A Voyage to Arcturus
Dan Clore
classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
"third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer, aerself.
I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
cryptoguy
> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David Lindsay's
> classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
> "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
> coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer, aerself.
>
> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
> these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
I can't answer it directly but here's a datapoint.
The 1963 Macillan edition is viewable as snippets on
Google Books. It does not use ligatures. However,
based on the fonts shown, I think its a new
typesetting, rather than a facsimile.
I've also found claims that that edition is quite
defective.
There's a discussion about publishing a high-end
edition of the book at
http://www.savoy.abel.co.uk/HTML/arcturus.html
including ligature issues, which can be read to
suggest that original may not have had them.
pt
Stephen Allcroft
> On Mar 5, 12:34 pm, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
> > This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David Lindsay's
> > classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> > Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
> > "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
> > coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer, aerself.
>
> > I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
> > ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
> > these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>
> > Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
>
> I can't answer it directly but here's a datapoint.
> The 1963 Macillan edition is viewable as snippets on
> Google Books. It does not use ligatures. However,
> based on the fonts shown, I think its a new
> typesetting, rather than a facsimile.
> I've also found claims that that edition is quite
> defective.
>
> There's a discussion about publishing a high-end
> including ligature issues, which can be read to
> suggest that original may not have had them.
>
> pt
I've got a more recent ( I think Cannongate) edition: I'll check that.
Sidney Lambe
> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David
> Lindsay's classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a
> member of a "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he,
> she, or it, Lindsay coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae,
> with related forms aer, aerself.
>
> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not
> use ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used
> ligatures in these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ,
> phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
>
[Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines.
They are supposed to be signatures, not bulletin
boards.
Fix yours or you will find that myself and many others have
killfiled you.
Sid
Johnny Tindalos
news:71agpjF...@mid.individual.net:
> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David
> Lindsay's classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
> "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it,
> Lindsay coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms
> aer, aerself.
>
> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures
> in these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær,
> ærself.
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
>
I've got the Fantasy Masterworks edition; it uses ligatures in all those
coinages. I think that means that it's a fair assumption that Lindsay's
original did too.
Cheers,
Johnny T.
htn963
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> > This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David
> > Lindsay's classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> > Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a
> > member of a "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he,
> > she, or it, Lindsay coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae,
> > with related forms aer, aerself.
>
> > I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not
> > use ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used
> > ligatures in these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ,
> > phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>
> > Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
I have the 1963 UK Allison & Busby paperback edition and don't see any
ligatures. Scholarly interests aside, I don't think whether or not the
book has ligatures affects its quality (I consider it one of the few
great original fantasies) -- in fact, they would probably be
considered annoying affectations today and turn off some potential
readers.
>
> [Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
>
> The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines.
Oh, indeed? Why "four" but not "three" or "five"? "Three" has
mystical qualities associated with religious and fairy tales and
"five" is, well, half of ten. Four seems arbitrary. Was this "four"
limit arrived at by an ad hoc netiquette committee or by a concensus
of the majority of individual net users over the years? Not trying to
argue with ya, just wonderin'...
> They are supposed to be signatures, not bulletin
> boards.
>
> Fix yours or you will find that myself and many others have
> killfiled you.
Long sigs don't bother me too much unless they're *a lot* longer than
the poster's message, or draw too much attention to how clever or
credentialized the poster [thinks he/she] is. Come to think of it,
I'm much more annoyed by the latter. Clore is skating on thin ice but
hasn't yet fallen in with me.
--
Ht
John W Kennedy
> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David Lindsay's
> classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>
> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
> "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
> coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer,
> aerself.
>
> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
> these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
Almost certainly impossible to tell unless it's covered in surviving
correspondence. (In those days, mss. were destroyed in the printing
process.) In MnE, "ae" and "æ" are normally regarded as interchangeable,
mere matters of style.
Sidney Lambe
[delete]
>> [Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
>>
>> The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines.
