Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Twain spins in grave

EXPLANATORY
IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit:  the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
THE AUTHOR.
I'm sure Twain would be thrilled to learn that they've finally removed words like "Injun" from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.


Some other word too—can't quite think of it. Starts with an "N",  IIRC.

Turlyey's Blog

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Turley is a great place to find insane, given that he's a prominent law professor. He's obviously got a yen for the bizarre.