little authorial signatures (the littler the better)

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And the authors who use dashes instead of quotation marks - did that start with Joyce?

Lily Dale, Saturday, 23 September 2023 17:15 (nine months ago) link

there's also the wyndham lewis double dash =

which i think he removed when he later revised & republished his early work in the late twenties

no lime tangier, Sunday, 24 September 2023 07:15 (nine months ago) link

can't remember who it was, but i remember recently reading another 20th century author how did the "shew" thing as well

no lime tangier, Sunday, 24 September 2023 07:18 (nine months ago) link

And the authors who use dashes instead of quotation marks - did that start with Joyce?

Correct usage in Portuguese (and perhaps some other romance languages?)!

Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 24 September 2023 08:38 (nine months ago) link

up until maybe the 1930s i think it's quite likely that there were publishing houses that favoured "shew" in their house style, from whence they imposed it on their authors -- it was after all still the biblically sanctioned spelling (KJB) and announcing yourself as "quirkily old-fashioned" would be a selling point in a time of modernist turmoil

(the first book i remember encountering it and being puzzled -- i asked my dad -- was t.h.white's "the sword in the stone")

mark s, Sunday, 24 September 2023 09:25 (nine months ago) link

A bit like the first time I encountered gaol.

I Left My Harp In Sam Frank's Disco (Tom D.), Sunday, 24 September 2023 09:30 (nine months ago) link

tom d is innocent

mark s, Sunday, 24 September 2023 09:36 (nine months ago) link

laughing out loud

imago, Sunday, 24 September 2023 09:46 (nine months ago) link

Drinking game every time Elmore Leonard uses the word “sportcoat”

Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 25 September 2023 11:16 (nine months ago) link

Shaw is mentioned, 'shew' is mentioned, but it looks like Shaw using shew has not shown up. Shewn up. Shuwn.

woof, Monday, 25 September 2023 11:24 (nine months ago) link

shuwn

so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly towards the full new yorker diaeresis

mark s, Monday, 25 September 2023 12:04 (nine months ago) link

William Shown's New Yorker

woof, Monday, 25 September 2023 12:37 (nine months ago) link

wallace shown

close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 25 September 2023 12:38 (nine months ago) link

ah yes from cluëless

woof, Monday, 25 September 2023 12:42 (nine months ago) link

There's Hubert Selby's use of the slash instead of the apostrophe, though this might not be a "little" signature. Also for some reason I remember William Burroughs' spelling of "naborhood" in more than one spot.

Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 16:22 (eight months ago) link

Love "gaol" and have always enjoyed spelling it that way whenever possible.
Quite amusing hearing Elden Ring YouTubers trying to get their mouths around "Ever-GOWEL". They are forgiven. But there's no excuse for calling Blaidd "Blade". He literally tells you it's pronounced "Blythe".

...eh you get the gist of it (dog latin), Wednesday, 27 September 2023 16:27 (eight months ago) link

I thought of selby and the slash (along with spellings like krist) but yeah on the bigger side

With brophy & shew it’s the fact that she was doing it in the sixties through to the eighties, & doing it consistently in more or less conventional novels, essays & experimental fiction, it’s a minor thing that stands out (she also will always use sc or even scilicet where most will use viz so I kind of assume this is her dying on some pedantic hill)

Boris Yitsbin (wins), Wednesday, 27 September 2023 16:47 (eight months ago) link

first thing i thought of was salinger’s “goddam” - i don’t usually see it spelled without the silent N outside of his writing

donna rouge, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 17:04 (eight months ago) link

can't remember who it was, but i remember recently reading another 20th century author how did the "shew" thing as well

IIRC H.P. Lovecraft used shew regularly.

blatherskite, Wednesday, 27 September 2023 19:49 (eight months ago) link

Shew me the meaning of the word

Dose of Thunderwords (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 29 September 2023 07:12 (eight months ago) link

There's no business like shewbusiness.

The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.), Friday, 29 September 2023 07:16 (eight months ago) link

So let the sideshew begin

Dose of Thunderwords (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 29 September 2023 07:25 (eight months ago) link

H.P. Lovecraft and the word eldritch. As Mark E Smith and Andrew from the Sisters picked up on.

Cormac McCarthy and the word and. Sentence beginner and otherwise.

Stevo, Friday, 29 September 2023 08:15 (eight months ago) link


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