[Ads-l] Potential authors
ADSGarson O'Toole
adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jul 13 22:02:57 UTC 2023
Charlie's wonderful article is available via JSTOR:
Article: Title-Author Jokes, Now and Long Ago
Author: Charles Clay Doyle
https://doi.org/10.2307/539269
https://www.jstor.org/stable/539269
Here are four of the seven better known examples listed near the
beginning of the article:
[Begin excerpt]
The Golden Stream by I. P. Freely
The Tiger's Revenge by Claude Balls
Under the Grandstands by Seymore Butts
Twenty Yards to the Outhouse by Willie Makit
[End excerpt]
Here are three older instances:
[Begin excerpt]
An anonymous pamphlet, Bibliotheca Parliamenti Libri Theologici,
Politici, Historici (1653, generally attributed to John Birkenhead),
contains several specimens. Some are curt, like modern book jokes:
"Lilburn Stript and Whipt, by Colonel Birch."
[End excerpt]
[Begin excerpt]
Sometimes in seventeenth-century title-author jokes the principal pun
occurs in an epithet rather than in the author's proper name . . .
. . . "The Way of Getting Women with Childe, by M. Scot, a knowing
Member." The obscene play upon member occurs again: "The Pox in Folio,
by Henry Martin, a dwindled Member in the Commons House" (pox, in the
idiom of the day, was syphilis).
[End excerpt]
Garson
On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 5:13 PM Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>
> The genre is traced back to the mid-17th century by me: "Title-Author Jokes, Now and Long Ago," Journal of American Folklore 76 (1973): 52-54; and at somewhat greater length in a chapter (of the same title) in my Doing Proverbs and Other Kinds of Folklore: Philological and Historical Studies (Burlington VT: Proverbium, 2012), 207-213.
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2023 3:47 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Potential authors
>
> [EXTERNAL SENDER - PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY]
>
>
> Many years ago we had a brief discussion of imaginary books with punningly
> named imaginary authors (like "Secrets of a Happy Marriage," by Maude
> Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzmaude).
>
> The Washington [D.C]. Times of Jan. 27, 1922 (Home-Town Page) offers the
> following names, each one of which might proudly appear on a title page.
>
> "Fashionable names selected from Dr. Dumbbell's Dictionary, by 'Peggy Bee':
>
> George Town Dan De Lion
> Ray Zor O. U. Vamp
> Ham Mock Al Cohol
> C. U. Later Phil A. Delphia
> I. M. Simple O. Leo Margarine"
>
> JL
>
> --
> "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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list