Is it OK to be anachronistic?

[Michael Baum]

>From Tuesday, March 13, 2001, 8:21:19 AM:

> Saioued Al-Zaioued wrote:
>> [quote from Pynchon's Luddite essay]
>> "But the Oxford English Dictionary has an interesting tale to tell.
>> In 1779, in a village somewhere in Leicestershire, one Ned Lud broke into a
>> house and 'in a fit of insane rage' destroyed two machines used for
>> knitting hosiery. Word got around. Soon, whenever a stocking-frame was found
>> sabotaged - this had been going on, sez the Encyclopedia Britannica, since
>> about 1710 - folks would respond with the catch phrase 'Lud must have been
>> here.'"
>> 
>> 1779 is many a year after 1710, so was this a typo? is it meant to be 1679?
>> Any light on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

> "1710" is surely an error for 1810:

Well, yes, and no. It seems to me that it depends on how you parse Mr.
Pynchon's original sentence. Specifically, the referent of "this". I
originally read it to mean that the willful destruction of stocking
frames had been going on since 1710, not the popular references to Ned
Lud. The most immediate antecedent to the "this had been going on"
phrase is the "whenever a stocking-frame was sabotaged" phrase, which
lends support to that reading.

maab