Having never previously made it past page three of any Dickens novel, I recently managed, and thoroughly enjoyed, Oliver Twist. The palpable distaste for jewish folk in that book though - oy!Originally Posted by Burney
Having never previously made it past page three of any Dickens novel, I recently managed, and thoroughly enjoyed, Oliver Twist. The palpable distaste for jewish folk in that book though - oy!
Blimey, of all the ones to manage to finish, that would be right at the bottom of the list.
Great Expectorations, that's the daddy. And Pickwick Papers is quite amusing.
Oddly enough, Dickens considered himself a friend of the Jews and was supposedly horrified that his representation of Fagin might be construed as anti-semitic. Which suggests to me he was taking the píss, because I'm not really sure how you could miss that.
He even had the fella hung at the end for reasons no-one can really make out, ffs!
Hanged, even. Unless you're talking about the size of his cóck.
I like the sound of 'hung' better.
I like the sound of 'moist' better than 'pulchritudinous', but if I confuse the two, my prose will no longer accurately express my meaning; which is, surely, the purpose of language?
Ah, but 'hung' is easily understood from context, so serves perfectly well.
Not at all. I was confused as to why he had been set upon a hook and allowed to decay until his tail feathers dropped out and his meat was tender - after all, who would eat a jew? After some research, I found out that he had been executed at the gibbet, but your imprecise use of language cost me a good 10 minutes of my life.
Top wriggling b
Top wriggling b
Sir C is well aware that I know the difference between 'hung' and 'hanged'. However, as a skilled and practised user of the English language at a certain level, I get to choose those 'rules' to which I adhere and those to which I don't. As the most cursory research will tell you, most such 'rules' are entirely arbitrary and don't stand up to the slightest scrutiny.
Here, for instance, we have the regular and irregular past participles of the verb 'to hang'. Each is equally valid and easily understood, but recent tradition has dictated that one be used in one context and one in another. In fact, they were used interchangeably for centuries and there is no logic behind not doing so other than to avoid the barbs of pedants who wish to castigate you for doing nothing wrong.
Last edited by Burney; 10-13-2017 at 10:32 AM.
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