Pedants' Paradise

[Padraig]

No.4 of 'Clearances'.

Fear of affectation made her affect
Inadequacy whenever it came to
Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek.
She'd manage something hampered and askew
Every time, as if she might betray
The hampered and inadequate by too
Well-adjusted a vocabulary.
With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You
Know all them things.' So I governed my tongue
In front of her, a genuinely well-
Adjusted adequate betrayal
Of what I knew better. I'd naw and aye
And decently relapse into the wrong
Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.

Seamus Heaney The Haw Lantern 1987

I posted this on the Heaney thread and half expected a response from this quarter. This is Heaney and his mother communicating.
Class? Education? Restricted code? Elaborated code?

[french frank]

I posted this on the Heaney thread and half expected a response from this quarter. This is Heaney and his mother communicating.
Class? Education? Restricted code? Elaborated code?

People have strange, harmless idiosyncrasies. Who knows where their hang-ups start?

[kernelbogey]

People have strange, harmless idiosyncrasies. Who knows where their hang-ups start?

Intimacy, surely?

[jean]

No.4 of 'Clearances'.

Fear of affectation made her affect
Inadequacy whenever it came to
Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek.
She'd manage something hampered and askew
Every time, as if she might betray
The hampered and inadequate by too
Well-adjusted a vocabulary.
With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You
Know all them things.' So I governed my tongue
In front of her, a genuinely well-
Adjusted adequate betrayal
Of what I knew better. I'd naw and aye
And decently relapse into the wrong
Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.

Seamus Heaney The Haw Lantern 1987

I posted this on the Heaney thread and half expected a response from this quarter. This is Heaney and his mother communicating.
Class? Education? Restricted code? Elaborated code?

A lovely poem, which I didn't know. It reminds me of Tony Harrison's complex relationship with his parents,those he left behind, linguistically. Why talk of hang-ups?

...What is it that these crude words are revealing?
What is it that this aggro act implies?
Giving the dead their xenophobic feeling
or just a cri-de-coeur because man dies?

So what's a cri-de-coeur, cunt? Can't you speak
the language that yer mam spoke. Think of 'er!
Can yer only get yer tongue round fucking Greek?
Go and fuck yourself with cri-de-coeur!

'She didn't talk like you do for a start!'
I shouted, turning where I thought the voice had been.
She didn't understand yer fucking 'art'!
She thought yer fucking poetry obscene!

I wish on this skin's words deep aspirations,
first the prayer for my parents I can't make,
then a call to Britain and to all nations
made in the name of love for peace's sake....

[french frank]

Why talk of hang-ups?

That's what I took Heaney to be describing with 'Fear of affectation'; and the fact that 'beyond her' is in quotes suggested to me that they shouldn't be taken at face value: that they weren't in fact 'beyond her' but she 'affected inadequacy'; that she could, if she wished, have said 'Bertolt Brecht'; 'with more challenge than pride'. Maybe I don't understand what 'hang-up' means? She had some reason for not behaving what in fact was more natural to her.

[vinteuil]

No.4 of 'Clearances'.

Fear of affectation made her affect
Inadequacy whenever it came to
Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek.
She'd manage something hampered and askew
Every time, as if she might betray
The hampered and inadequate by too
Well-adjusted a vocabulary.
With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You
Know all them things.' So I governed my tongue
In front of her, a genuinely well-
Adjusted adequate betrayal
Of what I knew better. I'd naw and aye
And decently relapse into the wrong
Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.

Seamus Heaney The Haw Lantern 1987

... this was lovely; thank you for posting.

A nice exploration of the meaning of 'adequate'. In line 11 of this sonnet I wonder whether the meaning required - 'appropriate, fully sufficient, fitting, suitable' [OED] is still a 'live' meaning in spoken English? I feel many people will read 'adequate' as 'just about good enough'. The French adéquat still retains the 'fully sufficient, appropriate' denotation - but I suspect English is losing that sense...

[jean]

...A nice exploration of the meaning of 'adequate'. In line 11 of this sonnet I wonder whether the meaning required - 'appropriate, fully sufficient, fitting, suitable' [OED] is still a 'live' meaning in spoken English?...

I do think it has to be read against the shifting meanings of inadequacy in lines 2 & 6. The careful reader will give the word even more care than she would without those.

[jean]

That's what I took Heaney to be describing with 'Fear of affectation'; and the fact that 'beyond her' is in quotes suggested to me that they shouldn't be taken at face value: that they weren't in fact 'beyond her' but she 'affected inadequacy'; that she could, if she wished, have said 'Bertolt Brecht'; 'with more challenge than pride'. Maybe I don't understand what 'hang-up' means? She had some reason for not behaving what in fact was more natural to her.

Yes, I see. I agree with the first part of your post, but I think that for me, hang-up lacks seriousness, a sense of the complexities of language and class that gave rise to Mrs Heaney's linguistic behaviour.

This quote from the OED is more how I'd think of the word, though it's a bit sexist:

1968 Observer 22 Dec. 21/1 People have this hang-up about art. A woman will worry for days about spending money on a painting: is it a good investment, can she trust her own judgment? The same woman will spend £150 on a dress..without giving it a thought.

[Padraig]

'You know all them things'. Is this the link between the 'adequate betrayal' and 'the wrong grammar' that allied them? And kept them at bay - from whom?

I thought 'wrong grammar' would have got a rise.

[Sir Velo]

The careful reader will give the word even more care than she would without those.

Are you implying that men don't read Heaney? Or, perhaps that men aren't capable of careful reading?

[vinteuil]

Are you implying that men don't read Heaney? Or, perhaps that men aren't capable of careful reading?

.... but what wd the use of "he" imply???

[jean]

Indeed.

I have noticed with approval that some posters here vary their use in such cases between he and she, and with even greater approval, that this generally excites no comment.

[Sir Velo]

.... but what wd the use of "he" imply???

Why must the alternative have been to have written "he"?

[jean]

It isn't. But I was aware that some of the more extreme pedants who populate this thread might not have liked they.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It isn't. But I was aware that some of the more extreme pedants who populate this thread might not have liked they.

Absolutely. They is not happy about it.