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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: HEAVEN: Jan 2016 Book Discussion: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I rather like the way the Wimsey novels explore different setting and parts of society: East Anglia, Scotland, London, an advertising agency, a men's club and the House of Lords. Aspects of her own life are woven into them as well: experience as an advertising copy writer, as the spouse of a man damaged by the great war, at Oxford and as a teenage girl who wants to be a writer someday.
I do think "Have His Carcase" is sometimes too silly, and I have often wished for meticulously annotated editions, as I am not familiar with, for instance, Kai Lung.
I have found bits of Gaudy Night annotated online, though as I wasn't searching for that in particular, I can't tell you where it is. But googling any particular allusion (esp. verbatim) will likely lead you there.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
I have in my possession a copy of the truly monumental " The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion" by Stephen Clarke, which gives you everything you could possibly want in the way of cross references, allusions, translations and sources for quotations. I admit, I got it to translate the French and Latin.
I found The Nine Tailors a very atmospheric read, but felt very sorry for Mary and Will (hope that's not spoilery!), so have only read it a couple of times. I have read some of the non PW books and enjoyed them.
[ 06. January 2016, 00:26: Message edited by: Athrawes ]
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Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Maybe patronised was the wrong word, but shut out would cover it. The Latin and French was not so much a problem as I could hear it in my head, and make a stab at it. I have and have had no way to deal with Greek. The assumption that the readers could deal with the way that Peter and Harriet talked probably didn't apply back when the books were first published - they were, after all, published by Penguin quite a while back.
Timeo Danaos et laudo ferentes. (Blame the internet if the noun case doesn't fit.)
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
It's the long passages of French that get most people. The Greek I can cope with on the grounds that it's only short quotes and you can skip them without worrying. Unlike in TS Eliot bother him.
I don't think there's anywhere where the French passages add more than a little colour to the story, though.
The famous example is a short story where a male thief impersonating a female maid to steal jewels is unmasked because he accidentally refers to himself in the French masculine rather than feminine form of a word (he says "je suis beau" instead of "je suis belle" or whatever it is). And there's about three pages of untranslated French dialogue in which this occurs.
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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
Well, Dorothy L Sayers was a bluestocking and of her time. I don't really think she can be blamed for either. Actually I have a bit of a soft spot for bluestockings. I understand that she drank beer, too; which I consider most admirable in a woman.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Helen-Eva: quote:
The famous example is a short story where a male thief impersonating a female maid to steal jewels is unmasked because he accidentally refers to himself in the French masculine rather than feminine form of a word (he says "je suis beau" instead of "je suis belle" or whatever it is).
<language geek> No, in the course of an argument with his (openly male) accomplice, he says "Me prends-tu pour un idiot." (a woman would have said "une idiote") Which would be a very easy thing to miss. Most people, listening to two people arguing in a foreign language on a noisy railway station, would have assumed they had misheard it.
Beau/belle is the example Wimsey uses when explaining how he spotted the impersonation. <\language geek>
I like the bits in French and Latin, although that may be because I usually understand them, and I agree with Brenda; that's just the way Wimsey and Harriet talk to each other. They aren't deliberately excluding other people (they generally only do it in private). They're code-switching and sprinkling in literary quotes in order to communicate with each other, just as two people with the same job will use specialized language to communicate with each other or families have private in-jokes.
The Latin is more alien now, of course, but back in the 1920s-30s when Sayers' books were first published it was still part of the core curriculum in independent schools and grammar schools, so a fair proportion of the book-buying public would have studied it at school.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
It is a favourite book of mine – I had it with me when I was in hospital last year and is one of the few books I’d want to read in those circumstances.
Much though I love it there are a number of inconsistencies, but perhaps I better not mention some of them till people have read the book.
However… The picture of the church at the beginning of the book shows a typical Perpendicular Fenland church with West tower and lower East end chancel. But the book says it was built as an abbey. I can’t think of a medieval abbey church with that disposition – the chancel would be the same height as the nave and the tower would typically be at the crossing.
