Monday 5 May 2008

Error

There's an error in the previous post. Where I say 'adoring' I meant to say 'adorning'. I could have just corrected it but why waste a layer of meaning, albeit unintentional? As long as the ports have names for the sea...

Not to speak of the wonderful pain/paint slip-up from Lion Lion (Tom Raworth).

PS I've also just realised how ambiguous my final sentence is in the post below. I'll be thinking about this and getting back to you with some kind of clarification. Or not. Why waste a layer of meaning?

PPS I'm quoting myself. I'm very tired. I'll tell you why tomorrow. To prepare you for what's coming, I'll whisper the word 'train'. And that reminds me of perhaps the worst printing error I've ever come across. If you haven't read Anna Karenina, there's a spoiler coming up. (On the other hand, if you haven't read Anna Karenina, you deserve a spoiler.) At the end of the novel, in the edition I read some decades ago, Anna commits suicide by throwing herself under a 'good strain'. What a misplaced 's' can do.

PPPS And given that tiredness encourages this process of random association, I'm reminded of a comment made by Julian Bees from the ANSA English desk some years back, when told that human beings and chimpanzees share 90-whatever percent of their genes: 'Genetics isn't maths. It's spelling. You change a letter, you change the word.'

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