, redolent of the manufactory."

Really "spewing," wasn't he? (Wait, don't tell me. It sounds normal to
everyone but me.)

The distinguished Alev Lytle Croutier (b. 1945) is a former Guggenheim
Fellow whose work has been translated into 22 languages.

PS: The direct quotation from Mansel is slightly but embarrassingly
inaccurate - as suggested by the chummy reference to Wilkie Collins as
"Wilkie." In fact, Mansel (Quarterly Review, Apr. 1863, p. 483), writing
anonymously, is describing the "sensation-novel" as a genre rather than
singling out Collins for criticism.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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