What do the public really think of literature?

[Spec]

literature is too long to read.

Hell,

Pekkas posts are too long to read.

Spec.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Dis
So you guys should give your reviews. I'm not familiar with 100 years of solitude. Is it any good?

It was. You KNOW im not a huge fan of 3rd world Marxism, but 100 years was just kewl, IIRC. Geez, it must be over 20 years since ive read it!

[Sirotnikov]

Re: Re: What do the public really think of literature?

Originally posted by lord of the mark

[...]

LOMT - LOL! on the economics, hes actually got a point. But of course thats not the point of the novel. Its been a while, but IIRC it WASNT that easy to follow the family tree. But it was all worthwhile for the "the day my father took me to discover ice" or whatever. plus the last of the line being eaten by ants, and all that.
[...]

LOLZ @ not being able to correctly spell one's own nickname

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by LordShiva


Verbing weirds language

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Ming
Zoid...

Thanks for pointing out a new form of entertainment. Based on this thread, I've been surfing some reviews at Amazon. Some of them are simply unbelievable. The classics get trashed, and the trash is well liked.

Great stuff!

You´re welcome! Do I get a "Get out of Mingapulco free" card?

[Dauphin]

The funny thing I found about the first review, of 1984, is that they complained it was long. It's ridiculously short, or at least far shorter than I was expecting it to be when I read it.

[Zoid]

Any text longer than that which fits on the side of a milk carton is to long for these in-duh-viduals

[Q Classic]

These reviews make me sad. Anyway, regarding two of the texts highlighted in the OP:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley-
To be honest, I liked the world, but I couldn't bring myself to give two ****s about that John fellow.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare-
I always thought this was one of Shakespeare's more overdone and less great tragedies. I mean, ****, Othello, MacBeth, and King Lear are so much better...

[Dauphin]

R & J was stolen off of the myth of Pyramus and Thisne. Unoriginal hack.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by duke o' york
Well I understood that, even if I'd rather not understand leet-speak. So if a few people use it, it's weird and stupid, but if everyone else uses it then will you still think that, or will you find yourself joining in?

It's parochial tower-of-babelism and should be mocked, for the evolutionary reasons LOTM described.

... but am also alarmed by the nationwide habit of using "yourself" and "myself" as direct objects.

"How are you?"
"Fine. And yourself?"

How would you see the correct version there?

I'd say that in such greeting rituals, grammar is not important, as the function of the ritual is not to exchange information but cordiality.

This works fine for me:

"Alright?"
"Yeah, alright?"

. Who these days says: "My team was useless last night"? Everyone uses "were useless" - especially Newcastle fans.

Perhaps it's not a misinterpretation of the singlularity/plurality of a noun, but just bad verb usage. It's the same as "It weren't right" for "It wasn't right".

I would say "My team was brilliant tonight, but couldn't score", but I would also say "Arsenal were brilliant tonight, but couldn't score" because a team name is considered plural. "We is top of the league" would never work.

[Spiffor]

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

R. Vanderhoof wrote: "I spent several weeks slogging through this book and found it to be very repetitive and tedious in the extreme. Keeping track of the family tree is a constant effort. At best, Marquez reveals an egalitarian attitude that seems to pervade the Americas south of the Rio Grande (no wonder those countries are in constant economic trouble). Marquez should study supply side economics as described by Milton Friedman, another Nobel Prize winner, in order to give his book better balance."

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
BrE: "The Clash are a well-known band." AmE: "The Clash is a well-known band." Both: "The Beatles are a well-known band."

Interesting. BrE would say "The Clash were an influential band". Would AmE say "The Clash was an influential band"?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Dis
So you guys should give your reviews. I'm not familiar with 100 years of solitude. Is it any good?

I liked it. Good fun, good characters. But it's pretty long indeed, and the family tree is surreal.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Interesting. BrE would say "The Clash were an influential band". Would AmE say "The Clash was an influential band"?

Yep. Just another one of those odd differences...

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Way to mangle the language. You might try some literature, Viking.

In British English, often singular nouns that describe multiple people (as "public" does) are treated as plural.