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Tag Archives: British Library

The Grammar Conundrum

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Grammar, Heard lately, Our readers

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

British Library, Churchill, conjunctions, Devyani Sharma, Eleanor Trafford, Geoff Pullum, Jane Austen, John Mullan, Lucy Dipper, Marcello Giovanelli, Oliver Kamm, prepositions, split infinitives

If you no longer think it’s wrong to split an infinitive, or stand a sentence with ‘And’, or end a sentence with a preposition, do you still hold back in your writing because some of your readers might think you’ve made a mistake?

Should you care that they’ll think the worse of you, and stop reading your book or, worse, not buy your next one?

These thoughts were prompted by my attendance at this year’s English Grammar Day at the British Library on 3 July. It has a focus towards teachers, but is an excellent annual occasion for anyone interested in grammar. A message in recent years has been that several of what we thought were rules of grammar simply aren’t – they’re either plain wrong or just preferences of usage.

I never believed in the ‘no preposition at the end of a sentence’ rule, because of Churchill’s famous demolition of that ‘rule’, and also having learned German at school and seeing how in that cousin language it is in fact mandatory to end many sentences with prepositions. But it has taken me till now to accept that it’s wholly acceptable to gaily split an infinitive.   And that starting a sentence with a conjunction is fine if it suits what you want to say.

The problem comes with your less enlightened readers. Will they mark you down?

I recommend the English Grammar Day – it costs only a few pounds, so look it up on the BL website (www.bl.uk). To show you the range of subjects covered, this year the speakers were Devyani Sharma, of Queen Mary University of London, on the development of English across the world, eg in India and Singapore; Lucy Dipper, of City University in London, on ‘Grammar in the speech and language therapy clinic’; Marcello Giovanelli, of Aston University, on ‘Knowing about language: what, why and how?’; Eleanor Trafford, who teaches English at Bradford Grammar School, on ‘Getting your clause into grammar in the secondary classroom’; the splendidly argumentative Geoff Pullum, of Edinburgh University, whose talk was entitled’ ‘If doctors knew medical science like writing critics know grammar, you’d be dead’; and Oliver Kamm (pictured), who writes in the Times on grammar every Saturday , on ‘Grammar guidance in the media: the search for certainty’.

The day finished with an ‘Any Questions’ –style panel discussion chaired by the always entertaining expert on Jane Austen John Mullan.

One of Geoff Pullum’s themes was that many of the so-called rules of grammar are the inventions of ill-informed people. Oliver Kamm argued that the persistence of these rules is largely the fault of ill-informed pundits in the media.

This was all liberating. But it doesn’t answer the question of whether the writer should worry about those less liberated readers …

The British Library’s Crime Classics continue to delight

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by ninevoices in Crime, Ed, Mystery, Read Lately

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Belsize Park, British Library, Christmas, College bursars, Cornish coast, J Jefferson Farjeon, John Bude, John Rowland, Kent, London Underground, Mavis Doriel Hay, Oxford, River Cherwell, Sussex Downs, whodunits

Another hurrah for the British Library Crime Classics series!  It reissues whodunits from the Golden Age by authors who have dropped from general sight but who still can give much pleasure.

bl-crime-2

I found Mystery in White – A Christmas Crime Story, by J Jefferson Farjeon (1937), a most atmospheric piece.   A group of strangers are trapped by heavy snow on Christmas Eve in a country house, which mysteriously has fires burning and food ready, but no-one is home … Then murder is done. I could almost feel the cold, see the snow on the ground outside. A great gift for Christmas for an aficionado of the genre.

The Sussex Downs Murder (1936) is set north of Worthing, in real Sussex countryside, based on the village of Washington near Chanctonbury Ring. Written by John Bude. The Rother brothers run a quarry. Soon after John Rother’s disappearance bones turn up in the quarry, and then in loads of lime sent to local customers. The plot includes delights such as a mysterious runner in a broad-brimmed hat, an anomaly in the amount of petrol in an abandoned car, a false telegram sent to lure one of the protagonists away, etc. Superintendent Meredith is the sleuth on the case.

Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay (1935) is in the sub-genre of Oxbridge murders.   A group of students at the all-female Persephone College in Oxford meet one wintry afternoon on top of the boathouse to form a secret society dedicated to the cursing of the unpopular College bursar: and what should float down the River Cherwell, right past their meeting place, but a canoe containing the said bursar’s corpse ….   Here the traditional detective sent from Scotland Yard is Inspector Braydon. The cast of suspects includes exotic types such as Draga Czernak, a Montenegrin student at Persephone who feels insulted by the bursar; Ezekiel Lond, a misogynist old man who lives in a ramshackle house next to Persephone, and who much resents the sale by his father of the land on which the College stands; and James Lidgett, a farmer-cum-builder who wishes to develop land next to Persephone. Great stuff. For once, I guessed the villain early on.

