[Ads-l] cliffhanger (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Other than the misleadingly ambiguous "is attributed to...Hardy's...novel,"
this is a significant discovery.

The scene (oops! I must mean "meme"!) presumably impressed the story's
readers, and may frequently have been alluded to.

The actual word "cliffhanger," however, still looks and sounds like a 20th
C. journalistic creation - by someone who may never have heard of _A Pair
of Blue Eyes_.

JL

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:

> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> In 2014 there was some discussion of cliffhangers on the list.
>
> This:
>
> https://michaelzmuda.com/2015/11/
>
> Suggests that the original cliffhanger was Thomas Hardy's creation:
>
> "The term cliffhanger is attributed to Thomas Hardy’s serial novel A Pair
> of Blue Eyes (1873), in which, at the end of chapter 21, Hardy chose to
> leave his protagonist Henry Knight hanging off a cliff, while waiting for
> Elfride Swancourt to help. As his grip weakens Swancourt returns in chapter
> 22, taking off her clothes and making a rope of her petticoats, pulling
> Knight to safety with them. Unable to conceal each others’ feelings any
> longer, they embrace."
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org