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Adjective order in English (Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence)
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Berkeley Brett
Dec 2, 2013, 6:06:33 AM12/2/13
to
I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
I stumbled upon the following in the UK Spectator:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9087341/the-elements-of-eloquence-by-mark-forsyth/
or
http://is.gd/Ybp3rz
=== begin quoted text ===
What's notable about 'a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife'?
You'll learn about litotes, synecdoches, zeugmas, isocolons and the right way to order your adjectives in Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence
Christopher Howse
30 November 2013
... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book] is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.
This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it made explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the flat of your hand....
=== end quoted text ===
Here's the full text of the article:
=== begin quoted text ===
What's notable about 'a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife'?
You'll learn about litotes, synecdoches, zeugmas, isocolons and the right way to order your adjectives in Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence
Christopher Howse
30 November 2013
The Elements of Eloquence Mark Forsyth
Icon Books, pp.208, £12.99, ISBN: 9781848316218
In the reminiscences of Bertie Wooster we find this:
As I sat in the bathtub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar’, it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy.
The sentence is quoted for its use of ‘meditative foot’, in the Winter 1973 issue of the learned journal Linguistic Inquiry, by Robert A. Hall in his ‘Transferred Epithet in P. G. Wodehouse’, now as well-thumbed as any article can be that is perused principally online. Stephen Fry is always citing it. Mark Forsyth, however, quotes the sentence as an example of litotes — affirming something by denying its opposite. Orwell was wary of that figure of speech, advising writers tempted by it to think of the sentence, ‘A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.’ Economically, Forsyth also points out that in Bertie Wooster’s remark ‘Pale Hands’ is an example of synecdoche.
To find three rhetorical figures of speech in one sentence by Wodehouse fits our knowledge of him as a rather artificial writer. Nowadays that sounds like a pejorative categorisation, but it was not always so. In the times of Sir Thomas Browne (whom Forsyth, somewhat hyperbolically, calls ‘the first English prose writer’), to be ingenious and artificial was the bee’s knees for a writer. But for the past couple of centuries, the author explains, the intentional practice of rhetorical figures has been eschewed, partly because of the Romantic fallacy that ‘you could learn everything worth learning by gazing at a babbling mountain brook’.
The boast on the cover is, ‘How to turn the perfect English phrase’, and Forsyth admits that his book ‘is about one tiny, tiny aspect of rhetoric: the figures of speech’. Being able, like Peter Simple’s fantasy ‘apodosis turner in the conditional clause shed’, to produce a smooth example of epizeuxis or epistrophe will not, to be sure, make you Shakespeare (about whose use of figures we hear much to our advantage in this short book). But Forsyth’s chief and admirable ambition is to demolish ‘the bleak and imbecile idea that the aim of writing is to express yourself clearly in plain, simple English using as few words as possible’.
It is good news that the popular author of The Etymologicon (the ‘threepenny bit in the plum pudding’ of Christmas publishing in 2011) should now potter round the rhetorical warehouse at our elbow, commenting on the choicer goods on view, for he is well-informed and amusing. The shiniest piece of information I picked up is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.
This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it made explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the flat of your hand.
Forsyth concedes that zeugma is seldom useful, isocolon can sound silly and syllepsis show-offy, and he struggles to find good examples in English of enallage. Even the name sounds to me like either an allergy or analogy, so that to refer to it in speech is likely to meet the response: ‘What?’ It means a deliberate use of a grammatical error.
Is there a word for deliberate misquotation? Perhaps the examples here are not deliberate, but Wordsworth did not write ‘A host of dancing daffodils’. The Three
Musketeers’ motto was not, ‘One for all and all for one’ (the name of a recent dubstep number by Razihel and Virtual Riot), but, ‘All for one, one for all’ (Tous pour un, un pour tous), though it does remain an example of chiasmus. Nor did Blake write, ‘And was the countenance divine / On England’s pleasant pastures seen?’ And who told Mark Forsyth that an ell was an old measure of 1.1 miles?
