Eliot/WasteLand

[Pabmusic]

Mr. Noggin is right to wince. "Wonder if" is an american vulgarism. As the O.E.D. instructs us, the verb "wonder," when used in the sense "ask oneself in wonderment" or "feel some doubt or curiosity," may take a clause introduced by a conjunction such as "whether," "how," "why," "who" or "when," and the appropriate expression here would be "wonder whether": "I sometimes wonder whether that is what Krishna meant."...

These come to mind quite readily:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Sc. 2:

OBERON I wonder if Titania be awaked; Then, what it was that next came in her eye, Which she must dote on in extremity.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Sc. 1:

THESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEMITRIUS No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

[johnb]

Thanks to this thread I shall look for my cassette of Alec Guiness reading The Wasteland and Prufrock.

I have them in print but too small for me now.

I once had those recordings on cassette but it has long since disappeared. I do wish someone would reissue them on CD or make them available for downloading.