Never the twain. . .

Idiotisms and Proverbs

Idiotisms and Proverbs.

The necessity don't know the low.

Few, few the bird make her nest. 

He is not valuable to breat that he eat. 

Its are some blu stories.

Nothing some money, nothing of Swiss.

He sin in trouble water.

A bad arrangement is better than a process.

He has a good beak.

In the country of blinds, the one eyed men are kings.

To build castles in Espagnish.

Cat scalded fear the cold water.

To do the fine spirit.

With a tongue one go to Roma.

There is not any rnler without a exception.

Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat.

A horse baared don't look him the tooth.

Take the occasion for the hairs.

To do a wink to some body.

So many go the jar to spring, than at last rest there.

He eat untill to can't more.

Which like Bertram, love hir dog.

It want to beat the iron during it is hot.

He is not so devil as he is black.

It is better be single as a bad company.

The stone as roll not heap up not foam.

They shurt him the doar in face.

He has fond the knuckle of the business.

He turns as a weath turcocl.

There is not better sauce who the appetite.

The pains come at horse and turn one's self at foot.

He is beggar as a church rat.

So much go the jar to spring that at last it break there.

To force to forge, becomes smith.

Keep the chestnut of the fire with the cat foot.

Friendship of a child is water into a basket.

At some thing the misforte is good.

Burn the politeness.

Tell me whom thou frequent, I will tell you which you are.

After the paunch comes the dance.

Of the hand to mouth, one lose often the soup.

To look for a needle in a hay bundle.

To craunch the marmoset.

To buy cat in pocket.

To be as a fish into the water.

To make paps for the cats.

To fatten the foot.

To come back at their muttons.

- From English as She is Spoke

English As She Is Spoke is the common name of a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, and falsely additionally credited to José da Fonseca, which was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book, but is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent.

The humour appears to be a result of dictionary-aided literal translation, which causes many idiomatic expressions to be translated wildly inappropriately. For example, the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros is translated as raining in jars, whereas an idiomatic English translation would be raining buckets.

It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English, and that a French–English dictionary was used to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book, O novo guia da conversação em francês e português, written by José da Fonseca. Carolino likely added Fonseca's name to the book without his permission in an attempt to give it some credibility. The Portuguese–French phrase book is apparently a competent work, without the defects that characterize English As She Is Spoke.

Mark Twain said of English As She Is Spoke that "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.”  - Wikipedia

"Get that Twain character out of my office!"

Jumping frogs and other phenomena of the literary swamp

I've been on a bit of a Mark Twain kick ever since I saw a superb PBS documentary about his life a few months ago. I got a copy of the DVD, along with two massive biographical tomes, the kind you can hold in each hand to attain rippling biceps in only three weeks.

I want to reread Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to see how much they've changed since my youth (ahem), but until then I tread deep water in these books, packed with too much information. Twain wasn't the nicest fellow, was an egotist, was moody, was often suicidal, and definitely pushed his own agenda. Good thing, too, or the following harrowing scene (which took place when Twain was still relatively young, but with a growing readership) would have erased Huck Finn from our collective memory:

"Sam, 'charmed and excited', had every reason to believe that a contract would be extended to him as soon as he walked through Carleton's door. So certain was he of this that he dashed off a private letter to his sponsor at theAlta, John McComb, in early February, boasting that he was about to 'give' Carleton a volume of sketches for publication. The paper printed a brief summary of this letter for Mark Twain's followers in mid-March - nearly a month after Sam had kept his appointment with Carleton, and been given the bum's rush.

"He never forgot it: his diffident arrival in the publisher's office at 499 Broadway, the brusque statement of the clerk that Mr. Carleton was in his private office: his admission to the great man's quarters after a long wait; Carleton's icily impersonal greeting: 'Well, what can I do for you?'

(Editor's note. This would happen to me on a good day. But wait! Here comes the best part.)

"Sam's abashed response - that he was keeping an appointment to offer a book for publication - triggered a temper tantrum from Carleton that lives in the annals of bad editorial judgement. . . Whatever the impetus, Carleton treated his speechless visitor to a vintage New York-style tongue-lashing At the end, he swept his arm around the room and delivered the coup de grace that will forever be associated with his name:

'Books - look at those shelves. Every one of them is loaded with books that are waiting for publication. Do I want any more? Excuse me, I don't. Good morning."

After this, the biographer Ron Powers cites the infamous"Whales, Mr. Melville?" (to which I add, "Scribble, scribble, eh, Miss Bronte?"). These can be lumped in with "These guitar groups are on their way out" (Beatles) and "Who's this Bob Dylan?" ( - oh, and - one of Twain's early magazine stories found an enthusiastic audience, but unfortunately the editor spelled his name Mark Swain.)
There are whole books full of "famous rejections", which are supposed to make the aspiring writer jump up from his/her bed of suicidal depression, all fluffy and flumphy like freshly-plumped pillows. It doesn't work, however, because greatness has a way of coming through no matter what. Or does it? How many Huckleberry Finns languished in drawers somewhere, only to be thrown in the fire a la Thomas Carlyle when the weather got cold?