>
> Oh, indeed? Why "four" but not "three" or "five"? "Three" has
> mystical qualities associated with religious and fairy tales and
> "five" is, well, half of ten. Four seems arbitrary. Was this "four"
> limit arrived at by an ad hoc netiquette committee or by a concensus
> of the majority of individual net users over the years? Not trying to
> argue with ya, just wonderin'...
It's a standard that has long been in use. A reasonable one according
to almost everyone. Has no special significance. Big enough to
say anything a sig should say, by far. A name and email address and
some info and a URL or two.
>> They are supposed to be signatures, not bulletin
>> boards.
>>
>> Fix yours or you will find that myself and many others have
>> killfiled you.
>
> Long sigs don't bother me too much unless they're *a lot* longer than
> the poster's message, or draw too much attention to how clever or
> credentialized the poster [thinks he/she] is. Come to think of it,
> I'm much more annoyed by the latter. Clore is skating on thin ice but
> hasn't yet fallen in with me.
I don't care what you do. If I see it again I'll killfile him, and so
will most people on the usenet. Most will do it silently.
Sid
Jack Campin - bogus address
>> classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
>> "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
>> coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer,
>> aerself.
>> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
>> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
>> these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
If the 1920 edition will do, I can look that up in the National
Library of Scotland. (Their catalogue entry doesn't say who the
publisher was; Wikipedia says Methuen).
> Almost certainly impossible to tell unless it's covered in surviving
> correspondence. (In those days, mss. were destroyed in the printing
> process.)
Not by a reputable house like Methuen, surely.
> In MnE, "ae" and "æ" are normally regarded as interchangeable,
> mere matters of style.
Dan has odd but logically coherent interests. If he wants to know I'm
not going to try second-guessing his reasons.
Any idea where Lindsay's manuscripts ended up?
==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
John W Kennedy
>>> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David Lindsay's
>>> classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>>> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of a
>>> "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it, Lindsay
>>> coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related forms aer,
>>> aerself.
>>> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
>>> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used ligatures in
>>> these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ, phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>>> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
>
> If the 1920 edition will do, I can look that up in the National
> Library of Scotland. (Their catalogue entry doesn't say who the
> publisher was; Wikipedia says Methuen).
>
>
>> Almost certainly impossible to tell unless it's covered in surviving
>> correspondence. (In those days, mss. were destroyed in the printing
>> process.)
>
> Not by a reputable house like Methuen, surely.
I see your Methuen and raise you the Oxford University Press.
It was simply standard operating procedure in the printing business. Cf.
Charles Williams' "The Masque of the Manuscript".
>> In MnE, "ae" and "æ" are normally regarded as interchangeable,
>> mere matters of style.
>
> Dan has odd but logically coherent interests. If he wants to know I'm
> not going to try second-guessing his reasons.
>
> Any idea where Lindsay's manuscripts ended up?
It occurs to me now that the obvious thing to do is to see whether the
1st edition regularly uses "æ" for Arcturan and "ae" for other words. I
read an early edition, possibly the first, once and do not have any
memory of such a thing, but it was over 40 years ago.
Dan Clore
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> [Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
>
> The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines. They are supposed to
> be signatures, not bulletin boards.
>
> Fix yours or you will find that myself and many others have killfiled
> you.
I do not know where you got your arbitrary limit on sigfile size, and
really do not care. It is much shorter than the recommended limit that
I've seen most often, eight lines, and the text in mine fits into six
lines. (The only other time anyone has complained about the length, they
counted blank space to make the total come out higher.)
Also, it is very rude to limit the follow-up field without noting this,
and you mistakenly use "myself" in place of "I".
--
Dan Clore My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Dan Clore
They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a difference.
(In Lindsay's coinages, this could alter the pronunciation.)
Sidney Lambe
> Sidney Lambe wrote:
>> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
>> [Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
>>
>> The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines. They are supposed to
>> be signatures, not bulletin boards.
>>
>> Fix yours or you will find that myself and many others have killfiled
>> you.