I hope the publishers, having let those through, will mend them in the many future printings the book deserves.
[Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £10.99, Tel: 08430 600033]
[This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 30 November 2013]
=== end quoted text ===
Mr Forsyth's "The Elements of Eloquence" is also available at Amazon.com (and no, I have no vested interest in selling the book): http://is.gd/eZe2FM
Your thoughts on these matters are most welcome....
--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at: http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas.)
I stumbled upon the following in the UK Spectator:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9087341/the-elements-of-eloquence-by-mark-forsyth/
or
http://is.gd/Ybp3rz
=== begin quoted text ===
What's notable about 'a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife'?
You'll learn about litotes, synecdoches, zeugmas, isocolons and the right way to order your adjectives in Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence
Christopher Howse
30 November 2013
... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book] is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.
This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it made explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the flat of your hand....
=== end quoted text ===
Here's the full text of the article:
=== begin quoted text ===
What's notable about 'a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife'?
You'll learn about litotes, synecdoches, zeugmas, isocolons and the right way to order your adjectives in Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence
Christopher Howse
30 November 2013
The Elements of Eloquence Mark Forsyth
Icon Books, pp.208, £12.99, ISBN: 9781848316218
In the reminiscences of Bertie Wooster we find this:
As I sat in the bathtub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar’, it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy.
The sentence is quoted for its use of ‘meditative foot’, in the Winter 1973 issue of the learned journal Linguistic Inquiry, by Robert A. Hall in his ‘Transferred Epithet in P. G. Wodehouse’, now as well-thumbed as any article can be that is perused principally online. Stephen Fry is always citing it. Mark Forsyth, however, quotes the sentence as an example of litotes — affirming something by denying its opposite. Orwell was wary of that figure of speech, advising writers tempted by it to think of the sentence, ‘A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.’ Economically, Forsyth also points out that in Bertie Wooster’s remark ‘Pale Hands’ is an example of synecdoche.
To find three rhetorical figures of speech in one sentence by Wodehouse fits our knowledge of him as a rather artificial writer. Nowadays that sounds like a pejorative categorisation, but it was not always so. In the times of Sir Thomas Browne (whom Forsyth, somewhat hyperbolically, calls ‘the first English prose writer’), to be ingenious and artificial was the bee’s knees for a writer. But for the past couple of centuries, the author explains, the intentional practice of rhetorical figures has been eschewed, partly because of the Romantic fallacy that ‘you could learn everything worth learning by gazing at a babbling mountain brook’.
The boast on the cover is, ‘How to turn the perfect English phrase’, and Forsyth admits that his book ‘is about one tiny, tiny aspect of rhetoric: the figures of speech’. Being able, like Peter Simple’s fantasy ‘apodosis turner in the conditional clause shed’, to produce a smooth example of epizeuxis or epistrophe will not, to be sure, make you Shakespeare (about whose use of figures we hear much to our advantage in this short book). But Forsyth’s chief and admirable ambition is to demolish ‘the bleak and imbecile idea that the aim of writing is to express yourself clearly in plain, simple English using as few words as possible’.
It is good news that the popular author of The Etymologicon (the ‘threepenny bit in the plum pudding’ of Christmas publishing in 2011) should now potter round the rhetorical warehouse at our elbow, commenting on the choicer goods on view, for he is well-informed and amusing. The shiniest piece of information I picked up is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.
This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it made explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the flat of your hand.
Forsyth concedes that zeugma is seldom useful, isocolon can sound silly and syllepsis show-offy, and he struggles to find good examples in English of enallage. Even the name sounds to me like either an allergy or analogy, so that to refer to it in speech is likely to meet the response: ‘What?’ It means a deliberate use of a grammatical error.
