to spew

[Jonathan Lighter]

Born too soon.

JL


On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 10:17 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: to spew
>
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>
> I am reminded (allegorically) of Spenser's character Error, in the first
> canto of _The Faerie Queene_, who "therewith . . . spewd out of her filthy
> maw / A floud of poyson horrible and blacke/. . . . Her vomit full of
> bookes and papers was."
>
> --Charlie
> ________________________________________
>
> Poster:       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
>
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