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Please add to this list of postpositives if you can think of any...
extraordinaire
galore
101 (as in "History 101")
manqué
redivivus
proper
ordinary ("mass ordinary")
Last edited by Hydra; 12/03/2006 8:41 AM.
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elect (president elect) general (governor general) royal (princess royal) past (times past) like (see Language Hat's post)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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5 points for zmjezhd.
I like postpositives. I like the way they can give to a seemingly dull sentence a surprise twist.
"He's a writer... manqué"; "He's James Joyce... redivivus."
Ah. Another is dowager.
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sometimes they're found in unexpected places..
fiddlers three (nursery rhyme)
battle royale (pro wrasslin')
bar sinister (heraldry)
mother superior (nunnery)
stage left (Snagglepuss)
chaise longue (Wickes)
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Of course, one should note that bar sinister is an absurd concept, since a bar is a horizontal ordinary and does not come in regular and sinister varieties. The correct term is bend sinister, the bend being a diagonal ordinary. Note also that ordinary, in this context, is a noun and not an adjective, so is not an example of a postpositive.
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Quote:
Of course, one should note that bar sinister is an absurd concept, since a bar is a horizontal ordinary and does not come in regular and sinister varieties. The correct term is bend sinister, the bend being a diagonal ordinary. Note also that ordinary, in this context, is a noun and not an adjective, so is not an example of a postpositive.
Usage, Faldage, usage.
A "bar sinister" is an absolutely perfect concept when you are talking about the evil going ons by the whacky judges of the Ninth District United States Court. 
Postpositivitively. 
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Didja have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in mind?
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An activist judge is one who makes decisions you disagree with.
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Quote:
Didja have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in mind?
You, Father, are astute. And I meant no disrespect to the fabled court of raving lunatics.
And no, Faldage, you really must learn the English language.
Activist judges are activist judges. The judges that I disagree with are the judges with whom I disagree.
Damn.
Sometimes I stoop to embarrassing myself by explaining the obvious. 
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Quote:
Note also that ordinary, in this context, is a noun and not an adjective, so is not an example of a postpositive.
I checked that, and you're right. Rats. Now there are even less postpositives than I thought.
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Quote:
And no, Faldage, you really must learn the English language.
Activist judges are activist judges. The judges that I disagree with are the judges with whom I disagree.
So were those judges that overturned the San Francisco gun control law activist judges?
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dalehileman
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Speaking of judges, "advocate"
But thank you for "postpositive", a new one on me
dalehileman
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Jackie:
Bend sinister is an heraldic device, a line that slopes downward from right to left, and usually signifying bastardy somewhere in the family line.
Nabokov wrote a novel by that name, and it was just as unreadable as anything else he wrote.
TEd
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Quote:
Nabokov wrote a novel by that name, and it was just as unreadable as anything else he wrote.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I cannot begin to fathom it. Reading Nabokov is a delight. And Pale Fire is hands down one of the best novels I have ever read. I've also read The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, which is a masterpiece. I'm now reading Glory, and loving every single line.
So what do you enjoy reading?
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Pale Fire
One of my favorites, too. You may want to read Ada, or for non-fiction, there's Speak, Memory.
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Ted, if I could have put an image, I would have. Thanks, though.
Reading Nabokov is a delight. One of my favorites, too. Uh oh--something tells me I would likely side with Ted on Nabokov.
Speaking of unreadable books: I had to give up on Cryptonomicon. Serious question: would all of you who love that book please tell me why?
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would all of you who love that book please tell me why?
Because you don't like the writing style or the subject matter?
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roh oh - this thread is taking a bend sinister.
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The writing style: WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much detail that adds nothing to the story line. I got, maybe, two-thirds of the way through, and still the 3 separate characters' stories had not become amalgamated; I got tired of waiting to see whether anything ever actually happened.
Im sorry, but when it comes to reading and movies I like them just told; I want a clear plot, convoluted though it may be. I tend very strongly to want the characters to tell me who and what they are; I will virtually never "see" the writing itself as a means of conveying something other than the story line--for ex., satire almost always goes right over my head. Not exactly sophisticated in my reading, or much else for that matter.
Edit: so--you all please tell me what I'm missing, in this book.
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Quote:
The writing style: WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much detail that adds nothing to the story line.