Is there a word for deliberate misquotation? Perhaps the examples here are not deliberate, but Wordsworth did not write ‘A host of dancing daffodils’. The Three
Musketeers’ motto was not, ‘One for all and all for one’ (the name of a recent dubstep number by Razihel and Virtual Riot), but, ‘All for one, one for all’ (Tous pour un, un pour tous), though it does remain an example of chiasmus. Nor did Blake write, ‘And was the countenance divine / On England’s pleasant pastures seen?’ And who told Mark Forsyth that an ell was an old measure of 1.1 miles?
I hope the publishers, having let those through, will mend them in the many future printings the book deserves.
[Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £10.99, Tel: 08430 600033]
[This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 30 November 2013]
=== end quoted text ===
Mr Forsyth's "The Elements of Eloquence" is also available at Amazon.com (and no, I have no vested interest in selling the book): http://is.gd/eZe2FM
Your thoughts on these matters are most welcome....
--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at: http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas.)
Steve Hayes
Dec 2, 2013, 11:57:20 AM12/2/13
to
On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:06:33 -0800 (PST), Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
I'd be in better spirits if you fixed your line lengths.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
wrote:
>I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
R H Draney
Dec 2, 2013, 3:57:54 PM12/2/13
to
Berkeley Brett filted:
>
>... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book] is that,=
>have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. B=
>ut if you mess with that word order in the slightest you=92ll sound like a =
>maniac.
>
>This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it mad=
>e explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the=
> flat of your hand....
So how was it possible to enter both "a maze of twisty little passages" and "a
maze of little twisty passages" in the original Adventure game?...r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
>
>... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book] is that,=
> in English, adjectives go in this order:
>
> Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can =
>
>have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. B=
>ut if you mess with that word order in the slightest you=92ll sound like a =
>maniac.
>
>This knowledge is implicitly mastered by all native speakers; to see it mad=
>e explicit is an enjoyable revelation, like learning to carry a tray on the=
> flat of your hand....
So how was it possible to enter both "a maze of twisty little passages" and "a
maze of little twisty passages" in the original Adventure game?...r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Whiskers
Dec 2, 2013, 4:14:05 PM12/2/13
to
On 2013-12-02, Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> I stumbled upon the following in the UK Spectator:
>
> http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9087341/the-elements-of-eloquence-by-mark-forsyth/
>
> or
>
> http://is.gd/Ybp3rz
>
> === begin quoted text ===
[snip 130 lines]
> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> I stumbled upon the following in the UK Spectator:
>
> http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9087341/the-elements-of-eloquence-by-mark-forsyth/
>
> or
>
> http://is.gd/Ybp3rz
>
> === begin quoted text ===
> Your thoughts on these matters are most welcome....
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Moylan
Dec 2, 2013, 6:51:36 PM12/2/13
to
On 03/12/13 03:57, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:06:33 -0800 (PST), Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> I'd be in better spirits if you fixed your line lengths.
>
I see that Brett's article, posted through Google Groups, has a header
> On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:06:33 -0800 (PST), Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I hope you are all well & in good spirits.
>
> I'd be in better spirits if you fixed your line lengths.
>
line saying
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
as well as the other header lines one would expect from MIME-capable
software. This seems to contradict something we noticed recently, where
it turned out that GG does not understand Latin-1. Is it really true
that GG understands a character set that's specific to one operating
system, but cannot understand the encoding that is the most widely used
in Western Europe?
Could someone with access to Windows post something containing
characters that are specific to windows-1252, so that the GG users can
tell us whether they are readable?
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
David D S
Dec 3, 2013, 2:09:33 AM12/3/13
to
second, it
was a description of the shape of the passages?
I've tried to find a version of Collossal Cave (the
original game)
that will run in a text-box on windows 7 without much
success
recently because I wantede to trace out the links between
printed books, printed books with readers' choices built in
(like
the "Choose your own adventure" books), and modern computer
strategy and adventure games.
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
valid for at least 2 weeks from 2013/12/3 15:06:11
Dr Nick
Dec 3, 2013, 2:37:44 AM12/3/13
to
course).
David D S
Dec 3, 2013, 2:35:31 AM12/3/13
to
for it.
Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
James Hogg
Dec 3, 2013, 3:03:20 AM12/3/13
to
--
James
David D S
Dec 3, 2013, 3:05:56 AM12/3/13
to
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
Marius Hancu
Dec 3, 2013, 5:53:18 AM12/3/13
to
Berkeley Brett wrote:
> ... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book]
is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
> ... The shiniest piece of information I picked up [from this book]
is that, in English, adjectives go in this order:
THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADJECTIVES
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm
--
Marius Hancu
Peter T. Daniels
Dec 3, 2013, 8:22:14 AM12/3/13
to
On Tuesday, December 3, 2013 5:53:18 AM UTC-5, Marius Hancu wrote:
> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
That's French for "the late Dr. Charles Darling."
> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
John Briggs
Dec 3, 2013, 9:03:01 AM12/3/13
to
--
John Briggs
R H Draney
Dec 3, 2013, 2:20:27 PM12/3/13
to
David D S filted:
With your bare hands?...r
David D S
Dec 4, 2013, 1:34:19 AM12/4/13
to
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
David D S
Dec 4, 2013, 1:35:33 AM12/4/13
to
David D S wrote:
> R H Draney wrote:
>
> > David D S filted:
> > >
> > > Dr Nick wrote:
> > >
> > >> "David D S" <inv...@m-invalid.invalid> writes:
> > >> >
> > >> > I've tried to find a version of Collossal Cave (the
> > >> > original game)
> > >> > that will run in a text-box on windows 7 without
> > much >> > success
> > >> > recently because I wantede to trace out the links
> > >> > between printed books, printed books with readers'
> > >> > choices built in (like
> > >> > the "Choose your own adventure" books), and modern
> > >> > computer strategy and adventure games.
> > >>
> > >> I'm surprised. It exists as an Android app (with its
> > own >> text box, of course).
> > >
> > > I've obviously been too limited in my attempts to
> > > search for it.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
> >
> > With your bare hands?...r
>
> They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
... I have to cross their hands with saliva every time!
> R H Draney wrote:
>
> > David D S filted:
> > >
> > > Dr Nick wrote:
> > >
> > >> "David D S" <inv...@m-invalid.invalid> writes:
> > >> >
> > >> > I've tried to find a version of Collossal Cave (the
> > >> > original game)
> > >> > that will run in a text-box on windows 7 without
> > much >> > success
> > >> > recently because I wantede to trace out the links
> > >> > between printed books, printed books with readers'
> > >> > choices built in (like
> > >> > the "Choose your own adventure" books), and modern
> > >> > computer strategy and adventure games.
> > >>
> > >> I'm surprised. It exists as an Android app (with its
> > own >> text box, of course).
> > >
> > > I've obviously been too limited in my attempts to
> > > search for it.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
> >
> > With your bare hands?...r
>
> They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
(and they can't spell, I know)
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
Peter T. Daniels
Dec 4, 2013, 7:59:23 AM12/4/13
to
On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:34:19 AM UTC-5, David D S wrote:
> R H Draney wrote:
> > David D S filted:
> R H Draney wrote:
> > David D S filted:
> > > I've obviously been too limited in my attempts to search
> > > for it.
>
> > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
>
> > With your bare hands?...r
>
> They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
How much do you charge them for the privilege?
> > > for it.
>
> > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
>
> > With your bare hands?...r
>
> They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
David D S
Dec 4, 2013, 8:43:29 AM12/4/13
to
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
Leslie Danks
Dec 4, 2013, 9:00:01 AM12/4/13
to
David D S wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:34:19 AM UTC-5, David D
>> S wrote:
>> > R H Draney wrote:
>> > > David D S filted:
>>
>> > > > I've obviously been too limited in my attempts to
>> > > > search for it.
>> >
>> > > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
>> >
>> > > With your bare hands?...r
>> >
>> > They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
>>
>> How much do you charge them for the privilege?
>
> I don't charge them, I merely sidle up to them quite gently.