>
> I do not know where you got your arbitrary limit on sigfile size,
Google netiquette and find out yourself. Here's but one link
where this standard has been published. For the last 30 years or
so.
> and really do not care.
<plonk>
Most of the people that will be killfiling you for being a jerk
and a loser won't bother telling you they did it.
Sid
Sidney Lambe
Dan Clore
Which says: "Net etiquette (the "netiquette") and practice dictate about
four lines at a maximum. This is a sensible and commendable restriction.
But contrary to the common belief and frequent claims its nature is that
of a *recommendation*." I don't see how a sigfile 1.5 times the size
recommended here is so "enormous", particularly considering that it is
less than the maximum other sources recommend.
And, of course, if some idiot killfiles me for such a stupid reason,
then I don't care. It's not my loss.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Dan Clore
> On Mar 5, 1:13 pm, Sidney Lambe <sidneyla...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> [Enormous "sig" deleted without being read.]
>>
>> The netiquette limit on sig size is four lines.
>
> Oh, indeed? Why "four" but not "three" or "five"? "Three" has
> mystical qualities associated with religious and fairy tales and
> "five" is, well, half of ten. Four seems arbitrary. Was this "four"
> limit arrived at by an ad hoc netiquette committee or by a concensus
> of the majority of individual net users over the years? Not trying
> to argue with ya, just wonderin'...
If you search, you can find many different recommendations for the
maximum length for sigfiles -- four, six, eight, etc., lines. There is
no "the" limit. If someone really has a complaint about the length of
mine, they should come up with a way to make a shorter one *that
includes all of the information*. I've already compressed it in more
than one way.
Dan Clore
> htn963 <htn...@live.com> wrote: [delete]
>> Long sigs don't bother me too much unless they're *a lot* longer
>> than the poster's message, or draw too much attention to how clever
>> or credentialized the poster [thinks he/she] is. Come to think of
>> it, I'm much more annoyed by the latter. Clore is skating on thin
>> ice but hasn't yet fallen in with me.
>
> I don't care what you do. If I see it again I'll killfile him, and so
> will most people on the usenet. Most will do it silently.
I've been posting regularly on Usenet for a long time now, and it is
obviously untrue that very many people have killfiled me. If they did
they wouldn't respond to my posts.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
John W Kennedy
> John W Kennedy wrote:
>> On 3/5/09 12:34 PM, Dan Clore wrote:
>>> This is a somewhat technical question about the text of David
>>> Lindsay's classic novel A Voyage to Arcturus.
>>>
>>> Lindsay introduces a character named Leehallfae, who is a member of
>>> a "third positive sex" called phaens. Rather than he, she, or it,
>>> Lindsay coins a new pronoun for this third sex, ae, with related
>>> forms aer, aerself.
>>>
>>> I have the Ballantine Adult Fantasy edition, which does not use
>>> ligatures (e.g., "æ"). My question is whether Lindsay used
>>> ligatures in these coinages, so that they would be Leehallfæ,
>>> phæan, æ, ær, ærself.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this question.
>>
>> Almost certainly impossible to tell unless it's covered in surviving
>> correspondence. (In those days, mss. were destroyed in the printing
>> process.) In MnE, "ae" and "æ" are normally regarded as
>> interchangeable, mere matters of style.
>
> They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a difference.
Not in MnE.
> (In Lindsay's coinages, this could alter the pronunciation.)
Begging the question.
Jack Campin - bogus address
>>> mere matters of style.
>> They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a difference.
> Not in MnE.
Lindsay was Scottish and highly educated, so there are at least five
different pronunciations he might have used for "ae":
- as in "bare", the pronunciation you'd get on the rare occasions
when this occurs in English in words not imported from Latin
- as in "tie", the clzssical Latin pronunciation
- as in "bay", the late Latin pronunciation formerly taught in British
schools
- as in "fee", the English pronunciation used for Anglicized Latin words
like "Caesar"
- somewhere on the spectrum between "fee" and "bay", the lowland Scots
pronunciation
If it's written as a ligature you can guarantee that he meant one of
the Latin pronunciations and most likely the reconstructed classical
one.
