Help!

[malignd at aol.com]

<<Sounds like Abish, but that is a guess at best. I am not sure, but it seems 
to me unlikely that Sam knew German. >>




Clemens/Twain wrote a famous piece on the impossibility of the German language.



-----Original Message-----
From: Page <page at quesnelbc.com>
To: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 8:55 pm
Subject: Re: Help!







Sounds like Abish, but that is a guess at best. I am not sure, but it seems 
to me unlikely that Sam knew German. 
 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com> 

To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org> 

Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:06 PM 

Subject: Help! 
 


> From a friend: 

> 

> Got a call from a patron today looking for a story that he read about 

> 20 years ago. However, he said the story was not a new one of that 

> time, just that's when he 

> read it. He cannot remember the title or author but gave this description. 

> 

> It's an essay or short story. It starts in English and progresses to 

> tell how a language might be changed by substituting a letter or 

> symbol for a letter we have 

> in English. As the story goes on the author is subtly changing the 

> letters to the symbols or new letters he has discussed so that by the 

> end of the story you (the 

> reader) are actually reading this "new" language that has morphed from 

> English. He strongly thinks the "new" language is German or is similar 

> to German. He also 

> has a vague notion that it might have been written by Samuel Clemens 

> but says that is very vague and could be totally wrong. 

> 

> At first I thought he was describing Ella Minnow Pea but as he went on 

> I realized that story does not meet his description. Also, it wasn't 

> written too long ago. 

> Does anyone have any idea what he is talking about? 

> 
 


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