Jo Walton ([info]papersky) wrote,
@ 2008-05-29 13:13:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Thud: ILE
Words: 1368
Total words: 95599
Files: 4
Tea: Spring tea, not much of it left either.
Music: Bach's Orchestral Suites 1 & 2
RSI: lousy
Reason for stopping: that's a bit.

The end continues to recede before me. I must not rush. This was a good bit. It needed to be there. Festina lente. Maybe not until tomorrow. That would be OK. Next week would even be OK.

Incidentally, I wanted to look up who said the British class system was "branded on the tongue". Google informs me it was Wyndham Lewis, John Wyndham, George Orwell and/or George Bernard Shaw.

(Post a new comment)


[info]montoya
2008-05-29 05:16 pm UTC (link)
No Twain or Churchhill?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rysmiel
2008-05-29 05:21 pm UTC (link)
"I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it" ?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]papersky
2008-05-29 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Not in the first fifty hits!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]bellinghman
2008-05-29 06:24 pm UTC (link)
It'll actually be Shakespeare. Or possibly the Bible.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mayakda
2008-05-29 06:33 pm UTC (link)
It's obviously the Wyndham Hotel chain. Yeah. That;s it.

(Reply to this)


[info]zeborahnz
2008-05-29 07:13 pm UTC (link)
According to my multi-choice guessing formula, it's clearly one of the Wyndhams. From there I'd probably work out which alternative makes a better story, and pick the other.

Or one could research. Alas, I can't find it quickly in Crystal&Crystal's _Words on Words_, nor in Oxford Reference Online's quotations search.

(Reply to this)


[info]wolfinthewood
2008-05-29 07:18 pm UTC (link)
I'd guess Wyndham Lewis.

If you are really stuck over this, I cd probably check in the local univ library. Not till next week, though.

(Reply to this)


[info]drplokta
2008-05-29 07:33 pm UTC (link)
Google also suggests Dr Johnson, which seems at least equally plausible.

(Reply to this)


[info]drplokta
2008-05-29 07:52 pm UTC (link)
According to Google Book Search, the phrase was used in that way in The Twentieth Century by Joel Colton, first published in 1877, which rather rules out most of the possibilities except for Dr Johnson or just possible a precocious George Bernard Shaw. I think I would go for Johnson.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]wolfinthewood
2008-05-29 08:01 pm UTC (link)
I think something has gone a little haywire with Google booksearch. Joel Colton is a modern historian. I'm still inclined to Wyndham Lewis.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]devvieish
2008-05-29 08:44 pm UTC (link)
Orwell in his essay "The English People", says:

The English working class, as Mr. Wyndham Lewis has put it, are "branded on the tongue."

Since Orwell has the phrase in quotes, I would assume Lewis is the originator.

(Reply to this)


[info]ethelmay
2008-05-30 04:36 am UTC (link)
From The Vulgar Streak, by Wyndham Lewis: "class like a great halter round one's neck — in which my very tongue was
branded as if I were a despised property."

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…