The Story of Ain't
Page 31
7. Dwight Macdonald, Against the American Grain. “Mark Twain” originally appeared in the New Yorker, April 2, 1960. “Ernest Hemingway” originally appeared in Encounter, January 1962.
8. Macdonald outline for a project titled “Mass Culture in America” and labeled “This is my outline for Doubleday book,” October 28, 1955, Dwight Macdonald Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
9. Dwight Macdonald, Against the American Grain, “not just unsuccessful art”: 4; “easy to assimilate” and “ice-cream sodas”: 5; “a crowd”: 8–9; Lords of Masscult: 10; “Nazism and Soviet Communism”: 11; how masscult is democratic: 12; Johnson: 17; Book-of-the-Month Club: 39; “We have . . . become skilled”: 61.
10. Macdonald compared Eliot unfavorably to Robinson Jeffers in one of his first pieces of published criticism, in Miscellany, which Wreszin discusses in A Rebel in Defense of Tradition, 23.
CHAPTER 30
1. Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect (New York: Harper Brothers, 1959). See chapter on “Language of Learning and of Pedantry,” from which all quotes in this chapter come. “Words are”: 232; science and abstract language: 220; Zhukov and Stravinsky lines: 222.
2. Ibid., taxi drivers and “as far as”: 232–233; “the users of pretentious mouth-filling phrases”: 236; modern linguists and Fries: 240–242; English Language Arts: 243.
3. Gove’s October 1961 Word Study article, “Linguistic Advances and Lexicography,” can be found in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary.
4. It seems to me that there was a connection between Gove’s struggle with meaning and his fierce literal-mindedness about definition-writing, but it had to be indirect: Perhaps Gove’s wariness about meaning helped make him fanatical about the form of definitions, as a person uncertain about the existence of God might seek refuge in strict observance of the Mass.
CHAPTER 31
1. Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect, “pedantry”: 218; Parton: 249.
2. Gerald Rosen memo to James Parton, June 1, 1959, Papers of James Parton, Houghton Library, Harvard University. All quotations and evidence for this chapter come from this collection.
3. Springer’s research and findings were summarized in Gerald Rosen’s memo to James Parton, September 10, 1959. The number for the cost of Random House’s investment in the American College Dictionary comes from another internal American Heritage memo, written by Fritz Hehmeyer, saying, “The editorial costs in preparing a dictionary are prodigious. Bennett Cerf told me that Random House spent $2,000,000 on its dictionary which he claims is now a big money maker.”
4. Parton memo to Rosen, September 11, 1959.
5. Parton memo to Gerald Rosen, November 18, 1959.
6. Gordon Gallan to James Parton, February 10, 1960.
7. Parton to Rosen, March 22, 1960.
8. Parton to Gallan, November 4, 1960.
9. Memo from Parton, April 27, 1961.
CHAPTER 32
1. I checked these figures against “Announcing the Publication of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,” first published in the October 1961 issue of Word Study, but collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary. The chemist’s complaint on the following page is quoted in Gove’s progress report to the board of directors, June 10, 1960, Papers of Philip Gove, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
2. Morton gives a careful account of the press release. Raven McDavid also discusses the press release and press reception in his “Review of the Reviews,” tracing some of the original language of the press release to a wire story in the Mason City, Iowa, Globe Gazette, September 6, 1961, which he assessed as a close reproduction of the press release. Sledd and Ebbitt’s Dictionaries and That Dictionary collects the Tribune, 51; Sun-Times, 52; Washington Sunday Star, 55; and other key examples of the popular and critical coverage of the dictionary quoted in this chapter. The summary of newspaper headlines and the Los Angeles Herald-Express quotation I found in Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third, 155.
3. The Papers of Dwight Macdonald at Yale’s Sterling Library contain a draft of Macdonald’s letter to Gove, dated October 4, 1961, and three letters from Gove, dated October 5, 10, and 25, 1961.
