Theatre/theater

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Mark Wright AIA wrote:
> 
> Howdy
> 
> --- Thomas Colin 
> > It would not be heresy. It is actually the first reasonable thing one
> > should
> > think of. But, again, it does not seem likely. And what if it was a
> > typo?
> > Would it really cancel the whole discussion. I don't think so.(snip)
> So, my
> > opinion
> > is: this is the text we have, this is the text we read, period.

It's the first reasonable thing one should think of. I
agree, but something tells me that not much is reasonable
about GR. We can speculate with the  OED, the CMS, the AHD,
and so on, but what would give me the confidence to post my
own take on this, is confirmation that his is the one and
only Theater in GR. 


> 
> I agree that the text is all that the case is.  In my opinion it can be
> over-interpreted.  

I agree with both of these. 

I don't wish to "cancel the whole discussion."  I'm
> just snorting humbug into my pint, is all.  That's fair too....  

Right. 

Why
> should the typo seem unlikely?  On the contrary, it seems highly likely
> to me that an error of this sort might go uncorrected because (a) it
> would be almost impossible to spot (b) it doesn't alter the sense in
> any way.
> 
> OED lists Theater as a variant spelling of Theatre, with no shades of
> meaning.  Websters' old New Collegiate does the opposite, with no
> shades of meaning distinguished.

Right, it would be easy to miss, but what if Pynchon marked
it and proof readers, editors, printers and publishers, and
the rest, got it just the way he intended it--the only
"theatER" in the book. It would alter the sense by virtue of
its being the only Theater. It is an American spelling. We
could say it is contrasted with all the other "theatre"
(these appear in every conceivable manifestation and on
every ontological/episemological level and on nearly every
page of GR). And as Tom noted, "theatre begins on page the
first, GR.3 and end on the final page, GR.760.