The English Miscellany

Discriminate. A companion to "don't." a manual for guidance in the use of correct words and phrases in ordinary speech , (New York: 1891.) instructed its readers Discriminate in the use of CAPTION and HEADING. It is a perversion of the word caption to use it in the sense of heading , although this is frequently done in the United States. Caption means seizure or act of taking, and not headship. Don't say, “The caption of a chapter, section, or page”; use heading . (p. 22) In his Dictionary of Americanisms: a glossary of words and phrases, usually regarded as peculiar to the United States (1848), John Russell Bartlett explained Caption , this legal term is used in the newspapers where an Englishman would say title, head , or heading .   On the other hand ... Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1995) noted You will find few of them who object to December being used for the twelfth month, when

The anecdotal jocularity of sexual frisson has never been far from Raine's World. A review of Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years by Brian Boyd (Chatto, 783 pp, £25.00, January 1992) is perhaps symptomatic: His private manner was utterly winning, particularly his comic mode. Boyd includes two anecdotes, both innocently revealing. In the late Sixties, Nabokov asked Alfred Appel if student unrest was disrupting his lectures. The only demonstrations were demonstrations of affection; I told him about a nun who sat in the back row of one of my lecture courses, and who one day complained after class that a couple near her were always spooning. ‘Sister,’ I said, ‘in these troubled times we should be grateful if that’s all they were doing.’ ... ‘Ohhh,’ moaned Nabokov, mourning my lost opportunity, clapping his hand to his head in mock anguish. ‘You should have said, “Sister, be grateful that they were not forking.’ ” ["Craig Raine fondles Vladimir Nabokov" ;

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” --- Charlie Chaplin. "Dramatic comedy, from which fictional comedy is mainly descended, has been remarkably tenacious of its structural principles and character types." (Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism ) "The days of Comedy are gone, alas! When Congreve's fool could vie with Moliere's bete :   Society is smooth'd to that excess,  That manners hardly differ more than dress." --- Byron "Man is the merriest species of the creation, all above and below him are serious." --- Addison “This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” --- Horace Walpole. “Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.” --- Peter Ustinov “The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.” --- Moliere. "In the hands of a comic genius the pretence of stupidity is the triumph of irony." "In my mind, the

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) Thus from a mixture of all kinds began, That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman: In eager rapes, and furious lust begot, Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot. Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow, And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough: From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came, With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame. In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran, Infus’d betwixt a Saxon and a Dane. While their rank daughters, to their parents just, Receiv’d all nations with promiscuous lust. This nauseous brood directly did contain The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.       Which medly canton’d in a heptarchy, A rhapsody of nations to supply, Among themselves maintain’d eternal wars, And still the ladies lov’d the conquerors.       The western Angles all the rest subdu’d; A bloody nation, barbarous and rude: Who by the tenure of the sword possest One part of Britain,