It's too depressing to contemplate.

Man walks into a publisher's office. Disreputable-looking, shabby clothes, big intimidating cookie-duster of a moustache and untameable head of (red) hair. Obviously a bad character. Has this manuscript he thinks he can sell me, haven't looked at it yet and haven't got time. Worked as a rough-and-ready reporter out West somewhere, has nothing to say to a sophisticated New York audience. Wrote one story, something about a jumping frog, that was published all over the country, but who wants to hear about a jumping frog? This fellow seems to have a million ideas spilling out of him, and we can't have that. He'll stain the Wilton carpet. Uncouth, he is. Smells like tobacco and gin. A man's man, with feverish ideas. But the stunned look, the look of a small child who has been slapped instead of kissed, reveals him to be just another no-talent who can't take his rejections like a man.

"You had me at hello"

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Favorite rejection letters

Rejections. Oh yes, indeed. You're supposed to paper a wall with them, and no doubt I could have papered a whole house, except that I prefer to use them to roast weenies.

Here's a favorite, scrawled acress my original query letter and sent back to me in my stamped self-addressed envelope: "THANKS, BUT NO THANKS."

 

(I kind of get a kick out of the fact that I have to pay to get these things. They're either too cheap or don't want to bother putting a stamp on something.)


Rubber-stamped in upper right-hand corner of original letter: "LIST IS FULL."


"Dear Ms. Gunning. We read your science fiction story. Frankly, the only idea we've seen more often than this one is the guy going back in time and stepping on a butterfly."

"Hi Margaret, we liked your story, but why does it have to be so depressing? Lighten up!"


"After much consideration, we do not feel that you are ready for the novel form."


"LIST IS FULL."


"Though we are all in agreement that your novel is destined for the best-seller list, we are certain it will not be with us."

"This may be the wrong decision, in fact we may regret it for the rest of our lives, but - no."


"Some fine writing here, and you should definitely keep at it, but this is just not up to our standards."


"Sorry."


"Why does the violin talk?"

By extension, let's take a look at some of those Famous Rejections we're always hearing about. My personal favorites are the ones that are completely fabricated (by me).

"Dear Mr. Clemens. This boy character of yours is completely repugnant. His so-called "adventures" will never draw a readership, particularly since you insist on pairing him with that Negro person."


"Dear Mr. Dickens. To begin with, we don't like your pen-name - no one will take it seriously - and we are unclear about one thing. Which 'two cities' do you mean?"

"Miss Bronte, why must you insist on scribbling away like this when you could be making yourself useful doing needlework instead?"


"Mr Poe, pick yourself up out of the gutter and turn that morbid mind of yours to more wholesome subjects. That black bird of yours is most unattractive."

"My dear Miss Alcott, to set your story during the Civil War is nothing but a cheap device to gain reader sympathy. And as for those four girls - they are unmemorable and dreadfully dull."


"Mr. Yeats, not to put to fine a point on it, your poems are an undecipherable mess. Study rhyme and meter before approaching us again."

"Dear Mr. King: Please be advised that menstruation is not an acceptable topic, even in a horror novel. We advise that you take up some other field of endeavour."


"Mr. Joyce. Condolences on your illness. We hope you find a suitable sanitorium in the near future."

(And, here it is - my all-time favorite):

"Whales, Mr. Melville?"

 

(Codicil. Interesting little note, below. I wonder if they rejected him. Bazinga!)

Dear Editor,

     I am 14 years of age, and have been writing as far back as I can remember, and submitting manuscripts for the last couple of years. I subscribe to your magizine (sic), and my favorite feature is the Obituary department, although "O. Henry's Comet", for which this story is intended, runs a close second.

     Thanks very much for reading my story. I hope you see your way clear to put it in "O. Henry's Comet."

                        Sincerely,

                        Stephen King

                        Rt #1, Bownal

                                Maine

                                                                  

          

                                                              http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Always the Twain shall meet

You gotta dig this Mark Twain fella.

He seemed to move from situation to situation like a mercilessly sharp camera lens, taking everything in and giving it back, inimitably, in Twain. Though he was one of the great humorists, he was often melancholy, and no one can find a smiling portrait of him anywhere. He experienced several incarnations within one lifetime: riverboat pilot (where he may well have cried out his own pen-name to indicate safe waters), rough-and-ready reporter in the Wild West who converted every story, momentous or trivial, into sharp-pointed satire, and - let's not forget - one of the most celebrated writers of the Western World.

But before he did all that, he wangled himself passage (sponsored by the newspaper he wrote for) on a luxury liner set to explore the Holy Land. The resulting semi-factual book The Innocents Abroad converted his fan base from small but loyal, to huge and clamoring. (Clamoring for his next book, that is.) Suddenly everyone wanted him to come to their town to lecture and spin his yarns, eager to partake of his dry drawl and lightning mind. His fame began to spread like a YouTube video gone viral, except that in this case, genius was behind it all.