Dan Clore
>>>> mere matters of style.
>>> They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a
>>> difference.
>> Not in MnE.
>
> Lindsay was Scottish and highly educated, so there are at least five
> different pronunciations he might have used for "ae":
>
> - as in "bare", the pronunciation you'd get on the rare occasions
> when this occurs in English in words not imported from Latin
>
> - as in "tie", the clzssical Latin pronunciation
>
> - as in "bay", the late Latin pronunciation formerly taught in
> British schools
>
> - as in "fee", the English pronunciation used for Anglicized Latin
> words like "Caesar"
>
> - somewhere on the spectrum between "fee" and "bay", the lowland
> Scots pronunciation
>
> If it's written as a ligature you can guarantee that he meant one of
> the Latin pronunciations and most likely the reconstructed classical
> one.
Which explanation parallels the thoughts that first lead me to inquire
about this issue.
John W Kennedy
>>>> In MnE, "ae" and "æ" are normally regarded as interchangeable,
>>>> mere matters of style.
>>> They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a difference.
>> Not in MnE.
>
> Lindsay was Scottish and highly educated, so there are at least five
> different pronunciations he might have used for "ae":
>
> - as in "bare", the pronunciation you'd get on the rare occasions
> when this occurs in English in words not imported from Latin
>
> - as in "tie", the clzssical Latin pronunciation
>
> - as in "bay", the late Latin pronunciation formerly taught in British
> schools
>
> - as in "fee", the English pronunciation used for Anglicized Latin words
> like "Caesar"
>
> - somewhere on the spectrum between "fee" and "bay", the lowland Scots
> pronunciation
>
> If it's written as a ligature you can guarantee that he meant one of
> the Latin pronunciations and most likely the reconstructed classical
> one.
Begging the question again. Finding a text by Lindsay that consistently
uses "ae" and "æ" to make a distinction is worth a million unbacked
assertions.
Jack Campin - bogus address
>>>>> mere matters of style.
>>>> They should not be, as there are cases where this can make a difference.
>>> Not in MnE.
>> Lindsay was Scottish and highly educated, so there are at least five
>> If it's written as a ligature you can guarantee that he meant one of
>> the Latin pronunciations and most likely the reconstructed classical
>> one.
> Begging the question again. Finding a text by Lindsay that consistently
> uses "ae" and "æ" to make a distinction is worth a million unbacked
> assertions.
Like I said, I can go look up the first edition in the National Library
of Scotland if Dan wants me to. But it's not an issue I'm particularly
interested in on my own account, so I'd only do that if specifically
asked. (Seems he's found an early edition that settles it anyway).
I don't see why you're getting so aggressive about it.
It's quite straightforward that some uses of "ae" are never written as
ligatures - in words from Scots, Welsh, Gaelic or Maori, for example.
Ligatures specifically mark a connection with Latin orthography, and
in real-world-language contexts, indicate a classical etymology.
Todd T
Lindsay's manuscripts and texts is Doug Anderson, who has studied his
work in detail. If you don't have contact info for him, contact me
and I'll try to get you in touch.
Whew, I almost didn't reply to your post, because it took me so very
long to get past the extra lines in your sig, but I persisted. I
assume you will thank me, a complete stranger, for not killfiling you.
The fraction of a second you 'cost' the guy is more important than the
content of your post, enough so to spend 15 minutes extensively
complaining about it....nuff said.
- Todd T.
Dan Clore
> One person who is very likely to know the answer to questions about
> Lindsay's manuscripts and texts is Doug Anderson, who has studied his
> work in detail. If you don't have contact info for him, contact me
> and I'll try to get you in touch.
I earlier asked the same question on a mailing-list that Doug also
belongs to, and got no response there. I assume he would have replied if
he knew.