At 4:41 AM +0100 28/5/02, Erminia Passannanti wrote:
>So, when one describes as ‘thin wash’ the many deviations from that
>(illusory) ‘standard’ English – and with ‘thin wash’ one is
>intentionally meaning, in fact, the varieties of that language when
>spoken by those communities or people whose original idioms where spoiled
>and injured from colonialist linguistic policies (see forced
>implementation of English in colonized countries at the expense of the
>decline of those countries’ national idioms, like in the case of Irish and
>Welsh ) – I ask, when one is really prepared to use such a derogative
>figure (‘thin wash’), what exactly one wishes to achieve…..culturally?
I've got quite lost in the intricacies here, Erminia, but I am quite
certain that David was not defending "standard" Imperialist English;
he seemed rather to be doing the reverse, and speaking out against a
globalised and un-idiomatic tongue which these days can masquerade as
English. But yes, tis true, poetry dies in purities, whatever Eliot
(or Mallarme, whom Eliot was quoting) said in the first place.
Best
Alison
--
"The only real revolt is the revolt against war."
Albert Camus
Alison Croggon
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