All this time everyone has let Flanner get away with this nonsense?

Author: flanneruk
Date: 11/15/2004, 01:46 pm
KT (and what's that an acronym of?):

Flanner, did you really finish school? If you'd drop your nose a bit, you could read your own typing better. You're so busy browbeating everyone that you've allowed yourself to swerve off the Queen's English. Surely, you know the difference between an acronym and an abbreviation, don't you? Where did you learn to end a sentence with a preposition?

Enough of that.

I think all the ideas in the Da Vinci Code are fun concepts. It is fiction, so why are so many people bent out of shape? Because Brown said that some of it was accurate?

So what's wrong with a good chase tale based on some new ideas?

Yes, I gave up on the Blair Witch story. No way to verify it or replicate it. It is a good Halloween tale best told in a spooky room.
That was where I heard it first. The setting was perfect with flickering, low light coming only from candles inside pumpkins, creaky floors, and a story teller dressed in black with a sepulcherous voice. She was barely visible yet audible with clear diction.
Very effective.

Blast away at Dan all you want. He left a trail of tears as he went to the bank to deposit his royalty checks. His crying caused a miniature Noah's fludde. Even washed the trash out of the gutters.

Da Vinci code is only a book. And only one book at that. I still repeat: if it gets one person away from vegging in front of the TV, the author did a service. Not everything is War and Peace. Plus a lot of people probably got a little interested in art and travel due to this book. So chill and get ready for the next bestseller brouhaha.

For what it's worth, I didn't think it was that good of its kind. For a chase thriller based on some sort of researched specialist knowledge, Dick Francis and Len Deighton are much better value - they write a lot better for one thing. I suppose we have to put up with yet another British villain, but someone who claims to teach creative writing might at least have tried to make him credible.

pellegrina, I agree with you. Reading anything is better than not reading at all.

Leanna, good idea, maybe it's not too late for you to email them!

Tom Hanks is being considered for the movie.

So is George Clooney.

The contract hasn't been signed yet.

My vote goes to Orlando Bloom. :)

I'm all for reading. It's not the reading of these spurious-premise
books that bothers me (I read my share of silly mysteries, too), it's the uncritical acceptance of them as true.

What about reading the National Enquirer and actually believing it all to be true? Is that a Good Thing? Or believing those alien abduction books? How about believing earth-is-flat books or hate-filled propaganda?

Now, I realize that the Da Vinci Code, even if taken as the literal truth, is essentially harmless. But you see the point: there's reading and then there's reading with breathless gullibility.

(Here I will refrain from making political remarks about a gullible electorate.)

When the Yankee and I read the book, we kept saying , who would make a good Inspector or Richard..I think Tom Hanks is a fantastic actor but I agree with the miscasting.
What about the Inspector?

Sorry, I called him Richard, not Robert Langdon :)

I read (in the same article that stated Tom Hanks would star in the movie) that Jean Reno (The Professional) will portray the Inspector Face, and that a French actress is being sought for the female lead to keep it true to the book (my money is on Sophie Marceau of Braveheart fame).

We need a redhead right? Although she's American, I nominate Julianne Moore.

One thing we can be reasonably confident of is that the movie will be better than the book.

Max, it's perfectly permissible to end a sentence with a preposition - refer "preposition at end" in Fowler's Modern English Usage. It's inadvisable only when to do so would be inelegant or impede comprehension. That "rule", like the equally arbitrary one against splitting an infinitive, was the result of wrongheaded attempts to shoehorn English usage into Latin grammatical rules.

We must also remember Winston Churchill's statement that fussing about prepositions at the end of a sentence is "something up with which I shall (will?) not put."

I seem to remember someone sending me their OFoto album of a trip to Italy- mentioning the Da Vinci code..I guess if it makes it more interesting for a person to see the place as related to a book, that is good too although I think I would be more interested in reading about Leonardo than Dan Browns book :).

There are many versions of the quote on quotations. Here is the one many scholars THINK is the real one:

?This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.?

The variations came when various editors tried to elide the phrase "bloody nonsense." I think that type of reference is more in keeping with his bluntness.

Change of subject. Why are people so torqued up about the reference in The Da Vinci Code to the idea that Jesus consorted with Mary Magdalene?

So what if he did?

Another diatribe I read was by an author who was bent out of shape by the reference to the hand with the knife.

I looked at a picture of the restored Last Supper, and I cannot see that the hand has any arm to which it is attached. The author said it was attached to Peter. I don't see how unless Peter was more of a contortionist that my Yoga practicing friend who can just about stick her toe in her ear and can actually put knees down beside her ears.

Barbara.....I shall call Ronnie first thing in the morning!!!! :):) Now Jean Reno makes sense!! Orlando is too young....the heros suppose to be a bit over the fence age wise!

Its ok....they didnt listen to me on Bridges of Madison County either!!! :):):) Olivia Huston and Same Elliott would have been MUCH better!!! :)

OOPS. I meant to preface the last one with Churchill Quotes. Ending a sentence with a preposition is a subject of great argument among English composition teachers.

I always liked the quote that contained the phrase "arrant pedantry", but that one unfortunately seems to be version sanitized by an editor who did not like "bloody nonsense."

Another editor, somewhat ignorant of the language, changed the phrase to "errant pedantry." That might be the form of the original quote, what ever it was, that is the closest to the truth.

Neil :
People all over the world do things differently. You'll forgive Maxwell Smart for not accepting the advice of an inhabitant of Britain's refuse depot.

MaxwellSmart, of course I forgive you. Your pertinent and cutting response has left me suitably chastised, and chastened by your incisive and broad-ranging analysis of my country's history. Rest assured that I will report your findings to my compatriots without delay; I expect them to hang their heads in shame, as well they might. I look forward to your scholarly rebuttal of Fowler and his foolish supporters, when you have a few minutes to spare from your researches into former British colonies.

Maxwell Smart! Of course - I knew 'The Da Vinci Code' reminded me of something, but I just couldn't put my finger on it - till now.