"So as not to disturb classes, or, as teacher Oum would have it, wake up the pupils, he switched off his motor and scooted along the driveway to the building that housed the chemistry department. He'd been in graveyards less silent. Education, it appeared, had given way to copying large tracts of text from a blackboard. It saved the vocal cords of the teachers and the brain matter of the children."
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Saturday, April 16, 2011
A Funny Quote from The Merry Misogynist
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9 comments:
OK, you need a 'tragicomic' button at the bottom of each entry!
Very true! :-)
Blogger, are you hearing this?
I forgot to mention in the post that the author's name is Colin Cotterill and he lives on the Gulf of Thailand.
Surely it should be "He'd been in graveyards more silent." A classic overnegation.
Jonathan: No, less silent is clearly what is meant here. It means there was nore sound in the graveyards than in the classrooms.
Right. But to say that he needs to say the opposite of what he said.
At least I think so. Those kind of constructions always confuse me. I am incapable of even telling whether I am correct or not.
Hmmm. I guess i don't see what is confusing about it. Less silent means more noisy. Just as less thin means thicker or less cold means hotter.
Now I see that you're right. I don't know what was confusing about it.
I do remember reading in Strunk and White's Elements of Style that this kind of verbal construction is considered poor writing style in English. Accorfing to them, you should avoid using 2 words where you can use 1. "Noisier" here would be better than "less silent."
To me, 'less silent' seems more poetic than 'noiser'.
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