Mr Venables says much of the church is Transitional – a rare style and certainly not the style of the picture.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
It is a favourite book of mine – I had it with me when I was in hospital last year and is one of the few books I’d want to read in those circumstances.
Much though I love it there are a number of inconsistencies, but perhaps I better not mention some of them till people have read the book.
However… The picture of the church at the beginning of the book shows a typical Perpendicular Fenland church with West tower and lower East end chancel. But the book says it was built as an abbey. I can’t think of a medieval abbey church with that disposition – the chancel would be the same height as the nave and the tower would typically be at the crossing.
Mr Venables says much of the church is Transitional – a rare style and certainly not the style of the picture.
Similar thoughts occurred to me. It looks like a parish, not an abbey, church. And where would the conventual builds have been? Mr Venables mentions some traces of stonework, but I can think of nowhere where the monastery buildings have been so completely obliterated, and the church so well preserved, as at Fenchurch St Paul.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
One of my all time favourite, I adore this book!
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
As I understand Mr. Venables' description of his church, it sounds like quite a lot of rebuilding happened after the Dissolution (and probable decay of the structure). He mentions surviving Norman bits, some of which are likely in the churchyard. Over the years there could have been lots of 'chopping and changing' so that what remains of the abbey church could be mostly the walls, roof and tower.
It interests me that Mr. Venables is 'rector' rather than 'vicar,' a nice point of rather obscure CofE polity.
Some find Mrs. Venables annoying, but she seems very typical to me, though I know very few CofE clergy wives personally.
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You can't retire from a calling.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
that's just the way Wimsey and Harriet talk to each other. They aren't deliberately excluding other people (they generally only do it in private). They're code-switching and sprinkling in literary quotes in order to communicate with each other, just as two people with the same job will use specialized language to communicate with each other or families have private in-jokes.
But the characters in a book aren't doing anything in private. There is, is there not, an audience.
But I realise I am obviously in error. I know my place. I'll go back behind the baize door.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I would love to know the significance of Mr. Venables being Rector rather than Vicar.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
A rector received both the greater and lesser tithes.
A vicar (the rector's vicarious deputy) only receives the lesser tithes.
At Croydon, which I know, the rector was a monastery at Bermondsey up to the dissolution, afterr which there were a succession of lay rectors.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Just looked up my notes on Croydon:
Rector – entitled to the greater tithes (corn, hay, timber - and repairs chancel).
Vicar – only entitled to lesser tithes(wool and animals. Vicar means deputy.)
1689 “What comes after the plough goes to the impropriator (ie the Rector) and what is dug with the boot goes to the vicar.”
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Is there not something about the position of Rector being in the gift of some local family in the Big House, the squire, rather than the diocesan bishop? Was not Peter in some such position? Not sure if it still applies, though. Squire's pews not withstanding.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Rectors were also designated rectors if they received the glebeland monies - vicars mostly only being paid a stipend. (Glebe fields being those owned by the church.)
(Today isn't it something to do with holding the freehold, should anyone be using the terms correctly?)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Is there not something about the position of Rector being in the gift of some local family in the Big House, the squire, rather than the diocesan bishop? Was not Peter in some such position? Not sure if it still applies, though. Squire's pews not withstanding.
Nothing to do with it at all.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
As I understand Mr. Venables' description of his church, it sounds like quite a lot of rebuilding happened after the Dissolution (and probable decay of the structure… .
I know of no example in England of new church architecture immediately after the Dissolution. Abbeys were taken over as parish churches (Tewkesbury, St Albans) but certainly not rebuilt.
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
Some find Mrs. Venables annoying, but she seems very typical to me, though I know very few CofE clergy wives personally.
I think she’s a saint to put up with her sweet but impossible husband.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Penny S: quote:
Is there not something about the position of Rector being in the gift of some local family in the Big House, the squire, rather than the diocesan bishop? Was not Peter in some such position? Not sure if it still applies, though. Squire's pews not withstanding.
