Friday 6 February 2009

Quoting

I was recently described online as follows: ...The cranky old so-and-so is a bit of a cheat in some ways, since many of his posts simply reprint amusing pictures, or quote from other blogs or newspaper articles (or dictionaries or encyclopedias)...

This seems fair comment except for the word cheat; I have never attempted to conceal the fact that much of OMF is not original but second-hand, and have frequently reminded readers of this, occasionally even going so far as to credit my sources.

Sometimes I like to quote someone else's quotation. The critic James Agate wrote several million words in many books and theatre reviews, as well as keeping a diary called Ego which was published in nine volumes. A high proportion of this was not written by him at all, but consisted of lengthy quotations from a variety of sources. One diary entry notes that Mrs Patrick Campbell, a famous actress in the early years of the twentieth century, complimented him thus: " I did so enjoy your book, James. Everything that everybody writes in it is so good".

4 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Your gallimaufry is scintillating, enlightening and unmissable and thank you for your gallant remark in another place.

Anonymous said...

No, thank you. Made my day.

Anonymous said...

You cannot be bothered by a man so obtuse he misses the point of your work. You did not however respond to the cranky epithet. Is that a righteous remark? I can get down right curmudgeonly but others do it so much better that, unless sufficiently riled, I am loth to let it show in my writing.
Bye the bye if you need instruction in curmudgeoning let me recommend a great piece titled How to Be a Curmudgeon on the Internet by David Pogue of the New York Times.

Anonymous said...

Don't mind cranky in the second of the two meanings the OED gives to it; I'll post on this matter next week.
My curmudgeonly skills are of a high order but could always be improved, so I will look up the David Pogue piece immediately; thanks for the tip.