M & D Group Read (cont)

Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com
Tue Jan 9 15:39:38 CST 2018


realm is not a place. not an 'important noun".

Hart <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hart_%28spelling_reformer%29>
recommended
his readers to use a capital letter at the beginning of every sentence,
proper name, and important common noun. By the 17th century, the practice
had extended to titles (*Sir, Lady*), forms of address (*Father, Mistris*),
and personified nouns (*Nature*). Emphasized words and phrases would also
attract a capital. By the beginning of the 18th century, the influence of
Continental books had caused this practice to be extended still further
(e.g. to the names of the branches of knowledge), and it was not long
before some writers began using a capital for any noun that they felt to be
important. Books appeared in which all or most nouns were given an initial
capital (as is done systematically in modern German) - perhaps for
aesthetic reasons, or perhaps because printers were uncertain about which
nouns to capitalize, and so capitalized them all.

On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 3:55 PM, Gene DA <genevievej.da at gmail.com> wrote:

> Which Speculation am I all ears for! One of my questions thus far being a
> curiosity about the capitalization; rhyme, reason, or madness? There seemed
> to be a drop-off in capitalization frequency after the first couple of
> chapters. At first, I assumed it was only a time period custom and left
> speculation on patterns for later. I was pronouncing sentences as I read
> with so much alternating emphasis that it was much too distracting.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 4:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> yes, the early LED chapter is VERY IMPORTANT
>> in setting out major themes of M & D, as Smoke said.
>>
>> Notice it is the LED---this true historical charlatan of
>> the time, this dog who is like humans, who
>> "Somehow the Learned dog has led him [Mason] to presume
>> there exist safe-conduct Procedures for the realm
>> of Death." [Why is realm not capped?, I ask, having a Speculation to Hand]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20180109/b916ef09/attachment.html>


More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list