BEER Ch. 6, 53-57: knotting into March Kelleher

[jochen stremmel]

I've got only the 2nd edition of the OED (1989), compact (1996), and
that doesn't have
the Le Carré meaning; if you look it up in the Wiktionary
(http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/legend) it's there under (7): A
fabricated backstory for a spy, with associated documents and records;
a cover story. I doubt it's to be found out there in that sense before
Le Carré.

But as I said before, that meaning doesn't make sense here on p. 53, in my eyes.

2013/10/31 Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>:
> Ah, of course! 'Legend' in Le Carré is a Germanism.
>
> Was what I was going to reply until I browsed through the LRB review of
> 'Undercover: The True Story of Britain’s Secret Police' by Rob Evans and
> Paul Lewis that Fiona provided a link to:
>
> "In SDS slang, he [an undercover secret policeman] was creating his
> ‘legend’. A good legend would account for every aspect of the character’s
> story and personality, and would make it possible for a spy to be a ‘deep
> swimmer’ rather than a ‘shallow paddler’. Francis’s legend included an
> abusive, alcoholic father to explain why he could fight so well, and a
> mother dying of cancer abroad to explain his trips to visit his actual
> family (undercover for years at a time, officers couldn’t go home
> regularly). When an officer had prepared his legend, he exchanged his
> warrant cards for identity papers – driving licence, birth certificate,
> passport, even a fake criminal record on the police database, where the role
> required it. Once in the field, handlers aside, they were on their own. The
> unofficial SDS motto was ‘By Any Means Necessary’."
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n21/katrina-forrester/shag-another
>
> Did the Special Demonstration Squad take 'legend' in this meaning from Le
> Carré? Has somebody had a look at the OED yet?
>
> Thomas, catching up
>
>
> Am 29.10.2013 00:15, schrieb jochen stremmel:
>
>
>> I think you are right, Monte. Pynchon's use of "legend" here is in the
>> sense saga, lore, myth, not like Le Carré's usage, which might not be
>> MI6 argot but a Germanism, "Legende" in the sense of cover story for a
>> spy. I didn't look it up again in his books.
>
>
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