The Elegant Variation: AS THOUGH WE NEEDED MORE REASONS TO HATE WAL-MART

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

September 28, 2004

AS THOUGH WE NEEDED MORE REASONS TO HATE WAL-MART

For all those who continue to take issue with Philip Roth's retelling of history in The Plot Against America, who find it over the top, exceedingly fanciful, or flat-out ridiculous, please note that Wal-Mart is only now - in the wake of vocal customer complaints - stopping the sale of the infamous anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The description, now withdrawn from the Wal-Mart (WMT: Research, Estimates) Web site, said, "If ... The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message. We simply make it available for those who wish a copy."

Anti-Semitism: America's last "acceptable" prejudice.

(Link via Galleycat.)

Posted by TEV at 09:06 AM | Permalink

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Comments

With all due respect, don't you think you are taking this one abit far, Tev? As an artis, Roth certainly has a right to rewrite history as do the conspiracy theorist. And why your sensitivity is understandable, I frankly don't see this unmbrage at aceeptable prejudice extending to your half-brothers, the Arabs.

Posted by: Jacky Treehorn | September 28, 2004 at 10:51 AM

Keep talking, mister, and we're gonna put yer horned ass on a boxcar to Kentucky.

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | September 28, 2004 at 11:56 AM

Mr. Beck,

Horned Ass? Kentucky? Boxcar? Thank God this prejudice (evil red-neck Christians) is acceptable now. Finally, I can stop getting worked up about it!

best,

Jacky

Posted by: Jacky Treehorn | September 28, 2004 at 01:05 PM

I'd be curious to see just how pervasive Wal-Mart's commitment to making unpopular/discredited expressions of distasteful ideologies accessible to consumers is--that is, do they also sell copies of MEIN KAMPF? THE TURNER DIARIES? NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY? THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO?

That said, this is yet another indication of why Will Eisner's graphic history of the Protocols is going to be so important.

Posted by: Ron | September 28, 2004 at 02:54 PM

Yo, Jacky--no need to thank me. My only interest is in preserving the purity of this Great Nation Of Ours.

xo
Jimmy

Posted by: Jimmy Beck | September 29, 2004 at 05:46 AM

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September 28, 2004