or: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3894040

call me ismeael.

"I inherited my brother's life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother's life, and it nearly killed me."

Dick Francis, "Straight"

Dr. Bill, our eminence gris, just reminded me of Bulwer-Lytton, he who penned the immortal "It was a dark and stormy night..."

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

And this little beauty, that is often the first, as well as the last, words spoken by a drunk guy to another drunk guy in a bar.

"Oh ya. Come over here and say that!"

>Oh ya.

I've often wondered, upon seeing this construction, Bel: is this pronounced different to "oh yeah?"
(and if so, do ya wanna make somethin of it?!)

Dunno tsuwm. I don't know how yeah is pronounced. If I pronounced it the way I see it written, the "eah" has the same sound as the "eah" in Leah (as in the princess); which sound very southern.

I'm assuming you pronounce it like my ya - the a sounding like the a in "at" ?

I don't think we differ much, eh? my personal knee-yerk to 'ya' I alluded to in my first, "do ya wanna make.."; that is, I pronounce that ya more like 'yuh'. yeah, of course, is 'y[e]ah'.

I should know better than to get into this sort of discussion; my eyes start to roll whenever others do it.

I don't think we differ much, eh?

Ah-ha, now I know why we get along, you closet Canuck, you!!

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the last wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen.

(she)..was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

(and the she is question is?)
none other than Miss Scarlett O'Hara!

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the last wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen.

Er, Ridley Walker by R. Hoban?

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.

max, I wonder if that could be the encryption of a more readable sentence.

> that could be the encryption of a more readable sentence.

Ridley Walker by R. Hoban?

I never could figure whether I liked the story for itself or if it was just for the challenge of working out the language. I never cared for much of Hoban's other work, mostly because of the writing style, I fear. The Mouse and His Child I loved.

"Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. The morning was so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded in breaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away from the carriage windows."


k

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

[Gravity's Rainbow]

A screaming comes across the sky.

V2. I mean Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Great book!

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

Where's that from, jheem? Sounds familiar.

clockwork?

Sounds familiar.

Clock à l'Orange ... Clockwork Orange.

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's

One of my favorites. The song it's based on is quite nice, too.

Tim Finnegan lived on Walker Street
And a gentle Irishman, mighty odd;
He'd a beautiful brogue so rich and sweet
And to rise in the world he carried a hod.
You see he'd a sort of the tipplin' way
With a love of the liquor poor Tim was born
And to help him on with his work each day
He'd a drop of the craithur every morn.

Whack fol the da do, dance to your partner
Welt the floor, your trotters shake;
Wasn't it the truth I told you
Lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!

And the editor said, "Now, Mr. Dickens, was it the best of times or the worst of times? You can scarcely have it both ways."

Terrific line, Ted. Hope I remember it when we take a look at Dickens.

Wasn't Ted's quote taken from a Hodgson cartoon?

I liked the steal on the "dark and stormy night" used as the beginning of a Goon show:

Seagoon: "It was a dark and stormy night on the Thames Embankment, and there I stood in my thrice-turned paper overcoat, with my toes sticking out of my feet!"

What, please, is a Goon show?
(I ask on a moonless, blustery night...)

>What, please, is a Goon Show?

In case you are really serious (in which case yuo have my most profound sympathies), visit this site: http://www.goon.org/

What, please, is a Goon show?

USns can listen to Goon Show sketches on NPR's "Weekend Radio" (check your local listing).

And the editor said, "Now, Mr. Dickens, was it the best of times or the worst of times? You can scarcely have it both ways."

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw a long day ago in the Saturday Review of Literature (that'll tell you just how long ago!) as part of an off-again-on-again series called "Through History with J. Wesley Smith." It showed a man sitting in front of the desk in his solicitor's office, and the lawyer having leafed through a sheaf of papers in front of him says "No, Mr. Sullivan, this contract is entirely too much in favor of Mr. Gilbert, and I would suggest you dissolve the partnership immediately."...




           

Dickens? I thought it was J. Micheal Straczynski!

>I thought it was J. Micheal Straczynski!

I really miss his writing. B5 was one of the best things on TV (until he fell under the pressures of his own potential doom).

>B5 was one of the best things on TV

Just a slight correction. B5 was THE BEST SF show on TV ever, except for the last season, which seemed like a hastily cobbled together afterthought.

"Get your hand off my knee," said the Queen. Cannot recall if it's a B-W entry or a real first line! I love it, either way.

The politics in B5 was intrigueing and more detailed, sustained and plausible than I can remember in other SF series. Asimov and Herbert surpassed it in written form...probably...maybe some others. But the acting was largely poor - Walter Koenig was pretty good.