That's a separate issue, isn't it? One is about who has the right to choose the new incumbent, the other is about what his rights are when he's appointed?
Judging by the works of P G Wodehouse, it was quite common in the 1920s for owners of the local Big House to have the right to appoint the new vicar/rector. But perhaps he is an unreliable guide, as it also seems to be common for young couples to need the consent of the girl's family before marrying (not something that seems to worry any other contemporary authors unless the girl in question is under age).
[ 07. January 2016, 08:21: Message edited by: Jane R ]
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Penny S: quote:
But the characters in a book aren't doing anything in private. There is, is there not, an audience.
That's true, but if they always talk in English because Miss Sayers can't assume that all her readers will understand Latin and Greek, are they still the same characters? I think Brenda has identified one of the major problems with the continuation stories written by Jill Paton Walsh... Peter and Harriet don't sound like themselves because the quotations and code-switching don't flow naturally.
quote:
But I realise I am obviously in error. I know my place. I'll go back behind the baize door.
Sorry, didn't mean to sound as if I was showing off. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
Patronage is, indeed, quite separate from the incumbent being a vicar or a rector. The difference in title is purely historical, as tithes were replaced by stipends by the Tith Commutation Act of 1836. the replacement of the parson's Freehold with Common Tenure didn't change anything. Until the late 1960s, there were also some incumbents styles Perpetual Curates, but that is a side issue.
There is no suggestion, as I recall, that the Thorpes are lords of the manor, or hold the patronage of the living, though the might. I would guess that when Fenchurch Abbey was dissolved, it would have been the rector, with an altar for the parish in the Abbey Church, so the rectory probably passed to the Crown, which must have refounded the parish as a rectory. This would be unlikely - the Crown would more likely have used the revenues of the abbey, including the tithes due to it as rector, to reward whoever the lands passed to.
My guess is Sayers didn't give much thought to this, and little is to be gained from trying to make too much sense of this.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Readers of Trollope will remember Mr Crawley, the poverty stricken Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock.
Perpetual Curates didn't even get the tithes.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
If an author assumes I have greater knowledge than I do, I'm flattered, not patronised.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Readers of Trollope will remember Mr Crawley, the poverty stricken Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock.
Perpetual Curates didn't even get the tithes.
How can anyone not love the Church of England with all this arcana?
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But the characters in a book aren't doing anything in private. There is, is there not, an audience.
No, there isn't.
Well, there's the readership, of course, but they don't know we're here. If authors were to make their characters breach "the fourth wall" and act as though they're in public all the time, because they've got an audience reading their every move, then you could immediately throw away 90% of most novels.
Harriet and Peter scatter their private conversations with allusions to classic literature in various languages, because that's the kind of people they are. That's how they think.
The challenge for the author is to decide how to portray this in the book. An author who is too cryptic, and fills page after page with gobbledygook, is likely to bore an audience. An author who feels the need to explain everything is going to jar the reader out of engagement with the scene so frequently that the readers are lost.
IME, most people don't like to read novels with footnotes.
I find Helen-Eva's mention of the short story "the article in question" (or whatever it was called - I think the title was prepended by a few more words) interesting, because I think it works both ways.
When I read that story, I missed the gender flip at the railway station ("un idiot"). On reaching the denouement, I turned back and re-read the passage, to check that it was there.
I don't know how many of those who speak better French than I do notice the article in question on the first read, but I think the story works both ways.
If you caught the slip, you (along with Peter, but nobody else in the story) have a significant clue and can anticipate the way the story unfolds. If you didn't, you are in the same position as all the non-Peters, and get to watch him unfold the mystery.
Consider the difference between the kind of story where we are shown how the criminal committed the crime in the first chapter, and get to watch the detective figure it out with the kind where we don't know what happened, but are trying to work it out alongside the detective.
