Most unfortunate phrase in an old novel

Cori · Post by **Cori** » March 5th, 2013, 1:11 pm

Miss Furr and Miss Skeene is the gayest story imaginable, from 1922. And it's very coyly done, but the homosexual meaning IS there; it's Gertrude Stein, after all.

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » March 5th, 2013, 7:06 pm

Cori wrote:Miss Furr and Miss Skeene is the gayest story imaginable, from 1922. And it's very coyly done, but the homosexual meaning IS there; it's Gertrude Stein, after all.

I find it hard, reading that, to believe that she didn't write it intending the double meaning of the word "gay". But I'm pretty sure it wasn't used that way at all in 1922. Hmm.

PatrickLondon · Post by **PatrickLondon** » March 6th, 2013, 12:55 am

But I'm pretty sure it wasn't used that way at all in 1922. Hmm.

,

It might have done, as a semi-private code. The 1960s usage is much more about creating a visible and self-defined social identity.

ExEmGe · Post by **ExEmGe** » March 6th, 2013, 3:14 am

But I'm pretty sure it wasn't used that way at all in 1922. Hmm.
It might have done, as a semi-private code.

Polari?

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » March 6th, 2013, 3:26 am

According to the OED:

By the end of the 18th century, it had developed another meaning beyond the original. It then started to be used as living by prostitution (especially of a woman) or serving as a brothel (of a place).

1879 National Police Gaz. 4 Jan. 3/1 She prospered in the gay resort she opened, and..it was the rendezvous for military men, merchants and politicians.

Stein's instance is the first instance of the homosexual definition: orig. U.S. slang. (a) Of a person: homosexual; (b) (of a place, milieu, way of life, etc.) of or relating to homosexuals.

This is followed by a 1929 quotation of Coward, and many more examples from the 1930s and 40s.

Ruth

PatrickLondon · Post by **PatrickLondon** » March 7th, 2013, 3:32 am

ExEmGe wrote:
But I'm pretty sure it wasn't used that way at all in 1922. Hmm.
It might have done, as a semi-private code.
Polari?

That's adding another layer of complication, though it could well have been adopted into some forms of polari. Posher people had apparently all sorts of other codes, like "Is he so" or "Are you musical?" (that might have caused a few misunderstandings!)

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » April 2nd, 2013, 8:56 am

For some reason I had a lot of difficulty recording this sentence without laughing:

Robert Louis Stevenson in [i]Treasure Island[/i] wrote:At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western end was already steeped in moonshine; the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks of light.

Mike001 · Post by **Mike001** » April 2nd, 2013, 9:40 am

Hobbit wrote:For some reason I had a lot of difficulty recording this sentence without laughing:

Robert Louis Stevenson in [i]Treasure Island[/i] wrote:At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western end was already steeped in moonshine; the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks of light.

Goodness -- and I always thought of Stevenson as a very careful writer.

"Steeped in moonshine" doesn't seem very good to me even if you don't give moonshine a special sense. Steeped in moonlight might just about work.

And can "long streaks" be said to "chequer" anything?

a pattern of squares, typically alternately coloured

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/chequer

catrose · Post by **catrose** » April 2nd, 2013, 9:50 am

Mike001 wrote:
Hobbit wrote:For some reason I had a lot of difficulty recording this sentence without laughing:

Robert Louis Stevenson in [i]Treasure Island[/i] wrote:At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western end was already steeped in moonshine; the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered with long silvery streaks of light.
Goodness -- and I always thought of Stevenson as a very careful writer.

I don't understand. Moonshine's an American alcohol (a quick google search tells me) How was Stevenson, a Scottish author, supposed to know that? I mean, over here in Wales, we call it spirit and in Scotland they call it peatreek.

And by "chequered" I assume it means the contrast between the moon's light, the dark shadows and the floor.

Metaphorically speaking "moonshine" and "moonlight" also both mean nonsense, and as my English teacher always says "Authors and poets are always very careful about their works. If they put in a word with more than one meaning, they mean both meanings, or else they'd use a different word"

Sorry, I'm quite a RLS fan, and I kinda don't like his credibility as a genius being doubted

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » April 2nd, 2013, 10:03 am

I'm not questioning RLS's genius credibility at all. I'm one of his biggest fans! I just think the double meaning of "moonshine" is hilarious (brings to my mind an image of Jim Hawkins swimming through a clearing full of whiskey.)

Mike001 · Post by **Mike001** » April 2nd, 2013, 10:09 am

Hobbit wrote:... I ...think the double meaning of "moonshine" is hilarious (brings to my mind an image of Jim Hawkins swimming through a clearing full of whiskey.)

Absolutely!

Mike001 · Post by **Mike001** » April 2nd, 2013, 10:25 am

catrose wrote:
Mike001 wrote:
Sorry, I'm quite a RLS fan ...

But if he writes something bad, which he probably doesn't do very often, being a rather careful writer, then -- behold! -- he does.

"Steeped" doesn't work that well for light. Just about perhaps. But if you move away from the direct idea of light to the concept of "shining" --

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/shine

-- then the image he would be trying to evoke seems weakened to me. It becomes more an affair of shuffling words than making you see.

Chequering refers to "squares" not "long streaks", as I indicated.

I think for once Stevenson was nodding.

Hobbit · Post by **Hobbit** » April 5th, 2013, 10:32 am

A brief dialogue with a most certainly unintended double meaning:

G. A. Henty in [i]In the Reign of Terror[/i] wrote:"Quite right!" Harry said. "You must not knock yourself up, madame. You are too useful to others for us to let you do that. Tomorrow night I will take my turn."

Mike001 · Post by **Mike001** » April 7th, 2013, 10:42 am

Well, here's a line in an old poem that's now a little unfortunate:

Vnto the place they come incontinent:

Spenser's Faerie Queen I.vi.8

That line just struck me again, since I'm PL'ing the FQ here at the moment.

I tend still to think of the word as meaning "lacking self-control" or nor constant -- "an incontinent husband" or whatever -- as it did till quite recently (although Spenser means "immediately"), but in the U.K. (and probably U.S.) the medical profession seems to have annexed the word and made it mean "liable to urinate in one's clothing".

Morlock · Post by **Morlock** » May 21st, 2013, 12:02 pm

Per Tricia's suggestion, I thought I'd post a sentence in a book I'm reading solo, Peggy Raymond's Way:

"And then her relentless common-sense, awake at last, went on to assure her that the Horace Hitchcock who had made love to her in the park the previous evening was in all essentials the smug, vain little boy nobody liked."

And I managed NOT to laugh.

But I had another line I'd been meaning to post in the hopes it hadn't been done so already. I finally read, per a suggestion here

, Patricia Brent, Spinster and had to relisten to this line and look it up to make sure I'd heard it correctly:

"Oh, Patricia! why will you persist in being a cold douche?..."

Wow! Bowen was ahead of his time!