Re: Speaking of Pynchon… (SLPAD)

[Mark Kohut]

Below is the Google Books N--Gram viewer showing, at least, and not more
than that
the word "upon" has declined in its books' appearances over the word "on"

Both are as old as 1800 obviously.

Also, in the OED the earliest definition of "on" says ...the surface
of......
the earliest definition of "upon" says...an arrangement of........implying
to me
an older time when things were embedded together rather than simply there.

Sorta like the way in our time we used to wait in line but, as the
togetherness of our
modern society continued to fray, we now stand on line......

 Books Ngram Viewer <https://books.google.com/ngrams>more_vert
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------------------------------
Search in Google Books

Sorry, looks like the graph does not take......

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 3:49 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 3:05 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > And the way TRP writes 'dwell upon", older righter way than 'dwell on'.
> >
>
>
>
> Really? Before I look it up, may I ask how so, in your estimation?
>
> I admit to using them interchangeably.
> “Upon” tends to make me start humming “up on a rooftop, way up high” so
> that’s fun.
> “Up” is nice and brief, also good.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>