6.0094 Rs: Forks (5/80)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Mon, 22 Jun 1992 16:30:29 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0094. Monday, 22 Jun 1992.
(1) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:54:13 CST (10 lines)
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: forks
(2) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 92 01:26:15 EDT (11 lines)
From: "John M. Unsworth" <JMUEG@NCSUVM>
Subject: Re: 6.0087 Qs: Forks
(3) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 92 09:27:54 +0200 (25 lines)
From: ath@linkoping.trab.se
Subject: Re: 6.0087 Qs: Forks
(4) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1992 12:39:38 +0300 (EET-DST) (15 lines)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: RE: 6.0092 Rs: Forks
(5) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 14:22:16 EDT (19 lines)
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: 6.0092 Rs: Forks
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:54:13 CST
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: forks
I still think it meant knowing which fork to use; if it did not mean that,
I am sure people would have taken it that way. In the interest of further-
ing the other opinion (not to be trivial), I should mention that the homo
viator in bivio topos is common in the Middle Ages, e.g. the book by
Wolfgang Harms with that title.
Jim Marchand
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 92 01:26:15 EDT
From: "John M. Unsworth" <JMUEG@NCSUVM>
Subject: Re: 6.0087 Qs: Humanities Computing; E-Mail; Forks (4/117)
Re: forks. I'm sure others will offer the same interpretation, but it
seems obviously to refer to a proper knowledge of dinner-table layout--
which fork do you pick up for the salad, which one for the main course,
which one for dessert (and it can get more complicated than that). I
think the phrase just means the person in question is "cultured."
John Unsworth
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------37----
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 92 09:27:54 +0200
From: ath@linkoping.trab.se
Subject: Re: 6.0087 Qs: Humanities Computing; E-Mail; Forks (4/117)
>
> "He knew the forks, and practiced the prevailing canons of deference to women
> and the elderly." LC Information Bulletin, June 1, 1992, p. 242, excerpted
from
> Scott Donaldson's "Archibald MacLeish: An American Life", Houghton Mifflin,
> 1992.
>
> For a book published in 1992, we have figured out what practicing the
> prevailing canons refers to, but we are not sure we know our forks.
This smacks of typing error.
Since 'canons' are mentioned, 'forms' is a much more likely reading:
forms and prevailing canons of deference ....
Unless, of course, we begin to wonder why only canons and not, say,
deacons prevail.
Anders Thulin ath@linkoping.trab.se
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1992 12:39:38 +0300 (EET-DST)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: RE: 6.0092 Rs: Forks (5/112)
So, we have 3 votes for silverware and 2 votes for forks in the road.
Might I suggest that the "silverware" thesis is strengthened by the
remainder of the sentence, which concerns our hero's courteous treatment
of the ladies? The latter surely puts us squarely in the court of the
social niceties; it's difficult to reconcile with a picture of a
Machiavellian pragmatist (unless the said ladies held the balance
of power, a position arguable in the later 20th-century :-)but surely
not in the period of the quote?) -- oh dear, what am I getting myself
into now...
Judy Koren.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------27----
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 14:22:16 EDT
From: Glenn Everett <IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET>
Subject: 6.0092 Rs: Forks (5/112)
Since no one else has mentioned it yet: my first guess at the source
for "he knew the forks" might be one of the "Silver Fork" novels of
the early nineteenth century. Customers of the circulating libraries
were apparently as fascinated with these stories of the Rich and
Aristocratic as Depression-era moviegoers were with Nick and Nora
Charles, as TV viewers have been with Dynasty, and as everybody is
with the Kennedys.
Can a specialist in the nineteenth-century novel verify or eliminate
the Silver Fork novelists?
Glenn Everett
U of Tennessee at Martin
IVAA@UTMARTN.BITNET