On reflection, Doug, 'he's have been' can too easily be misconstrued as a
typo for 'he'd have'. Perhaps it would have been better to write 'he wus
have bin'. ('wus' is the future of 'woz')
Dead brothers and muses? Milton had a surrogate one (c.f. Lycidas) what I do
know is that I grew up with a ghost.
All the Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: speech project
>PS
>
>in case anyone's wondering about the 'he's have been' construct in my last,
>it's short for Brummie 'he wus have been'. 'Wus' equals 'would'. Guess I
>could have written 'bin' for 'been' to signal it better, but anyhow ....
I *was wondering, Dave, perhaps because I'm from away. I was intrigued by
this poem, as I now a few others that also refer to dead brothers, like an
important poem by Al Purdy, one of our greats. He suggests that his dead
brother is a kind of muse...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
the heart in its cage stands up
desiring fine instruments
Michele Leggott
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