I found this paragraph, and it's neat because it's so Twainian. On the Azores island of Fayal (don't ask me where that is), he and some fellow travellers hired some donkeys, presumably to carry them up and down rough terrain, and panic ensued. One donkey entered the open door of a house, scraping its rider off to land with a thud. At one point they all ran into each other and fell down like bowling pins. I guess you hadda be there.

So now I come to the neat part.

"The party started at 10 A.M. Dan was on his ass the last time I saw him. At this time Mr. Foster was following, & Mr. Haldeman came next after Foster - Mr. Foster being close to Dan's ass, & his own ass being very near to Mr. Haldeman's ass. After this Capt. Bursley joined the party with his ass, & all went well till on turning a corner of the road a most frightful & unexpected noise issued from Capt. Bursley's ass, which for a moment threw the party into confusion, & at the same time a portughee boy stuck a nail into Mr. Foster's ass & he ran - ran against Dan, who fell - fell on his ass, & then, like so many bricks they all came down - each & every one of them - & each & every one of them fell on his ass."

I wonder who else could've gotten away with this. Twain was known to be outrageous and play with social taboos, once lecturing a gentleman's club about the pleasures of "onanism" (a code word for masturbation), stating that it was the birthright of every red-blooded American boy. To say this at a time when most people thought it would make you go irretrievably mad, or at least make your guy parts fall off, was provocative indeed.

But then, the best writers don't colour inside the lines. Do they?

Jumping frogs and other phenomena of the literary swamp

I've been on a bit of a Mark Twain kick ever since I saw a superb PBS documentary about his life a few months ago. I got a copy of the DVD, along with two massive biographical tomes, the kind you can hold in each hand to attain rippling biceps in only three weeks.

I want to reread Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to see how much they've changed since my youth (ahem), but until then I tread deep water in these books, packed with too much information. Twain wasn't the nicest fellow, was an egotist, was moody, was often suicidal, and definitely pushed his own agenda. Good thing, too, or the following harrowing scene (which took place when Twain was still relatively young, but with a growing readership) would have erased Huck Finn from our collective memory:

"Sam, 'charmed and excited', had every reason to believe that a contract would be extended to him as soon as he walked through Carleton's door. So certain was he of this that he dashed off a private letter to his sponsor at the Alta, John McComb, in early February, boasting that he was about to 'give' Carleton a volume of sketches for publication. The paper printed a brief summary of this letter for Mark Twain's followers in mid-March - nearly a month after Sam had kept his appointment with Carleton, and been given the bum's rush.

"He never forgot it: his diffident arrival in the publisher's office at 499 Broadway, the brusque statement of the clerk that Mr. Carleton was in his private office: his admission to the great man's quarters after a long wait; Carleton's icily impersonal greeting: 'Well, what can I do for you?'

(Editor's note. This would happen to me on a good day. But wait! Here comes the best part.)

"Sam's abashed response - that he was keeping an appointment to offer a book for publication - triggered a temper tantrum from Carleton that lives in the annals of bad editorial judgement. . . Whatever the impetus, Carleton treated his speechless visitor to a vintage New York-style tongue-lashing At the end, he swept his arm around the room and delivered the coup de grace that will forever be associated with his name:

'Books - look at those shelves. Every one of them is loaded with books that are waiting for publication. Do I want any more? Excuse me, I don't. Good morning."

After this, the biographer Ron Powers cites the infamous "Whales, Mr. Melville?" (to which I add, "Scribble, scribble, eh, Miss Bronte?"). These can be lumped in with "These guitar groups are on their way out" (Beatles) and "Who's this Bob Dylan?" ( - oh, and - one of Twain's early magazine stories found an enthusiastic audience, but unfortunately the editor spelled his name Mark Swain.)

There are whole books full of "famous rejections", which are supposed to make the aspiring writer jump up from his/her bed of suicidal depression, all fluffy and flumphy like freshly-plumped pillows. It doesn't work, however, because greatness has a way of coming through no matter what. Or does it? How many Huckleberry Finns languished in drawers somewhere, only to be thrown in the fire a la Thomas Carlyle when the weather got cold?

It's too depressing to contemplate.

Man walks into a publisher's office. Disreputable-looking, shabby clothes, big intimidating cookie-duster of a moustache and untameable head of (red) hair. Obviously a bad character. Has this manuscript he thinks he can sell me, haven't looked at it yet and haven't got time. Worked as a rough-and-ready reporter out West somewhere, has nothing to say to a sophisticated New York audience. Wrote one story, something about a jumping frog, that was published all over the country, but who wants to hear about a jumping frog? This fellow seems to have a million ideas spilling out of him, and we can't have that. He'll stain the Wilton carpet. Uncouth, he is. Smells like tobacco and gin. A man's man, with feverish ideas. But the stunned look, the look of a small child who has been slapped instead of kissed, reveals him to be just another no-talent who can't take his rejections like a man.