<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(41,47,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:18px;white-space:pre-wrap">St. Augustine warns against 'heretical punctuation'. Bet that man was partial to an Oxford comma.</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Mark Kohut <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com" target="_blank">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">If God is dead, so is Grammar----Somebody, (maybe Nietzsche)? </div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 9:29 AM, ish mailian <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ishmailian@gmail.com" target="_blank">ishmailian@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">There is no classically correct sentence in American English or even<br>
in American Grammar. Traditional grammar, taught by nuns like Sister<br>
Bernadette with her Barking Dog<br>
<br>
<br>
see here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Bernadette%27s_Barking_Dog" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Bernadette%27s_Barking_Dog</a><br>
<br>
or, by grammar enthusiasts in public schools, like those young Pynchon<br>
attended, where texts like Warriner's English Grammar and Composition<br>
<br>
see here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriner%27s_English_Grammar_and_Composition" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriner%27s_English_Grammar_and_Composition</a><br>
<br>
were supplemented with handbooks on style, like, The Elements of Style<br>
<br>
 see here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style</a><br>
<br>
was abandoned by the National Council for the Teaching of English and,<br>
though it is making something of comeback, was replaced by several<br>
methods of instruction based in theoretical linguistics.<br>
<br>
When I say that P sentences are more rhetorical than strictly<br>
grammatical, I'm not saying that he is writing nonsense, though of<br>
course he is free to do so, but that the grammar is less important<br>
than rhetorical impact.<br>
<br>
To apply a classical grammar or prescriptive grammar to a long P<br>
sentence can be a productive exercise. It may turn up an error that<br>
the editor missed. It may also be useful to translators. It may also<br>
identify ambiguities. We may discuss the meanings and purposes of the<br>
use of ambiguity and even argue its intentionality or if authorial<br>
intent matters.<br>
<br>
There are grammar rules or guidelines for the use of punctuation when<br>
introducing series. There are obvious errors, for example, a missing<br>
comma that makes the sentence illogical, but there is latitude that in<br>
the interest of rhetorical impact or style far outweighs the value of<br>
strict grammatical clarity.<br>
<div><div><br>
<br>
On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 10:58 PM, John Bailey <<a href="mailto:sundayjb@gmail.com" target="_blank">sundayjb@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> I agree with all but can also parse it as an almost classically<br>
> correct sentence if the "after a while" clause is seen as the second<br>
> part of a list:<br>
><br>
> ...and before she knew it<br>
> (1) there they were in another motel room,<br>
> (2) after a while her visits to Sasha dropped off and<br>
> (3) when she made them she came in reeking with Vond sweat...<br>
><br>
> I haven't changed any grammar or punctuation there, just emphasised<br>
> the listiness.<br>
><br>
> Is this incorrect? As Ish says it's fiction and Pynchon is free to<br>
> write damn near incomprehensible goobledygook if he cares to, but I<br>
> think the argument that this isn't a classically correct sentence is<br>
> false.<br>
><br>
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 1:12 PM, Joseph Tracy <<a href="mailto:brook7@sover.net" target="_blank">brook7@sover.net</a>> wrote:<br>
>>Â I think there just needs to be a semicolon after motel room for the whole to work as a single classically correct sentence.<br>
>>> On Mar 19, 2016, at 9:31 AM, Jochen Stremmel <<a href="mailto:jstremmel@gmail.com" target="_blank">jstremmel@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> I would say those are two long sentences, or one with an "and" missing between "motel room" and "after". No real problem for a grammar freak and no pretending that I can see. (Although I'd have to say that Kermode could have seen that.)<br>
>>><br>
>>> 2016-03-19 11:15 GMT+01:00 John Bailey <<a href="mailto:sundayjb@gmail.com" target="_blank">sundayjb@gmail.com</a>>:<br>
>>> I've been reading a recent essay by one of Australia's pre-eminent<br>
>>> novelists, Gerald Murnane, an extremely private man (the more common<br>
>>> description is 'reclusive') only two years younger than Thomas Pynchon<br>
>>> and whose work is characterised by obscenely long sentences that are<br>
>>> nonetheless grammatically correct. His great obsession is Proust and<br>
>>> most would say he is the Antipodean answer to Proust. The essay is on<br>
>>> the long sentence's profound potential to produce meaning - which he<br>
>>> associates with 'connections' - that short, descriptive, declarative<br>
>>> sentences can't access. But as an obsessive grammarian, he begins the<br>
>>> work decrying Kermode's review of Vineland, in which is quoted the<br>
>>> following loooong sentence. Murnane says it isn't a sentence, but a 66<br>
>>> word sentence followed by a bunch of unconnected clauses. He goes on<br>
>>> to call Pynchon and Kermode 'pretenders' as a result (did I mention<br>
>>> Murnane is a serious grammar freak?) but eventually produces quite an<br>
>>> interesting essay.<br>
>>><br>
>>> My question is: I can see how he can't parse the following as a<br>
>>> classically correct sentence past "another motel room" but I can also<br>
>>> see how it does work. I don't know how to argue for it, however. A<br>
>>> puzzle fit for a P-list.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The 'after a while her visits to Sasha' clause is where things get hairy.<br>
>>><br>
>>> "By the time she began to see that she might, nonetheless, have gone<br>
>>> through with it, Brock Vond had reentered the picture, at the head of<br>
>>> a small motorcade of unmarked Buicks, forcing her over near Pico and<br>
>>> Fairfax, ordering her up against her car, kicking apart her legs and<br>
>>> frisking her himself, and before she knew it there they were in<br>
>>> another motel room, after a while her visits to Sasha dropped off and<br>
>>> when she made them she came in reeking with Vond sweat, Vond semen —<br>
>>> couldn't Sasha smell what was going on? — and his erect penis had<br>
>>> become the joystick with which, hurtling into the future, she would<br>
>>> keep trying to steer among the hazards and obstacles, the swooping<br>
>>> monsters and alien projectiles of each game she would come, year by<br>
>>> year, to stand before, once again out long after curfew, calls home<br>
>>> forgotten, supply of coins dwindling, leaning over the bright display<br>
>>> among the back aisles of a forbidden arcade, rows of other players<br>
>>> silent, unnoticed, closing time never announced, playing for nothing<br>
>>> but the score itself, the row of numbers, a chance of entering her<br>
>>> initials among those of other strangers for a brief time, no longer<br>
>>> the time the world observed but game time, underground time, time that<br>
>>> could take her nowhere outside its own tight and falsely deathless<br>
>>> perimeter."<br>
>>> -<br>
>>> Pynchon-l / <a href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l</a><br>
>>><br>
>><br>
>> -<br>
>> Pynchon-l / <a href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l</a><br>
> -<br>
> Pynchon-l / <a href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l</a><br>
-<br>
Pynchon-l / <a href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l</a><br>
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