“The Kandy-Kolored, Tangerine-Flake, Streamlined Baby (1965)
One want to say to Mr. Wolfe; you’re so clever, you can write so well, tell us something interesting.
Saturday Review
The Painted Word (1975)
There is plenty of hot air in this particular balloon, but I don’t see it going anywhere.
John Russell, New York Times Book Review
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
“Grammar, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage, humor, literary oddities
“On a voyage across the Pacific, Broun and his fellow passengers one day decided to provide themselves with an evening of entertainment. Heywood was asked to box three rounds with a man whose stature closely matched his own 240-pound frame. Before accepting the offer, Heywood engaged the other fellow in a chat, presumably to discover what he was up against. In the course of their talk, the man said to Heywood, ‘I’m going to ask you a question which I have wanted to ask someone ever since I got on this ship. What is this “demitasse” they have on the bill of fare?’ Heywood later sought out the chairman of the entertainment committee and announced, “I’ve changed my mind about boxing with that chap. Any man who doesn’t know what a “demitasse” is must be a tough guy.’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Monday’s child is full of face * Tuesday’s child is full of grace * Wednesday’s child is full of woe * Thursday’s child has far to go * Friday’s child is loving and giving * Saturday’s child works hard for living * And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, good and gay
This poem was first printed in a collection of Devon folk-tales in 1838, though it had a widespread English oral tradition for many centuries before this, Should you recite it to a child who turns out to be born on a Wednesday, you should know that there is a useful version that swaps fates with Friday’s child. You can also, at will, exchange the Scot-sounding phrase of ‘bonny and blithe’ for ‘happy and wise.'”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
“In 1955 Laurence Wylie, Harvard’s esteemed professor of French civilization, sent the manuscript of a sensitive chronicle of French country life, A Village in the Vaucluse, to Knopf. Back it came with a letter of rejection which said, ‘It is so far from being a book for the general reader that nothing can be done about it.’ Wylie did nothing ‘about’ it–he sent it on to the Harvard University Press, which published it in the next year. It became and has remained an extremely popular book for the general reader and the scholar alike.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“Europe * Asia * Africa * America
The four continents might seem to fit into the ancient sacred categories of 4 very neatly, but the concept is comparatively recent. Before the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the fundamental concept was of three continents–Asia, Europe and Africa–knitted together by such lynch-pins of the world as Jerusalem and Constantinople, Antioch or Alexandria.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, readings/research
“Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
[I think this Wikipedia article on Barbara Pym will provide some much needed context to this particular literary travesty.]
“An Unsuitable Attachment (1963)
Novels like (this), despite their qualities, are getting increasingly difficult to sell.
The Sweet Dove Died (1978)
Not the kind of thing to which people are turning.”
Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
“Moon * Mercury * Venus * Sun * Mars * Jupiter * Saturn
The ordering of the seven heavens is one of the mysteries of each culture, especially since it appears to be linked to everything. The Chaldeans created a very influential list, ordering the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. This seems to reflect a very exact ascending order, based on the observed length of time that they circled the earth. The moon, as we know from our months, is 29.5 days, Mercury 88, Venus 224.7, the sun (the length of our year) is 365.25, Mars 687.1, while Jupiter is 12 years and Saturn 29.5.
This remains virtually the pattern we follow today, apart from the reordering of the sun-day as the first not the fourth. This ordering seems to have been achieved in the Hellenistic East, where we know that the Astrologers of Alexandria had created a hierarchy of sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, which ascribed an order of dominant deities to each of the progressive hours of the daylight.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities, readings/research, science literacy
“Commerce, n. A mind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
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