PARVUM OPUS

 

Number 150

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THE INIMITABLE JANE

 

"After long thought and much perplexity, to be very brief was all that she could determine on with any confidence of safety." ~ Northanger Abbey

 

Besides Shakespeare and the Bible, Jane Austen is the best writer on which to model oneself. Only her fans will truly appreciate this site, but you may find much of worth at The Republic of Pemberley.

 

A couple of years ago I mentioned a particular definition of elegance, usually connected with math. Outside of that usage, most people might agree with Miss Manners, who wrote sometime in March 2003: "Elegant, used in regard to just about anything except mathematical solutions, is a tip-off to persnickety people that something is the opposite of what it pretends to be."

 

As much as I admire Miss Manners, I cannot but think she's hanging with the wrong persnickety people. I once was forced to take exception to a misinterpretation of the word elegant in Jane Austen's Persuasion. A reader posting on The Republic of Pemberley thought it meant something like ornate and overdone, perhaps pretentious, as Miss Manners thinks. Austen used the word often. The following examples are all from Austen's Persuasion:

 

Twelve years had changed Anne from the blooming, silent, unformed girl of fifteen, to the elegant little woman of seven-and-twenty.

 

. . . she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments; and envied them nothing. . .

 

You have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear, comprehensible, elegant English.

 

In these examples, "elegant" does not mean the opposite of what is intended. It means the kind of spare beauty defined by Saint-Exupe'ry: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

 

Quotation of the Day from Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage e-mail: "In order to continue to understand Chaucer and Shakespeare and the King James Bible at all, and Gibbon and Jefferson and Austen and Dickens in rich detail, we should embrace standard English, and do what we can to ensure that it changes as slowly as possible." Barbara Wallraff, Word Court 10 (2000).

 

THIS AND THAT

 

Victims Battling Cancer

But Miss Manners is right about something else. Check out Judith Martin's column about calling people with cancer "victims" who are "battling" cancer. She says, "The idea seems to be to evoke the heroism of war, but what principle or population did anyone serve or save by being sick? ... Being sick is neither a character trait nor an occupation."

 

Of course people can be brave in adversity, but they shouldn't be identified with illness, or called victims simply because something happens not of their choosing. Some people truly do face illness as combatants, but they are not victims. Victims just give in. Other people might deal with it as a problem or puzzle to be solved, or as a job to be done with the best tools available.

 

Christian Vs. Catholic

Often people refer to "Christians" and "Catholics" as if they weren't the same. For instance, they ask what the difference is between Catholics and Christians, and I have to explain that Catholics are Christians, and what they mean is Catholic and Protestant. Then I have to explain the history of the Protestant reformation. It's not only people who are just learning English who do this, but I don't believe it's only anti-Catholic people either. The word for Christian is pretty similar in all European and Latin-based languages, so I don't know why people confuse these terms. And it's not as if these are new cults that sprang up recently, although of course the Protestant churches always seem to be multiplying and dividing. Anyway, in case there's any confusion out there, Catholics and Protestants are all Christians because Jesus Christ is the center of their religion; that's where the word came from. You can talk about Christians and Jews, or Christians and Buddhists, or Christians and Muslims, but you cannot talk about Christians and Catholics.

 

County Country

In Kentucky, they used to say, "What country are you from?" to mean "What county are you from?" When most people lived in rural areas, the county was the identifying locale more often than a town. But I've seen the same expression, referring to a county as a country, in Jane Austen's books set in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The expression means "What part of the country are you from?"

 

Just Country

"He's countrier than a brown egg."

 

Dinner Tonight

Ever spatchcocked a chicken? Spatchcock is an old word, verb and adjective, meaning to butterfly or spread a chicken apart for cooking by cutting out the spine. Graphic and disturbing how-to photos can be found at The Naked Whiz.

 

Perhaps you can plan to serve spatchcock chicken in the "Lentil season", as I heard a lady call Lent. I don't think she was making a joke.

 

Doggy

Yet another person wrote "It's a doggy dog world." Do you think he was joking, or does he actually not know that the phrase is "It's a dog-eat-dog world"?

 

Transport

I've always preferred the expression "going to hell in a handcart" over "going to hell in a hand basket". I picture someone vigorously and cheerfully pumping one of those railroad handcarts (like in this photo), in a quite determined manner. Much more purposeful than just being carried in a hand basket. I'd prefer the railroad handcart for myself.

 

FWFR

A bit of fun: The Four Word Film Review. Readers submit short reviews. Example: March of the Penguins: "Much marching. More standing." Submit yours, vote favorites.

 

IT'S DAVE

 

Dave DaBee has been busy, and sent several interesting bits a couple of weeks ago (his words in green).

 

Oh Waiter!

Once upon a time "wait on" was something waitpersons did, and "wait for" was awaiting. Somewhere in the "decline of English" years ignorant people started saying "I'm waiting on xxx" when they meant "waiting for." Now it seems to be accepted. I object.

 

Floating Islands

Dave ran across an article about floating island (not the dessert): And Sometimes, the Island Is Marooned on You, by Pam Belluck, who writes, "A floating island in Massachusetts has become a curiosity and sometimes a nuisance for the people living near it." Dave says:

Knowing what I know about life in Minnesota, my curiosity was piqued when I saw that the diocese says there are only two in North America. Little did I know how much there was to the story. :)

 

Do Say More, Dave

Remind me to say more when I'm not rushed: NPR: "The country was literally torn apart."

As for me, I want to know which country it was before I venture an opinion.

 

On PO 148

I disagree about "multiple." Doesn't connote clonitude, to me. (Mind you, I think "numerous" or "several" would be better here.)

            Re PW, all I can say is, in my younger decades it was an insulting abbreviation for a guy who was pussy-whipped. But then again, Tweety Bird had "pwetty pwease," and he never got whipped by that bad old puddytat.

The "straw dog" thing is just wrong. :)

(Don't know, haven't heard otherwise.)

 

WEB FIX

 

I learned that the Bernadette Roberts retreat web page cited below couldn't be read in every browser. It's fixed now and should be viewable by all.

 

Retreat: The Essence of Christian Mysticism

Bernadette Roberts

I am organizing a workshop with Bernadette Roberts, a remarkable Christian contemplative and author of three books:

The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center

The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey

What is Self? : A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness

This retreat, called The Essence of Christian Mysticism, will be held on the weekend of May 5-7, 2006, in Loveland, Ohio. For more information, go to Bernadette Roberts Retreat (www.keithops.us/brretreat.htm). NOTE: The web page has been changed to allow viewing with different kinds of browsers.

 

If you buy these or any other books from Amazon, using the link below, I'll get a tiny commission, and I'd appreciate it.

 

Link here to look for books on Amazon.com!

 

 

 

 

NEED A WEB PAGE? NEED SOMEONE TO ORGANIZE A MEETING OR CONFERENCE? CALL KEITHOPS.

 

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