Neat! Even just listing some of the techniques that you use is helpful to me, really (in my Quest to Start Revising A Novel this summer, which is my ulterior motive in asking that question).
Oh, but though we may wish it, we are not all Dylan Thomas. *g*
I'll take the Waugh, though. Thinking back at a couple of examples, at least one was trying for the Waugh sense of the construction... unfortunately, that connection was lost on me and I suspect much of the audience as well, so it just felt pert without any sense of the history. (How to Ditch Your Fairy, if I'm remembering correctly--on the other hand, I disliked a lot of the slang in that book, plausibly on similar grounds. Or that might just be because, as it turns out, I am utterly incapable of parsing the word 'pulchritudinous' correctly.)
Hmm. Anyway, it's interesting to think about the history of the construction. It still annoys me--and I'm pretty sure there is no excuse, ever, for sane-making. But.
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Oh, but though we may wish it, we are not all Dylan Thomas. *g*
I'll take the Waugh, though. Thinking back at a couple of examples, at least one was trying for the Waugh sense of the construction... unfortunately, that connection was lost on me and I suspect much of the audience as well, so it just felt pert without any sense of the history. (How to Ditch Your Fairy, if I'm remembering correctly--on the other hand, I disliked a lot of the slang in that book, plausibly on similar grounds. Or that might just be because, as it turns out, I am utterly incapable of parsing the word 'pulchritudinous' correctly.)
Hmm. Anyway, it's interesting to think about the history of the construction. It still annoys me--and I'm pretty sure there is no excuse, ever, for sane-making. But.