[lit-ideas] Re: The Worst Verses Ever Written
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 18:01:57 -0500
JL, Donal, when it comes to air conditioning you guys are fucking crazy. I
love it. Thanks.
Mike Geary
Memphis
On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 4:03 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> In a message dated 6/6/2011 5:43:39 P.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> dividing into "good" or "bad" is not just McEvoy or "Today".
>
> ---- Thanks.
>
> Note that I was only focusing on the TITLE of the subject matter in the
> post to Lit-Ideas: "Bad poetry" competition. Which is indeed ambiguous
> between:
>
> (bad poetry) competition
> bad (poetry competition)
>
> ----
>
> I'm glad McEvoy expands on the 'bad':
>
> "evaluated as bad or good" --.
>
> The problem here is the prolifferation of lexemes:
>
> good
> excellent
> supreme
> bad
> worse
> worst
>
> ---- For some reason, most languages (and thus, speakers) seem unable to
> just stick to ONE 'evaluative' label (call it "GOOD") and thus use
>
> +GOOD for superlative
>
> and
>
> -GOOD for 'bad'.
>
> Note the distinction between 'worse' and 'worst'. I think it was Ayer who
> pointed out that superlatives carry the implicature of a negative
> existential:
>
> "The Everest is the highest mountain", I think Ayer said, entails, "There
> exists no mountain higher than the Everest."
>
> Transfer to 'poem'.
>
> Part of the problem with 'poem' is in the -em. This is a neutral Greek
> ending. As is the -om in "idiom". Poema, idioma, in Greek. (Interestingly,
> an
> idiom, for a Greek, was an idiocy --).
>
> ---- Of course, for the Greeks, the poem was the thing MADE (or done).
> "Poein", to do.
>
> It may be argued that a poet is NOT aiming at _good_ poems. But Grice would
> probably say that 'poem' is a value-oriented word (as he called them) and
> that, ceteris paribus, a poem is a good poem (his example: a cabbage is a
> good cabbage -- Grice, "Of cabbages and kings").
>
> ----
>
> When it comes to evaluation +GOOD and -GOOD, the source has to be Ayer. In
> "Language, truth and logic", he noted that:
>
> That is a good book.
>
> Or
>
> That is a good poem.
>
> Amounts to
>
> Read it!
>
> ---
>
> In symbols, !p
>
> Ayer went on to argue that such imperatives are for sure unverifiable. I am
> thus surprised that McEvoy who has elsewhere defended Popper, is looking
> for verification in an area where nobody (in the Oxford of 'enfant
> terrible'
> Ayer, as Grice called him) was.
>
> And so on.
>
> Cheers,
>
> J. L. Speranza
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