Pedants' Paradise

[Flosshilde]

We've all heard of a King penguin and an Emperor penguin but ... surely not

We're not deviating onto the subject of this thread, I hope http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...f-the-Penguins

[Panjandrum]

... And on the principle of lectio difficilior, I wd suggest it more likely that 'trended' was altered to 'headed' rather than the other way about...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_difficilior_potior

Well, a note on the text to the Penguin edition states: "The copy text for this edition is the first British edition published in 1885." Penguin is not in the habit of bowdlerising texts to suit modern readership and I would contend that "trending" is from a corrupt source, probably a children's edition.

[LeMartinPecheur]

... hmmm. My copy has -

"All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces ahead.

"Infadoos," I said at length, "who made this road?" .... "


And on the principle of lectio difficilior, I wd suggest it more likely that 'trended' was altered to 'headed' rather than the other way about...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_difficilior_potior

My c1931 Cassell edition has 'trended'.

[french frank]

Well, a note on the text to the Penguin edition states: "The copy text for this edition is the first British edition published in 1885." Penguin is not in the habit of bowdlerising texts to suit modern readership and I would contend that "trending" is from a corrupt source, probably a children's edition.

There were, apparently, a number of misprints in the 1885 edition - not unusual with first editions where there can be misreadings of handwriting: subsequent editions have the benefit of having been corrected by the author.

[Flosshilde]

Well, a note on the text to the Penguin edition states: "The copy text for this edition is the first British edition published in 1885." Penguin is not in the habit of bowdlerising texts to suit modern readership and I would contend that "trending" is from a corrupt source, probably a children's edition.

I'm not sure of the logic in suggesting that a 'children's edition' would have an unusual (or unknown?) word as a replacement for a perfectly inoccuous & more familiar word like 'headed', even if it is 'bowdlerised' (which I've always thought meant that the rude bits were removed).

[Panjandrum]

There were, apparently, a number of misprints in the 1885 edition - not unusual with first editions where there can be misreadings of handwriting: subsequent editions have the benefit of having been corrected by the author.

Indeed, which leads one to conclude that had "trended" been included in the original text it would have been corrected as a "misprint" (sic) as it obviously makes no sense in the context, whatsoever, while its current usage as a verb was over 125 years from being coined. Any later editors that included "trended" did not obviously employ such scrupulous proofreaders.

[Ed: this correspondence is now closed.]

[french frank]

Indeed, which leads one to conclude that had "trended" been included in the original text it would have been corrected as a "misprint" (sic) as it obviously makes no sense in the context

Erm, isn't this the point? It was (seemingly) corrected in later editions.

If they take a decision to publish the text of the first edition, they don't alter the text. That would be pointless: they might as well publish a later edition without the need to make 'corrections'. But this seems like a variant reading where the printer/compositor misread the manuscript.

trended

headed

Easy to see how 'tr' might look like an 'h', and an 'n' like an 'a'. It isn't as if the verb 'to trend' is unusual with that meaning (as M. Vinteuil has shown).

[vinteuil]

1846 Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations - "The religion of blood, like the beasts of prey, will continue to trend northward."

1892 Robert Louis Stevenson, Across the Plains - "The railroad trended to the right ... "

[ahinton]

1846 Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations - "The religion of blood, like the beasts of prey, will continue to trend northward."

1892 Robert Louis Stevenson, Across the Plains - "The railroad trended to the right ... "

I have to admit (albeit in what must almost certainly amount to a most unforgivably off-topic intrusion) that, whilst I've set both these poets within the one song-cycle, the material set was not the above in either case...

[Flosshilde]

Indeed, which leads one to conclude that had "trended" been included in the original text it would have been corrected as a "misprint" (sic) as it obviously makes no sense in the context, whatsoever, while its current usage as a verb was over 125 years from being coined. Any later editors that included "trended" did not obviously employ such scrupulous proofreaders.

[Ed: this correspondence is now closed.]

As I was in Waterstone's this morning I thought I'd look at what editions of KSM they had - which was the Penguin edition, & Modern Library Classics. The latter was based on the '1893 Cassell edition' & included "all corrections made to that point", & had 'trended'. The Penguin had 'headed', as Pan says, but refers to corrections of mis-prints between the 1st & 2nd editions, and that "a number of small errors ... which continued into the 2nd edition have been silently corrected". I think that it's quite reasonable to assume that the Penguin editor thought that 'trended' was one of those 'small errors', & 'silently' corrected it to 'headed'.

[Pabmusic]

I think that it's quite reasonable to assume that the Penguin editor thought that 'trended' was one of those 'small errors', & 'silently' corrected it to 'headed'.

Yes, I think you're right. It is a little sobering to realise just how much of our language has come about through misunderstanding. I don't mean words like [n]orange, [n]uncle, [n]adder, pea[se], cherry[ise] and the like, which are almost understandable. Here are some of the mistaken etymologies (mostly because the origins lay in foreign words) that have become standard:

Helpmate/helpmeet ("an help meet for him" = a suitable helper for him [King James Bible on the creation of Eve!])

Forlorn hope ("verloeren hoop" = lost troop [Dutch expression for the leading troops in an attack, who were not expected to last long])

Jerusalem artichoke ("girasole' [Italian = follows the sun] and Italian-from-Arabic ["arcicioffo" = "al-kharshuf"], both of which refer to the same plant])

Derring-do (Walter Scott misunderstanding Edmund Spenser ["A man of mickle name, Renowned much in armes and derring doe"] who in turn was misunderstanding Chaucer ["In durring don that longeth to a knight"]. Chaucer meant something like "in daring to do what is fitting for a knight to do")

Rosemary ("ros marinus" = sea dew [it grows wild by the sea])

Bridegroom ("bryd guma" = [Anglo-Saxon] bride-man)

Cockroach ("cucaracha" = a sort of [Spanish] beetle, from "cuca" = cocoon of a caterpillar)

Island (Anglo-Saxon "iland", which gained an 's' by analogy with the [unrelated] French "isle")

Scot-free ("tax-free", from Old Norse "scattr" [= tax], but obviously influenced by the proximity of Scotland. Cf. German schoss-frei.)

Plonk ("vin blanc". Need I say more?)

[Panjandrum]

Tom Service up to his old tricks on Saturday's Music Matters: providing simultaneous translations of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's effusive outpourings, including rendering "avoir la gorge serree" as "to have the throat cut".

At another point, TS obviously with a low opinion of the breadth of vocabulary among the Radio 3 audience, felt the need to translate some French musicologist's use of the word "auto-didact" to describe Debussy, as "he was self-taught." Well, fancy that.

[amateur51]

Tom Service up to his old tricks on Saturday's Music Matters: providing simultaneous translations of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's effusive outpourings, including rendering "avoir la gorge serree" as "to have the throat cut".

At another point, TS obviously with a low opinion of the breadth of vocabulary among the Radio 3 audience, felt the need to translate some French musicologist's use of the word "auto-didact" to describe Debussy, as "he was self-taught." Well, fancy that.

Panyan up to his old tricks here, double-posting (see msg 56 on http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...231#post177231)

[Flosshilde]

Well, he wouldn't want his gems to go to waste - with something so good it makes sense to spread it around as much as possible.

[Panjandrum]

Good to see my fan club following me around.