On 01 May 2006 15:41:09 GMT, [email hidden]
Quoted message said:Carl Fogel said:Dear N.G.,
Quoted message said:We at Well-Written Purists, Inc., are appalled by the hideous and
unnecessary space betwixt a person's initials, but will not stoop to
insisting on the comma demanded by common decency before Inc., much
less the period that signifies that viz. is the modern abbreviation
for the Latin videlicit.Quoted message said:John Dacey would inform us that the ancient Greek and Latin authors
scorned punctuation.Quoted message said:Two further remarks of interest will follow this lengthy excerpt
from The Devil's Dictionary:Quoted message said:FLY-SPECK, n. The prototype of punctuation. It is observed
by Garvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the
various literary nations depended originally upon the social
habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several
countries. These creatures, which have always been
distinguished for a neighborly and companionable familiarity
with authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the
manuscripts in process of growth under the pen, according to
their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by
a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of,
the writer's powers. The "old masters" of literature --
that is to say, the early writers whose work is so esteemed
by later scribes and critics in the same language -- never
punctuated at all, but worked right along free-handed,
without that abruption of the thought which comes from the
use of points. (We observe the same thing in children
to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and
beautiful instance of the law that the infancy of
individuals reproduces the methods and stages of development
characterizing the infancy of races.) In the work of these
primitive scribes all the punctuation is found, by the
modern investigator with his optical instruments and
chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers'
ingenious and serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly
-- _Musca maledicta_. In transcribing these ancient MSS,
for the purpose of either making the work their own or
preserving what they naturally regard as divine revelations,
later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks
they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable
enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the
work. Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally
avail themselves of the obvious advantages of these marks in
their own work, and with such assistance as the flies of
their own household may be willing to grant, frequently
rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in
respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory.
Fully to understand the important services that flies
perform to literature it is only necessary to lay a page of
some popular novelist alongside a saucer of
cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe "how the wit
brightens and the style refines" in accurate proportion to
the duration of exposure.Quoted message said:--Ambrose Bierce
Quoted message said:First, note the antique beauty of the double-spaces after the
periods in the passage scanned above, a typist's habit long since
abandoned in the efficient computer age, but sometimes retained in
the early writings on RBT of Jobst Brandt.Quoted message said:Second, note that Bierce, a writer noted for his elegant style and
careful diction, has happily penned a lengthy exegesis that likens
punctuation to fly [censored].Quoted message said:C.F.
Hard to imagine such a text being written without paragraph breaks. I
am told this is "modern" but I doubt it. How did this piece become
one solid "thought" so to speak. When I encounter such writing, my
first impression is that I can't hold my breath long enough survive
with an idea that must be contained therein.http://www2.actden.com/Writ_Den/tips/paragrap/index.htm
Jobst Brandt
Dear Jobst,
Your paranoia is showing again.
No need to imagine or doubt.
That's how Bierce wrote the passage.
(Forgive my frequent paragraphing and short sentences.)
(I gather that it may be necessary.)
It's just like his other definitions in "The Devil's
Dictionary," which had no paragraph breaks.
You may confirm this amazing feat by examining the text:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/dvldc10.txt
Or visit a library, flip open a copy of "The Devil's
Dictionary," and search for "fly-speck."
Bierce's definitions began in newspaper columns in 1881 and
were eventually collected after 1906.
(That era is considered reasonably modern.)
(My grandfather read some of them, hot off the presses.)
Bierce's definitions were published in Hearst newspapers not
far from your home.
Readers of that long-ago time were able and happy to follow
Bierce's elaborately phrased satire and invective.
In that more literatre age, Bierce was able to quote from
what were then well-known poems and authors without
footnotes, explanations, or the gift of Google.
For example, his readers were expected to know that the
quotation "how the wit brightens and the style refines" is
from Alexander Pope's famous poem "Essay on Criticism":
What woful stuff this Madrigal wou'd be,
To some starv'd Hackny Sonneteer, or me?
But let a Lord once own the happy Lines,
How the Wit brightens! How the Style refines!
Before his sacred Name flies ev'ry Fault,
And each exalted Stanza teems with Thought!
How much was expected from the readers of the Nevada and
California newspapers was wonderfully explained by Twain:
"Once, while editor of the Union, he had disposed of a
labored, incoherent, two-column attack made upon him by a
contemporary, with a single line, which, at first glance,
seemed to contain a solemn and tremendous compliment--viz.:
'THE LOGIC OF OUR ADVERSARY RESEMBLES THE PEACE OF
GOD,'--and left it to the reader's memory and after-thought
to invest the remark with another and 'more different'
meaning by supplying for himself and at his own leisure the
rest of the Scripture--'in that it passeth understanding.'"
--"Roughing It, Chapter LI
(Note in passing the proper punctuation of "viz." by the
unlettered Twain, who, like Bierce, had scarcely any formal
education.)
In 1871, Bierce offered the following comment, which might
be apropos to your anguished complaint concerning the lack
of paragraph breaks.
"A list of two hundred books which it is proposed to
purchase for the library of the Lincoln School has been
referred to a committee of the Board of Education, with
power to reject any objectionable volumes. As it is not
probable that the members of the committee are familiar with
a half-dozen volumes comprised in this list or any other, it
may be reasonably affirmed that a conscientous performance
of their duty will require the first intellectual labor they
have ever done in all their lives. It is to be hoped the
works are printed in large, clear type, with the syllables
properly estranged."
--"The Ambrose Bierce Satanic Reader," editor Ernest Jerome
Hopkins, p. 103
Thanks for the opportunity to use Bierce's cruel comment
concerning the properly estranged syllables.
In the event that Bierce's meaning is mysterious to my
modern readers, the elegant phrase refers to the careful
sep-ar-a-tion of long words into their individual parts for
the easier comprehension of children.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel