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21 March 2005: Not much to say today. I've realized since yesterday that "signature work" is a frequently-used term for about what I meant by "signature formulation." However, I still want a term that means more or less, "peculiarity of mode, style, subject matter or the like that identifies the specific single creator of a given work of art." That is, I want a signature something that is responsible for a signature work. I don't think "signature formulation" is right. "Signatechnique?" No, because that would seem to cover only an idiosyncratic device or use of a device. Maybe: "signatrait" . . .
While on the subject of words, here's an opinion I've been dying to make public for quite a while. I think we should stop italicizing standard Latin phrases like "status quo," "sine qua non" and "auf wiedersehen" on the grounds that they are now English. I was thinking about this again because of someone's writing somewhere I now forget that it was pretentious (and incorrect) to give Latin endings to the plurals of certain words not originally Latin such as "octopus." Well, following the logic of my opinion that some Latin words and phrases have become English, I claim that certain grammatical practices of the Romans have also become English. Ergo, "octopi," which is my plural for "octopus," is as correct as "loci" as the plural of the now-English word, "locus." Changing "us" to "i' to make a plural is, in other words, correct English practice.
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