4. Quotes from newspaper articles collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, Toronto Globe and Mail: 53; New York Times, September 10, 1961: 56; BusinessWeek: 57; Saturday Review: 58; New York Times, October 12, 1961: 78.
5. James Parton letter to James Bulkley, October 13, 1961, Papers of James Parton.
6. Life magazine article and Gove’s letter to the Times are both collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 85, 88.
7. “Excerpts from a speech at the English Lunch Club, Boston, February 10, 1962,” and Thomas R. Harney, “An Editor Defends His Tome,” Evening Gazette, March 28, 1962, both found in the Papers of Philip Gove, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
CHAPTER 33
1. Morton quotes from Evans’s letter to Gove about the article in The Story of Webster’s Third, 179.
2. Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans, A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (New York: Random House, 1957), vii.
3. Wilson Follett’s review, “Grammar Is Obsolete,” ran in the February 1960 issue of the Atlantic. Evans’s rejoinder, “Grammar for Today,” ran in the March 1960 issue of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER 34
1. The Times’ November editorials are collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 102.
2. Pei’s first review in the October 22, 1961, New York Times, “ ‘Ain’t’ Is In, ‘Raviolis’ Ain’t,’ ” is collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 82. See also Mario Pei, “The Dictionary as a Battlefront: English Teachers’ Dilemma,” Saturday Review of Literature, July 21, 1962.
3. Bernstein’s diatribe in the Bulletin of the American Society of Newspaper Editors is quoted in Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third, 179. Theodore Bernstein, “A Directive Issued to the Staff of the New York Times,” is collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds, Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 122.
4. Wilson Follett, “Sabotage in Springfield,” from the January 1962 issue of the Atlantic, is collected in Sledd and Ebitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 111–119.
5“Logomachy—Debased Verbal Currency,” from the American Bar Association Journal; Foster Hailey, “2 Journals Score New Dictionary,” New York Times, February 8, 1962; and J. Donald Adams, “Speaking of Books,” New York Times, February 11, 1962, are all collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 105, 126, 128.
6. “Keep Your Old Webster’s,” Washington Post, January 17, 1962; “Webster’s Lays an Egg,” Richmond News Leader, January 3, 1962; and Rt. Rev. Richard S. Emrich, “New Dictionary Cheap and Corrupt,” Detroit News, February 10, 1962, in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 121, 125, 129.
7. Not a few critics end up comparing Webster’s Third to the Kinsey Report, but to my knowledge none made use of Webster’s Third’s striking entry for homosexuality, which it called, in the third definition, a “stage in normal psychosexual development occurring during prepuberty in the male and during early adolescence in the female during which libidinal gratification is sought with members of one’s own sex.” Typically, Webster’s Second had defined it very simply as “erotism for one of the same sex.”
CHAPTER 35
1. Letter of James Parton to American Heritage Board of Directors, dated December 12, 1961, James Parton Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, where all the source documents for this chapter were found.
2. Nancy Longley memo to James Parton, December 22, 1961.
3. Gallan letter to Parton, December 19, 1961. Sales numbers for 1956–1960 are from Parton’s subsequent letter to James Bulkley, December 21, 1
961.
4. Parton letter to Gallan, December 26, 1961.
5. Helen Merriam letter to Earla Rowley Carson, October 25, 1961.
6. Robert C. Merriam letter to James Parton, December 1, 1961.
7. Alexander Hehmeyer to James Parton, December 15, 1961; Gerald Rosen memos to James Parton, December 12 and 26, 1961.
8. Gallan letter to Merriam stockholders, February 16, 1962.
9. James Parton letter to Merriam stockholders, March 8, 1962.
CHAPTER 36
1. The Wall Street Journal review by John Chamberlain is quoted in Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third, 176. “Vox Populi, Vox Webster,” Time, October 6, 1961; Ethel Strainchamps, “Words, Watchers, and Lexicographers,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 29, 1961; “Dictionary Dithers,” America, November 18, 1961; Roy H. Copperud, “English as It’s Used Belongs in Dictionary,” Editor & Publisher, November 25, 1961; and Ethel Strainchamps, “On New Words and New Meanings,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 17, 1961, are all collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 76, 86, 92, 96, 103.