There's also the short story based around a crossword (Uncle Meleager's Will, or something). The crossword is a big gimmick, and is rather difficult. I don't think the reader can be expected to solve the crossword in real time whilst reading the story, but the reader is probably expected to be amused by Lord Peter's cleverness as he untangles the crossword.
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
The crossword example is a good one. I skip past the code-breaking stuff in Have His Carcase because I haven't the patience or the right kind of logical mind to do it. It doesn't take away from the story for me. I feel the same about the quotations, I just wish I had that level of memory to be able to quote things! Harriet's an English graduate, it makes sense that she would be able to do that.
The Nine Tailors is the first Sayers I read, when I was in my teens. I have no idea why I picked it up, but I really enjoyed it and have re-read all the books as an adult. Does anyone else see Harriet as who Hilary might grow up to be, in some aspects? Hilary is a great character in herself, mind.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I must say I would love to know what happens to Hilary after the end of the book.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Bibaculus
Shipmate
# 18528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I must say I would love to know what happens to Hilary after the end of the book.
I feel sure she went to Oxford.
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A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
The logical place to look for any follow-on would be in the Jill Paton Walsh books, but I cannot recommend this.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I think the Jill Paton Walsh books are a bit variable, but none of them are brillaint. the characters really aren't Peter and Harriet.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
And what she says about Denver, Duchess Helen and the Dowager ... not to mention the relationship between the Bunters and the Wimseys and their boys ... is simply not credible. Well, on the last one, maybe 30-40 years later, but not when she portrays it. Remembering, again, that Peter was born in 1890.
Meanwhile, back at Sayers...
John
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Some other day, elsewhere, we can discuss how to take some other author's toys out of the box, play with them without breaking them, and then put them back again. I believe the follow-ons to the James Bond books are fairly successful in this way. Certainly all comic books, and many movies, do this, often very well indeed.
In the meantime here is an article from Scientific American about bells in general, and the Sayers novel in particular.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
Thanks for that article, Brenda Clough, very interesting. I went on a visit to the Whitechapel bell foundry once (they have an open day occasionally). It was fascinating. I'm totally flummoxed by the bell-ringing in The NIne Tailors though, with all those 'into the hunt' and 'one bob bheind' bits. Still it doesn't detract from the story.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I've just started my re-read of The Nine Tailors and, apropros of our discussion here, am reminded of how very much all the bell-ringing stuff might as well be in Latin or Greek for all I understand it. But I don't think it's necessary to understand it to appreciate the story, though obviously there are bits that bell-ringers would appreciate more -- the rest of us just accept it as part of the vividly drawn setting.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
This is actually a larger skill: world-building. When you read Lord of the Rings for the first time you probably had no idea what hobbits were, or Elves. The author clued you in as you went along, hopefully with such dexterity that you didn't even notice you were imbibing the data.
Sayers is particularly good at this, and it is a useful skill for mystery writers as well as SF and fantasy. Many of the classics of the mystery genre are set up as 'cozy and pleasant world, broken into by chaos and crime'. And this calls for the description of the coziness of the advertising agency, or the church and farming community, or Miss Marple's village.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
In the meantime here is an article from Scientific American about bells in general, and the Sayers novel in particular.
Most amused to note that the tenor doesn't stand first time in the clip - I don't know how heavy Bow's tenor is until I look it up in Dove, but just by the fact that it's a twelve, it will be a good size. Yes, the Knotweed has done so, and it's 41cwt (for those in new money, that's over two tonnes). So not easy to handle!
It also makes slightly more sense if you note that the sally is woollen, not wooden. That would be less than fun to ring with...
As somebody upthread stated, you don't need to understand it all to enjoy it - the ringing jargon in there is way above my understanding, and I've been ringing over fifteen years, but there are people out there like the Reverend Venables who will give you chapter and verse (and, incidentally, make said Rev look normal in the process). I suspect, BTW, that even in the 1930s Sayers' ringers would have been unusual in staying for the service. Godless bunch we are.
