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![]() You Got Style |
· Pointed Takes on Style Delineated · February 18, 2003 « Valentine's Day Music | Main | On Parsing English Justice » · Compromising Style: Malcolm Cowley on Socspeak ·I I got to thinking about all this Friday though prudence begs me skirt specific circumstances, but I thought to share the literary generics. And who should come to my aid but Malcolm Cowley, the literary chronicler of "The Lost Generation." From 1948 to 1985 Cowley regularly advised The Viking Press and, in 1956, wrote an impressively witty piece called "Sociological Habit Patterns in Linguistic Transmogrification." I thought to share it today. Although I can represent it only partially, it is an instructive tale of "compromising style."
Perhaps it's well to recall that — as Robert Frost once said "belletristically" — "I was educated by degrees." What Frost really meant, etymologically, was, of course, "by degradation." You can bet Cowley knew the derivation. But I'm happy to report that Cowley himself turned to the grammatical rather than rhetorical implications of Socspeak, summarizing in his final paragraph the sort of "degradation" (or "transmogrification") grammar undergoes in Socspeak. It's a matter, you might note, of "conquered" parts of speech.
Today, alas, I feel "robust" enough — but a little "yoked and harnessed." I feel like a "February adjective" to an October post. And tomorrow, I have jury duty. Permalink Comments
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