[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Twofer
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:49:33 -0800
On Feb 17, 2013, at 2:34 PM, Robert Paul wrote:
> David Ritchie wrote
>
>> I believe I write a kind of pottage. Peasant eats. I rarely know
>> what the words are going to be, though I can see in advance my
>> intents and purposes (also, as a student once put it, "my intensive
>> purposes").
>
> I'm not sure how to put 'my intensive purposes' into a sentence.
> (I tried, but not very hard.) The idiom 'for all intents and purposes' hasn't
> room for a possessive, although I suppose one could write 'for all his
> intents and purposes,' thereby creating a new barbarism.
>
>
Robert says there's no room to slip a possessive in, but in the third half of
his sentence I read him to say he fears that to muck about with an idiom
created under Henry VIII, would be to risk giving barbarians license for their
art. I have intents; I have purposes. Practically speaking (for all intents
and purposes), they are *my* intents and purposes. Surely in a Wotsit, that's
allowed?
I loved the bit about subtitles, my experience too. What can I add? I was at
a production of Moliere yesterday evening, in English. I was silently
complaining that the French town "Gravelines" should not be pronounced "Grave
Lines" when it suddenly occurred to me this location had been held by the
English for long periods. Maybe the French pronunciation is the weird one?
And what does the name mean, exactly? Turns out that the name comes from a
Dutch word, "Gravenenga," "the count's canal." The town only became fully
French speaking in the nineteenth century. Fortunately my objection had been
mentioned only to my wife, who is quite used to me being wrong.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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