"resend" again (87)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Tue, 25 Apr 89 22:46:15 EDT
Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 892. Tuesday, 25 Apr 1989.
(1) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 89 00:17:44 EDT (38 lines)
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM.bitnet>
Subject: "resend" and e-style (181)
(2) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 89 12:44:09 EDT (29 lines)
From: Grace Logan <logan@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: Resend
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 89 00:17:44 EDT
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM.bitnet>
Subject: "resend" and e-style (181)
Robert Kirsner thinks that the opposition to *resend* must have come from
a*litnik*. As one of the first defenders of the use of *resend*, I feel
compelled to say that I'm a *litnik*, too. My Ph.D. is in Old English
literature, and I teach philology, linguistics, British literature, and
now paleography/codicology. No literature teacher trained since 1965, and
not many trained earlier, would attempt to define what can and cannot be
a part of the English vocabulary. It's fascinating that that's what Mr.
Kirsner THINKS we do. Perhaps, he had a bad poetry teacher in high school who
told him Robert Frost's poetry was all about death, or perhaps he's measuring
us all against some silly colleague in the English department at UCLA (mais
non!) who runs about *correcting* folks' spoken English (Alas, those people
are the mad scientists of the English department, and they've led to more
misunderstanding about what we do than Mary Shelley caused to be visited
upon biology professors.), but in any case he's wrong. *Litniks* and
*langniks* are of two cultures because each thinks the other over-complicates
an obvious phenomenon, and neither will take the trouble to find out what
the other is really doing. There is a great deal more to *Hamlet* than
-oedipal problems- (Kirsner's phrase) and more to Goethe than a -concept of
the eardrum- (ibid.), and the successful analysis of Shakespeare and Goethe
is not written by people who want to declare*resend* a linguistic atrocity.
On the other hand, *litniks* who want to ignore advances in linguistic
theory like to think that the only good *langnik* is a polyglot, and thus
they overlook the whole saussurean foundation of language theory which has,
while they weren't looking, become the basis of modern literary critical
theory ever since the advent of structuralism. That there are two cultures
is undoubtedly true, but we should work to integrate these two cultures as
we have tried to integrate others. They have too much to offer each other to
be allowed to stand in a mutually exclusive relationship. To paraphrase
Kirsner, reality is a crutch for those unable to cope with language or fiction.
It's a pity, really. I like to imagine that Shakespeare and Goethe knew how
to walk WITH language and fiction.
--Pat Conner
--Litnik, Langnik, etcnik
--West Virginia University
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 89 12:44:09 EDT
From: Grace Logan <logan@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: Resend
I noted with interest the discussion of the word 'resend' in
recent HUMANIST postings. Curiosity sent me to my copy of
the micro-OED (bless the Book-of-the-Month Club). I found the
following:
resend,v.trans., To send back or again.
Quotations:
1554. Bradford Lett. Wks. (Parker Soc) II.116. My book . . I
I did give unto you; howbeit, if you be weary of it, you
may re-send it again.
1575. G.Harvey Letter-Bk. (Camden) 90, I resende you a furlonge
of salutations.
. . .
1894. Gladstone. Sp. Ho. Com. 1 Mar., This operation of sending
and resending . . between the two Houses, this particular
Bill, . . has continued long enough.
The last example at the very least seems to me to use the verb in
almost the very same sense in which it was used in the original
posting.
Grace Logan
Arts Computing Office
University of Waterloo