Those are the three in the series I’ve read so far. Three pleasures still to come are:

Calamity in Kent (1950), by John Rowland, in which a corpse is found locked inside the carriage of a cliff railway at the seaside resort of Broadgate – given me by a ninevoices friend who knew of my liking for this stuff (thanks, Val).

Murder Underground (1934), by Mavis Doriel Hay (she of the Cherwell): the rich but unpopular Miss Pongleton is killed on the stairs of Belsize Park tube station.  I’ve murder-undergroundgiven this to my Londoner daughter as a present. She commutes to work on the Metropolitan Line but as Belsize Park is on the Northern Line she might not hold it against me. I hope she’ll lend it back to me to read in due course.

The Cornish Coast Murder (1935), by John Bude (he of the Sussex Downs): a local magistrate is found shot dead in the house of the local vicar (not in his library, surely?). Looking for something else, I found this in a place my dear wife might be using for storing this year’s Christmas presents, so I have high hopes for Christmas morning! I must put it back secretly.

Thanks, BL. Go to http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/publishing/crime-classics-booklet.pdf for the complete list.

Two for the Diary?

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by ninevoices in Maggie, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British Library, Shakespeare, Somerset House

Shakespeare in Ten Acts.

There will be an exhibition at London’s British Library to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death which will explore the impact of ten significant moments – from the first production of Hamlet to a digital-age deconstruction for the 21st century.  Together with paintings, photographs, costumes and props you will be able to see rare printed editions, including the First Folio, and the only surviving play script in his own handwriting.

Running from the 15th April to the 6th September this could be something to include in your plans for the spring/summer.

Details from: http://www.bl.uk/bl.uk.whats-on

P.S. An invaluable research tool for writers, the British Library has a free email newsletter at email@email.bl.uk

In addition, By me William Shakespeare : a Life in Writing is being held at Somerset House between the 3rd February and the 29th May. Among many documents on view will be his last will and testament. Tickets and details from: http://www.bymewilliamshakespeare.org

Stay away from Oxford

26 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Books, Crime, Ed, Fiction

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

British Library, Death on the Cherwell, Endeavour, Lewis, Morse, Oxford, whodunits, Zuleika Dobson

Death in Oxford

The arrival in my Christmas stocking of Death on the Cherwell has prompted me to reflect on what a dangerous place Oxford is if you are a fictional character.   Death on the Cherwell is by Mavis Doriel Hay, was first published in 1935, and is in the wonderful British Library Crime Classics series. It looks a cracker (groan …): the body of the Bursar of Persephone College is found floating on the eponymous river by member of an undergraduate secret society ….

Were Oxford not such a perennial nest of ingenious murderers Messrs Morse and Lewis would have had to seek employment elsewhere (possibly Midsomer).

In my collection I see I also have:

  • Dorothy L Sayers’ Gaudy Night (of course, what a classic – also first published in 1935; though I do think that Agatha Christie would have told the story in half the length);
  • When Scholars Fall, by my former work colleague Timothy Robinson (1961);
  • Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes (1936); and, still to be read,
  • Landscape with Dead Dons by the broadcaster Robert Robinson (1956).

My favourite fiction read in 2015 was Max Beerbohm’s preposterous Zuleika Dobson (1911) which, while not a whodunit, does involve mass violent death in Oxford on a scale that dwarfs all the corpses in Endeavour, Morse and Lewis put together. (I was fortunate enough to read an edition with the author’s own illustrations, which fit the story so well.)

You will know of others?

The British Library’s Crime Classics series

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Books, Crime, Ed, Read Lately

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

British Library, Christmas, crime fiction, Ed found this, Hog's Back, Northern Line, Oxford, Piccadilly, snow

Thanks to that excellent institution the British Library, for publishing its Crime Classics series. These are a selection of novels from the Golden Age of detective fiction. Aficionados will have been aware of it for some time, but I’ve just come across it and was fortunate enough to be given two of them for Christmas. I’m currently much enjoying Mystery in White – A Christmas Crime Story, by J Jefferson Farjeon (originally published in 1937): a group of strangers find themselves trapped by heavy snow on Christmas Eve in a country house, which mysteriously has fires burning and food ready, but no-one is home … Great suspense.

My other gift was The Sussex Downs Murder, by John Bude (1936), a delight I have in store. Others in the series have settings such as the London Underground’s Northern Line (Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay), an Oxford college (Death on the Cherwell by the same author), the very centre of London (Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston), and the Hog’s Back beauty spot in Surrey (The Hog’s Back Mystery by the great Freeman Wills Crofts).

For details on some of these see http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/publishing/publications-catalogue-spring-2015.pdf (scroll down to pages 6 to 11) or http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/publishing/publications-catalogue-spring-2014.pdf (pages 10 to 13).

 

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