Remaining at home quite a lot, my thoughts tend to lean toward the uneventful. And how much can one say about the uneventful? This blog attempts to test the limits of that question.
Monday, October 02, 2006
It's 1:00 in the morning, and I'm still writing my paper for the MSA conference. Trying to find an adjectival form for Hemingway, I found this amusing dialogue. I'm still puzzled about where to insert the 'v':
a: Google return for "hemingwayian" about 15 and 1700 or so (plus a dictionary entry) for "heminwayesque".
b: Since "hemingwayian" can't even be pronounced -- you would probably have to insert a "v" -- that settles it for me. But I would avoid either term.
a: As an aside, it's interesting to me that Google can be used in just this way. Since usage, over time, wins all arguments about how a language is defined, it seems important that we have this new, unusual ability to measure usage in this way. Lexis/nexis would probably be better for it though.
b: Note that the use of either "Hemingwayesque" or "Hemingwayian" would in itself be decidedly un-Hemingwayesque.
b: Since "hemingwayian" can't even be pronounced -- you would probably have to insert a "v" -- that settles it for me. But I would avoid either term.
a: As an aside, it's interesting to me that Google can be used in just this way. Since usage, over time, wins all arguments about how a language is defined, it seems important that we have this new, unusual ability to measure usage in this way. Lexis/nexis would probably be better for it though.