When is "Frott a Dragon Day"?
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:34:19 AM UTC-5, David D
>> S wrote:
>> > R H Draney wrote:
>> > > David D S filted:
>>
>> > > > I've obviously been too limited in my attempts to
>> > > > search for it.
>> >
>> > > > Thanks for the tip, I'll try again!
>> >
>> > > With your bare hands?...r
>> >
>> > They don't call me purple dragon slayer for nothing...
>>
>> How much do you charge them for the privilege?
>
> I don't charge them, I merely sidle up to them quite gently.
--
Les (BrE)
I frog mi wos i do dua - STS
David D S
Dec 4, 2013, 9:27:00 AM12/4/13
to
whenever you want to.
--
David D S: UK and PR China. (Native BrEng speaker)
Use Reply-To header for email. This email address will be
Marius Hancu
Dec 4, 2013, 1:05:51 PM12/4/13
to
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
>
> That's French for "the late Dr. Charles Darling."
Really?
>> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
>
> That's French for "the late Dr. Charles Darling."
"late" is not "regretted" to me.
Also:
~~~
Brave boys who have become illustrious men of our time - Page 246
John Maw Darton - 1881 - ?Full view - ?More editions
The regretted Dr. Henderson, medical missionary to China, was a footman,
and would snatch a moment at his book as the carriage rattled along a
country road
~~~
--
Marius Hancu
Peter T. Daniels
Dec 4, 2013, 1:26:29 PM12/4/13
to
On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 1:05:51 PM UTC-5, Marius Hancu wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
> > That's French for "the late Dr. Charles Darling."
> Really?
> "late" is not "regretted" to me.
I don't know what that means. "Late" is used to refer to deceased persons,
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> You may want to find it for free at regretted Dr. Charles Darling's site:
> > That's French for "the late Dr. Charles Darling."
> Really?
> "late" is not "regretted" to me.
regardless of prior habits of punctuality. Similarly, "regrett'e" is used
(in French) to refer to deceased persons, regardless of whether you think
it's a terrible shame that they are no longer with us.
> Also:
>
> ~~~
>
> Brave boys who have become illustrious men of our time - Page 246
> John Maw Darton - 1881 - ?Full view - ?More editions
>
> The regretted Dr. Henderson, medical missionary to China, was a footman,
> and would snatch a moment at his book as the carriage rattled along a
> country road
presumably was familiar with French usage.
Robert Bannister
Dec 6, 2013, 10:59:34 PM12/6/13
to
of a certain new-comer to this group. In the game, there are lots of
little passages that are twisty; in a certain somebody's writings, there
are many twisty passages that are, fortunately, short.
--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia
Mike L
Dec 7, 2013, 5:52:46 PM12/7/13
to
On Sat, 07 Dec 2013 11:59:34 +0800, Robert Bannister
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>On 3/12/2013 4:57 am, R H Draney wrote:
[...]
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>On 3/12/2013 4:57 am, R H Draney wrote:
>>
>> So how was it possible to enter both "a maze of twisty little passages" and "a
>> maze of little twisty passages" in the original Adventure game?...r
The really geeky computer geeks often lack a sense of English style.
>> So how was it possible to enter both "a maze of twisty little passages" and "a
>> maze of little twisty passages" in the original Adventure game?...r
>>
>>
>That second one does sound like a list of quotations from the postings
>of a certain new-comer to this group. In the game, there are lots of
>little passages that are twisty; in a certain somebody's writings, there
>are many twisty passages that are, fortunately, short.
...as well as that fine Devon word "mazed". Hey, OED suggests our
>>
>That second one does sound like a list of quotations from the postings
>of a certain new-comer to this group. In the game, there are lots of
>little passages that are twisty; in a certain somebody's writings, there
>are many twisty passages that are, fortunately, short.
Cheryl will know it, too.
--
Mike.
Cheryl
Dec 7, 2013, 6:06:01 PM12/7/13
to
--
Cheryl
0 new messages