Oh, and it's horse shit in the core mix, not cow - it's to do with the amount of fibrous straw left to bind the clay and horses, being fairly crap at digesting fibre, have much more fibrous poo. Things you didn't know you didn't know and didn't know you didn't want to know...
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Apropos of not very much, I have downloaded an ecopy from Waterstones, and was intrigued to spot that while all the other Wimseys were £5.99, this was only £1.99. Are they expecting large sales to us?
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
the Reverend Venables
Eek. Mr Venables, please.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
venbede, at risk of appearing a total ignoramus, why?
AG (ignoramus)
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
This issue crops up regularly here.
He is the Reverend Theodore Venables, or the Reverend Mr Venables.
Sayer or Whimsey would never dream of calling him Rev Venables. He is never called that in the book.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I saw the television series of this, with Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter, in my early teens and subsequently read and fell in love with the book. My old copy hardback went AWOL and one of the joys of Kindle ownership has been downloading and revisiting it. I'm delighted to have a reason to read it yet again. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I know nothing of campanology but I love the descriptions of the bells and the ringing of the peals and the way those bells are characters in the book almost as much as the human ones. The only other book I can think of which so effectively has inanimate objects as characters in the story is Robert Harris's "Pompeii" with the Augusta (the aqueduct) and the mountain (Vesuvius).
I'm enjoying reading everyone's comments. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
Here's a good question, which has much exercised American readers. The Vebnables serve Lord Peter muffins (and the butter runs down the Reverend's curr). What were these muffins like?
Surely they were not like these Thomas's English muffins. Americans buy these in the grocery store and we split them, run them through the toaster and butter them, usually for breakfast.
Can they be like this, the other thing we call muffins? Note that this item is baked in a paper cup (probably supported in a muffin pan, with metal cups). To eat it you peel the paper cup off; it is not possible to toast or butter the thing and if you look at the calorie and sugar load you can see why more enrichment is probably not called for. They are more closely akin to cupcakes, but they are not frosted.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I was assuming Lord Peter was served the first sort. Freshly home made and toasted by the fire. Here is the Paul Hollywood (from Great British Bake Off) recipe.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
The first linked, Brenda, are exactly what I would understand as a muffin. Being a Brit and all that. They might not be split, of course, I suspect that back then they'd have been toasted on a fork at a fire.
venbede, at risk of compounding, why those specific forms of address? Or is it just bizarre CofE arcana? In other words, why can't I say Rev instead of Reverend when writing in the 21st century?
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
What were these muffins like?
Surely they were not like these Thomas's English muffins.
I haven't been able to access this link - does it work for other people?
I should think it very likely that this is the sort of muffin referred to in the book (which I haven't read). The sweet cake sort were unknown by that name in the UK before about 20-30 years ago.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Works for me, and it's just what you think it is.
AG
(BTW, Ariel, there will be a PM incoming if I ever catch up on the people I have to thank for their wishes...)
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Now I am seriously tempted to make some.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Sod being tempted, do it. Or crumpets. Fresh home made crumpets are orgasmic, trouble is waiting for the mix to prove before you can make breakfast. Not a good plan!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
venbede, at risk of compounding, why those specific forms of address? Or is it just bizarre CofE arcana? In other words, why can't I say Rev instead of Reverend when writing in the 21st century?
AG
Because it is good manners. You don't call the ?Right Honourable David Cameron Right Honourable Camero , do you?
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Because it is good manners. You don't call the ?Right Honourable David Cameron Right Honourable Camero , do you?
What I call him is scarcely suitable for a family audience.
However, the muffins would undoubtedly be the leavened bread product and not the cloyingly sweet cake put about under that name nowadays.
There is one enormously significant thing, ISTM, about the plot of the Nine Tailors but I will hold off mentioning it until the discussion.
[ 09. January 2016, 20:55: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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