Why did Samuel Beckett write in French?
—Broadway Online. In a letter, playwright Samuel Beckett offers insight as to why he chose not to write in his native English.'
Thursday, June 07, 2001
"More and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the Nothingness) behind it. Grammar and Style. To me they seem to have become as irrelevant as a Victorian bathing suit or the imperturbability of a true Gentleman. A mask."
This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...
Recent Entries
- What is this shit?
- The American Dialect Society seeks 2008 word-of-the-year nominations
- Where would we be without “ass”?
- Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours
- What a bitchin’ word!
- Don’t forget about the dialect: dauncy/donsie, faunch, and jockey box
- Wilf? Yuffer? Get real!
- Lexicographer Laurence Urdang Dies at 81
- A thesaurus can be harmful
- Can bad language punditry be stopped? Can false attributions for classic quotes be fixed?
- There’s one in every country
- Scottish Language Dictionaries fundraiser
- SouthWest Writers
- Disfluencies: What do they mean by “I mean”?
- A hearty endorsement of shout quotes: scare quotes used for emphasis
Recent Catchwords
- CO2e n. (12/2)
- supercheck n. (12/2)
- take the number 11 bus v. phr. (12/2)
- antihomonuptial adj. (11/30)
- cellblock n. (11/30)
- cut and shut n. (11/30)
- photoporation n. (11/30)
- dry powder n. (11/30)
- phytocapping n. (11/30)
- toe pick n. (11/30)
- smokepole n. (11/30)
- heavy furniture n. (11/29)
- gulch n. (11/24)
- hyper-edit n. (11/24)
- doga n. (11/24)
- hot body n. (11/24)
- wovit n. (11/24)
- boyat n. (11/23)
- KLM n. (11/23)
- governist n. (11/23)
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