2. See Sledd’s review of Fries’s The Structure of English in the November 1952 issue of Modern Philology.
3. The New Republic’s April 23, 1962, editorial, “It Ain’t Right,” is collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 204. A copy of Parton’s letter to the editor, published May 14, 1962, I found in the Papers of Philip Gove, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
4. See Paul Collins, “Vanishing Act,” Lapham’s Quarterly, December 18, 2010.
5. Morton quotes this letter to Gove about Evans’s book in The Story of Webster’s Third, 175.
6. Bergen Evans, “But What’s a Dictionary For?,” Atlantic, May 1962, is collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 238–248.
7. Gove’s letter to Evans is quoted in Morton, 194.
CHAPTER 37
1. The cartoon was by Alan Dunn, and it appeared in the May 24, 1962, issue of the New Yorker. See Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third, 156.
2. The advice came from Ralph McAllister Ingersoll at Fortune. See Macdonald’s essay in Bell, ed., Writing for Fortune.
3. Macdonald reedited “The String Untuned” just slightly but in a key paragraph before publishing it in Against the American Grain. I am quoting always from the version printed in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 166–188, a reprint of the New Yorker essay which, however, contains at least one postpublication amendment, a parenthetical paragraph addressing Macdonald’s mistake on knowed.
CHAPTER 38
1. Dwight Macdonald Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library; Sledd letter to Macdonald, May 1, 1962.
2. Macdonald letter to Sledd, May 14, 1962.
3. Sledd letter to Macdonald, May 18, 1962.
4. Macdonald letter to Sledd, May 29, 1962. This excellent letter is also reprinted in Wreszin, ed., A Moral Temper.
CHAPTER 39
1. James Bulkley letter to James Parton, March 8, 1962. All source documents for this chapter were found in the James Parton Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
2. James Bulkley letter to James Parton, March 17, 1962.
3. James Parton memo to Fritz Hehmeyer, March 9, 1962.
4. James Parton memo to J. J. Thorndike, Fritz Hehmeyer, Gerald Rosen, and Nancy Longley, March 20, 1962.
5. Nancy Longley memo to James Parton, March 21, 1962.
6. Edward Weeks letter to Parton, May 10, 1962.
7. James Parton letter to James Bulkley, June 25, 1962.
8. James Bulkley letter to James Parton, June 21, 1962.
9. James Merriam Howard letter to James Parton, September 22, 1962.
10. James Parton letter to Norman Taylor, November 23, 1962.
CHAPTER 40
1. Jacques Barzun, “The Scholar Cornered: What Is a Dictionary,” American Scholar, Spring 1963.
2. Albert H. Marckwardt, “Dictionaries and the English Language,” English Journal (May 1963), reprinted in Philip Gove, ed., The Role of the Dictionary (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967).
3. Sledd’s “The Lexicographer’s Uneasy Chair” is collected in Sledd and Ebbitt, eds., Dictionaries and That Dictionary, 228–236.
4. See Raven I. McDavid’s introduction to Linguistics in North America, vol. 10 of Current Trends in Linguistics (The Hague: Mouton, 1973). Edward Finegan discussed the Usage Panel and quoted Kilburn (from The Gentleman’s Guide to Linguistic Etiquette) in Attitudes Toward English Usage.
5. See Edward Barber, “The Treatment of Slang in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,” American Speech (May 1963). For more on the grudge match with Sheridan Baker, one of the few academic critics of Webster’s Third, over citation evidence for ain’t, see Morton, The Story of Webster’s Third. While working on this book I have collected recent numerous citations for ain’t in printed material, finding it used in, of all places, both the New York Times and the New Yorker.
