[Ads-l] "Prolific" = 'important, influential'?

[Laurence Horn]

> On Oct 16, 2019, at 2:01 AM, Dave Hause <dwhause at CABLEMO.NET> wrote:
> 
> I wonder if this sense of "prolific" could actually be a misapprehension of "prolix”?

Conceivably, although there’s no sense that the writer of the piece intended a pejorative sense, which “prolix” has but “prolific” lacks. I think it’s more a transfer, i.e. “notable book by a prolific author”.  That doesn’t cover the other uses I googled, though.

LH


> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Laurence Horn
> Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 9:10 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "Prolific" = 'important, influential'?
> 
> From an obit for Harold Bloom in this morning’s Yale Daily News,
> https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/10/15/harold-bloom-dies-at-89/
> 
> ==========
> Over his lifetime, Bloom amassed several honors and awards — including a MacArthur Genius Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Award — and edited hundreds of anthologies. Some of his more prolific books include “The Anxiety of Influence,” “The American Religion” and “How to Read and Why,” all of which have been translated into languages across the globe.
> ==========
> 
> Maybe just a malapropism rather than a SOTA, you ask? Google hits retrieved for “prolific book” are all reasonable:
> 
> Prolific book critic (which of course Bloom was)
> Prolific book reviewer
> Prolific book publisher
> Prolific book collector
> Prolific book illustrator
> Prolific book thief
> 
> But then I tried “prolific books”, and sure enough, the first page of hits includes
> 
> The year has seen the release of some soon-to-be-prolific books that are bound to help navigate us through our socio-political climates
> Of course, there have always been writers working to dismantle racism (the prolific books of James Baldwin and Angela Davis come to mind)
> one of the most prolific books on this list
> Such prolific books as Gulliver's Travels and Tom Jones
> People like Lloyd Alexander wrote great, prolific books, over a long period of time, and all because they were short.
> 
> 
> Where “prolific” seems to mean ‘wordy’, ’widely read/sold’, ‘important/famous’, or 'written by a prolific author’.
> 
> Not in OED, needless to say.
> 
> LH
> 
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