Joyce: winnowed of vigour

[Marius Hancu]

Hello,

~~~
[Lenehan throws in short comments on Corley's stories about women]

When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended he laughed
noiselessly for fully half a minute. Then he said:

'Well!... That takes the biscuit!'

His voice seemed winnowed of vigour; and to enforce his words he added
with humour:

'That takes the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, recherche
biscuit!'

James Joyce, Dubliners (Two Gallants)
~~~

Re:
"winnowed of vigour"

The meaning I've found for "winnowed"
~~~
winnowed
free of useless, unwanted, or baser components
~~~
tells me that in this definition the element winnowed away is undesirable,
while Joyce's "vigour" is definitely desirable.

Does the OED offer a more inclusive definition?

Thanks.
--
Marius Hancu

[Peter T. Daniels]

It could be replaced with "bleached."

[quia...@yahoo.com]

Maybe that his voice wasn't vigorous enough was why he 'enforced' his
words.

--
John

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 16:58:28 -0400, Marius Hancu
<marius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes. The original meaning of "winnow" is:

1.
a. trans. To expose (grain or other substances) to the wind or to a
current of air so that the lighter particles (as chaff or other
refuse matter) are separated or blown away; to clear of refuse
material by this method.

That has been extended to mean:

To separate (the valuable part from the worthless); (now esp. with
out) to extract, select, or obtain (something desirable) by such
separation.

However, Joyce seems to have used it to mean that a desirable feature,
vigour, has been removed from his voice.


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Harrison Hill]

"Winnowed of vigour" means "with the chaff taken
out". Better, purer, more vigorous.

[Janet]

In article <9e4e0790-68a8-4479...@googlegroups.com>,
harrison...@gmail.com says...
> Subject: Re: Joyce: winnowed of vigour
> From: Harrison Hill <harrison...@gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: alt.usage.english

You have it back to front. It's the vigour that has been taken from
his voice.

This is confirmed in the following sentence , which says

He became serious and silent when he had said this. His tongue was tired
for he had been talking all the afternoon in a public-house in Dorset
Street."

Janet.

[CDB]

On 4/18/2017 6:18 PM, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:

Carried away on the breath of his noiseless laughter, maybe.

[Marius Hancu]

Ha, perhaps.

Thanks, everyone.
--
Marius Hancu

[Harrison Hill]

Yup.