[lit-ideas] NEW BOOK: "The Imbecile Orphan" (Longish review)

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 11:16:35 EST

I'm glad to see that the list is going back to  where it belongs. Serious 
postmodern neo-colonial literary  analysis.


In a message dated 3/2/2009 9:43:44 A.M. Eastern Standard  Time, 
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> If even knew who your parents  were, you'd probably be a
> much nicer person. Which isn't asking very  much at all.

This intrigues, for one because it omits whether it is "you"  or "I" who 
might make the difference if they "even knew" who my parents "were".  The sense 
of 
the second statement is none too clear to [me?/you?]  either.

Donal
Apologising to the world on behalf of  JLS

-----

Geary. When you see an enclitic subject clause, add  "Geary". It works. This 
becomes:

If Geary even knew who your [i.e.  general, one's] parents were,
one [i.e. you] would probably be a much  nicer
person [than you ill-willed people misjudge you as being -- it's rude  to 
leave a comparative like that -- McEvoy may be pleased to know that  'imbecile' 
has an unknown etymology*]. Which isn't asking very much at all. [In  fact it's 
asking an impossibility].

For Geary _knows_ the  lyrics,

"If you don't know me by know, you will never never  never know me".

Apply this to one's parents.

Ergo: you don't know  your parents. They die too soon -- if you don't updo 
them.

This was  apparently the case with Gwynneth Paltrow. There she is playing 
this role in  a
very _ethnic_ movie (though my friend disagrees). In "Us" review today I  
find that she is wearing that mystic bracelet that Madonna gave to her. It's a  
Jewish thing. Paltrow writes:

"Yes, I became a kabbalist. You see, when  my father died -- he was a Jewish 
[then my friend told me, 'Then she isn't one  -- Jewishness is on the eye of 
the beholder's mother line] and he
died just  when I was starting to get to know him. So this helped".

But back to  Geary:

THE IMBECILITY TEST. 

1, Are you an  orphan

( )  no
( ) yes, but not often


2. When  you said “orphan”, did you mean “orphan” – a person who has lost 
his parents, or  “often”, frequently?

3. Are you an  imbecile?
( )  yes
( )  no
( ) don't  know.

If your answer is 'no', try the Geary test:

Click where  appropraite:

( ) Does Geary even knew who your [i.e. general, one's]  
parents  are.

( )  yes
( ) no

( ) If you wrote ( ) no above, would one [i.e. you] try to be  
not the imbecile that you  are?

(  ) no
( )  yes


(*, in "Notes from the Linguistic Underworld, Geary writes that  'imbecile' 
is a negative construction, from 'im-' and '-becile' -- it's also a  
construction of the 'flammable', 'inflammable' construction, with in- as  
emphatic. 
Geary writes: "The problem lies on the isogloss. In Campania, it does  mean 
'imbecile', i.e. as not having 'becility'. In Rome and northern parts, it's  an 
emphatic and means 'very bright'. In Classical Latin is was hardly used for  
precisely that reason, but the Pilgrims did use it, hence its appearance in 
Eric  
Yost's idiolect").

McEvoy was also very insulting in referring to the  modal, "must have been 
incestuous parents", if they had poor Eric read  "Fahrenheit"! Just joking!

Cheers,

JL  

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