6. “Publishing: A Meeting of the Minds,” Time, September 18, 1964; “This Is Lyndon—And It Is,” Newsweek, January 6, 1963. Both clippings, with commentary, were found in the Papers of Dwight Macdonald, Sterling Library, Yale University.
Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
abstract expressionism, 216, 223, 279
accents, 189–90
Adams, J. Donald, 259–60
addendum, Webster’s Second, 161
adjective-plus-function word phrases, 118
Adler, Mortimer J., 221
Adler, Polly, 11, 33–34, 272
aeronautical terminology, 124–31, 216
Against the American Grain (book), 298
Agee, James, 64, 96
ain’t
Leonard Bloomfield on, 84–85
defense of, in Webster’s Third, 256, 296
as dialectical and illiterate, 1
Bergen Evans on, 251
Charles Carpenter Fries on, 186
Good Grammar Week and, 30
Philip Gove’s entry for, 250
Lyndon Johnson’s use of, 299
opinions of, by linguists, 74
James Parton on, 266
Scribner Handbook of English on, 150
James Sledd on, 284
in Webster’s Third press release, 11, 15, 242–44, 247, 276
Allen, Harold B., 180, 288
amendments, constitutional, 93
American Bar Association Journal, 260
American College Dictionary, 191, 196, 237
American culture
Clement Greenberg on kitsch in, 101, 103, 155–56
Dwight Macdonald on, 219, 223–25, 274
popular culture in, 153–56, 213–17
Philip Rahv on, 103
terminology of, in Webster’s Second special addendum, 160–61
in Webster’s Second, 90-91, 94
Webster’s Third and changes in, xi–xii, 293–94
American Dictionary of the English Language, An, xi, 3–4, 174, 289
American English Grammar (book), 113–21, 150, 185, 277
American Heritage (magazine), 225
American Heritage Dictionary, 295–96
American Heritage Publishing Company, 235–40, 263–66, 287–90, 295–96
American language
Jacques Barzun on, 146–48, 227–29
Leonard Bloomfield on, 81–87
changing standards of, xii–xiv, 85, 182, 271–72
colloquial (see colloquial language; slang; taboo language)
effect of World War II
on, 129–31
English as (see informal English; nonstandard English; standard English; substandard English)
Charles Carpenter Fries on, 112–21
Philip Gove on, 11–13, 171–77, 230–33
H. L. Mencken on, 29–35, 111–12
NCTE English Language Arts on, 179–87
scientific view of (see linguistics)
spoken (see spoken language)
variations of, 3
American Language, The (book), 30, 70, 112
American Mercury (magazine), 65
American Scholar (magazine), 292–93
Anachronisms in Webster’s Second, 205
Angell, James Rowland, 40
Anglophilia, 29, 53, 103, 189–90
anticommunism, 98–101, 219
anti- prefix, 219
any, 116–17, 120
Army, study of letters to, 113–21
Arnold, Henry H., 125, 128
around the clock, 127, 129, 160
Artin, Edward, 14, 192–94
artistic terminology, 216
as and like, 251–54, 258
Atlantic (magazine), 61, 252–54, 257–59, 264, 269–72, 288–89
authority, dictionary as. See also unabridged dictionaries
Leonard Bloomfield on, 83, 85
Philip Gove on, 11–13, 171–77, 233
Webster’s dictionaries and, 3–5, 138–39
aviation terminology, 124–31, 216
awful, 47
Bailey, Nathan, 107, 109–10
Baker, Asa S.
as president of G. & C. Merriam Company, 59, 301
at publication of Webster’s Second, 1–2, 7
Baker, Ingham C., 193, 238
ballyhoo, 91
Barzun, Jacques
consideration of, for Webster’s Third editor, 146–48
as critic and Columbia University professor, 301
criticism of language and linguistics by, 227–29, 235
criticism of Webster’s Third by, 16, 292–93
on usage panel of American Heritage Dictionary, 295
Bell Telephone study, 49–50
Bender, Harold, 143–44, 196