I haven't read that one, Jackie, but maybe the problem is you're are looking for a storyline when there isn't meant to be one. A storyline, I mean. Maybe he's one of those fashionable post-modern writers and what you've got is more of a story-forking-path; or web, hypersphere, mobius-strip, tesseract type thingy.
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Maybe he's one of those fashionable post-modern writers and what you've got is more of a story-forking-path; or web, hypersphere, mobius-strip, tesseract type thingy.
I think that Neal Stephenson is more of a throw-in-everything kind of modernist writer. In this respect, he is similar to Lyly, Rabelais, or Joyce in creating huge lists (or catalogs) and lots of extra info.
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I tried his Quicksliver, but couldn't get through it, for much the same reason. someday, however, I will prevail.
formerly known as etaoin...
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someday, however, I will prevail
I liked his earlier, funnier novels like: The Big U. (1984) and Snow Crash (1992).
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I've never managed to get through Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, or The Illuminatus, to mention some 'modernist classics'.
But I've read everything of Stephenson from Snow Crash through the Baroque Cycle. What makes him very readable for me is his inventive imagination and the way he expresses this without becoming embroiled in paranoia. NS insists that he's still working in the SF genre, even with the Baroque Cycle. I'd go with Speculative Fiction.
"The science fiction approach doesn't mean it's always about the future; it's an awareness that this is different". - Neal Stephenson
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a storyline when there isn't meant to be one.  Good gracious---then, what on earth else is a book for???
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To the list of postpositives I add: orange, as in clockwork.
WRT Nabakov... it seems like some readers prefer prose that is like a clear window overlooking an interesting scene. You don't spend time inspecting the windowframe or the glass, but rather the view which the window affords. Other readers delight in writing that is like a stained-glass window, where the window itself is meant to be admired, studied and interpreted with little if anything visible beyond the glass.
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what on earth else is a book for???
Books are meant to be read, I'd suggest. So read them. I read many books without storylines, though most of them are non-fiction, but some are not. This is the old plot- versus character-driven stories debate. One of the reason I like so few mystery novels is because they are almost entirely plot. Many find plot-driven, linear narrative fiction to be the only kind of fiction worth reading. Some do not.
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Quote:
To the list of postpositives I add: orange, as in clockwork.
So Tik-Tok of Oz, a clockwork man, is a mannish clockwork rather than man made of clockwork? 
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I allus thought the orange in Burgess' novel's title was a fruit and not a color. What would a clockwork orange do, slowly, but mechanically, decompose?
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Dunno, but it does explain Cap'n Hook's well-known phobia about citrus.
TEd
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Any truth to the rumor that Burgess originally wrote it as A Clockwork Orang and the extraneous e was added somewhere in the publishing process?
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This doesn't mention that; on the other hand, it appears that his opinion would lend credence to the rumor.
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Quote:
a storyline when there isn't meant to be one. Good gracious---then, what on earth else is a book for???
Correcting an uneven leg on the desk. 
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Books are meant to be read Mm. Well, I suppose I was making an unconscious division that textbooks are not "books". Another serious question, possibly stemming from not being awake enough yet: what kind of non-fiction (barring textbooks, manuals, etc.) doesn't have a story line? I've read all the biographies of Rupert Brooke that I could get my hands on, including one that was just letters to and from him. I loved reading the "story" about how his life and his relationships developed; many of his friends fell in love with him, and I did too. History books certainly have a story line.
Back to fiction: one of my dearest friends absolutely loves novels. We've tried exchanging books a couple of times, but our tastes just don't fit. I lent her my first Laurie King--she was unimpressed. She lent me one of her favorites, about a young boy who is longtime pen pals with someone who turns out to be a girl; they marry, of course. I was bored nearly to death, but nothing like I was when she and her sister made me read Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood. [shudder] As to mysteries, I have discovered that prolific writers tend to be a bit formulaic*, which, I suppose, is understandable--I don't see how anybody can write thirty mystery novels and have each one completely different. But I will say for Dick Francis, I love his main characters, and that I have consciously adopted a lot of their characteristics for myself.
*It was interesting to see how his obligatory sex scenes changed as society's permissiveness changed.
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manque as in artist manque (accent over the final e)
received as in accounts received
due as in 'credit due'
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Good ones, joe! Thanks, and welcome aBoard.
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Quote:
received as in accounts received
due as in 'credit due'
Aren't those last two just predicate adjectives?
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