In thE nAme of liTeracy and WORthy kate bushological stuDieS...

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick
 Subject: In thE nAme of liTeracy and WORthy kate bushological stuDieS...?

     Steve Schonberger writes:

 > I think Andrew is wrong on the "Nice to Swallow" matter.  Regardless of
 > whether it was a typesetting error or a Kate joke, Doug found the quotation.
 > Doug's terms were that Andrew eat words if the quotation existed, and he
 > explicitly said the deal counted whether the words were Kate's or a typo.
 > ...Andrew owes us a word eating, since the deal included typos.

     Granted. IED officially eats words, Steve: "Nice to Swallow" does exist,
and IED didn't believe it did. He was wrong, wrong, wrong!
     That said, however, IED feels there is a far more important issue
at stake here, and that is whether innocent readers of Love-Hounds should
be led to believe that |>oug's authority on matters Kate Bushological can
and should be trusted merely because he has managed to remember,
and--worst of all--believe in the accuracy of, rather than to discount and
forget, as an irrelevant bit of editorial sloppiness (something IED rightly
did when he first encountered the passage in question), an attribution
of a completely unreliable kind. As long as IED is a participant in
this group he cannot in good conscience allow that kind of ignorance
to go unobserved.

 > I tend toward the view that it was a typo (but not an error of the writer,
 > since the rest of the article was right, and not an error of the editors,
 > since the sloppiness of rest of the magazine implies that there wasn't any
 > editing that could introduce the error).

     On the contrary. The sloppiness of the rest of the magazine only
implies that errors were routinely made by its staff. Whether those
errors were committed by type-setters or editors is not clear, but
the likelihood is that some were committed by the former and some by
the latter. The prevalence of errors in the text of a publication
of the low calibre of _Lady-Killers_ is unfortunately no proof
at all that copy-editing was not done--only that _if_ it was done,
it was done _badly_.
       Andy Gough writes:

 >Doug is the only one to actually come up with some DATA on the question.
 >Everything else since then has been pure speculation.  Doug has done
 >his part.  If anyone still doesn't believe Kate said "Nice to swallow,"
 >then let them dig up some hard data on the question.

     So IED shall, but you miss the point, Andy. The fact is that there _are_
no "hard data" to support |>oug's ludicrous position. There is only _one_
measly, swiss-cheesy datum--an obvious editorial error, one among
dozens of others much like it, found in a sleazy teeny-bopper magazine.
     By contrast, there are literally reams of data to _refute_
|>oug's claim. Virtually every sentence Kate has ever uttered contains
the kernel of her character, moral outlook and aesthetic principles, and
in each of these there is adequate "proof" of the falsehood of |>oug's
absurd notion. IED therefore finds it ridiculous that _he_ should have
to bear the burden of proof that |>oug's silly argument is untenable.
     _Nevertheless_, IED will do so--by discrediting both the authority of
|>oug's solitary source and |>oug's own competence to judge the issue
at all--with _specific_ and _plentiful_ evidence.
     Julian West writes:

 > |>oug writes: "...molasis."
 >
 >     You're just doing it on purpose now!
 >
 > -- Julian

     Alas! no, Julian. But wait! Get this: |>oug writes:

 >wouldn't say anything -- I would just smile.  In fact, when I
 >interviewed Kate she used a very strange adverb at one point.  She
 >said, "... the mule imagery was something I liked ordurely."  Now,
 >ordure is excrement or something morally degrading, so to like
 >something "ordurely" is rather unusual.  I didn't say anything about
 >her strange use of wording, other than to smile at it.

     Now pay attention to this part, Love-Hounds--it's really rich.
     IED admits a weakness of character in being unable to resist the
following set of comments in connection with the above. Besides, in light
of |>oug's recent insistence on the unlikelihood that Kate's interviewer
for the _Lady-Killers_ interview could have misheard Kate's words, it
is relevant to point out that |>ouglas has _just_made_precisely_the_
_same_error_himself_!
     This next bit is really hard to believe, but it's true. Until recently
none of us Love-Hounds was in a position to question this nonsense about
Kate having said "ordurely" to |>ouglas during his interview with her,
because none of us had anything to go by except what |>ouglas himself
chose to give us.
     About two weeks ago, however, IED finally got the chance to hear
a faithful audio copy of |>oug's mindboggling, tour-de-force interview. At
last IED has been able to hear _for_himself_ what this interview sounded like,
and what was _actually_ said between Kate Bush and |>oug Alan, instead of
having to continue to rely on |>oug's own necessarily suspect transcription.
     And what did IED discover, upon listening to this tape? Why, only
that the word Kate used during the exchange in question--and it is _quite_
clear, folks, there is _no_ doubt about it--is "AUDIALLY". Not, of
course, "ordurely", but "AUDIALLY". (Before Julian or another of our more
literate Love-Hounds questions the legitimacy of this word, IED hastens to
agree that its linguistic status is questionable, but it is nevertheless
a word which Kate has used on at least two other occasions--among them
an interview she gave for Canadian television only a few days after enduring
her thirty minutes with |>oug. Though not found in Webster, it can be a pretty
sensible adverb, as when used, for example, in a context like "visually and
audially". Whether one likes the word or not, however, one thing is certain,
and that is that Kate says "AUDIALLY" in |>oug's interview, _not_ "ordurely".)
     As usual, |>oug has simply been blathering--with completely
unmerited self-confidence--on a subject which lies entirely outside his
area of expertise. (In this case, that subject is the English language.)
     One could safely hope, were one dealing with a less pathetically
stubborn opponent than |>oug, that he would now be willing to concede
the extreme likelihood that the interviewer in _Lady-Killers_ mistook
Kate's words "_Night_of_the_Swallow_" for the absurd and completely
uncharacteristic "Nice to Swallow" _just_as_|>oug_himself_ mistook Kate's
word "audially" for the glaringly improbable and uncharacteristic (not to
say nonsensical and far less grammatically sound) word "ordurely".
     The fact is that people do mishear words. Some of them will take the
trouble to question their hearing when they register what seems to be
nonsense. Others--such as |>ouglas and his equals, the editors of _Lady-
_Killers_--will not bother. What more graphic evidence is needed than
|>oug's gross above-cited editorial error--and the wildly false,
scatalogical and altogether inappropriate conclusions he reaches
on its unsound basis--to prove IED's point that the ascription
of "Nice to Swallow" to Kate by the _Lady-Killers_ staff is, to a
virtual certainty, a similar mistake by unthinking, careless people? But
knowing |>oug too well--as we all do--to expect him to admit his error
graciously, IED will have to present more evidence--and so he shall now.
     Contrary to |>oug's recent claim that his tawdry source for the false
"Nice to Swallow" quotation--the magazine _Lady-Killers_--is relatively free
of mistakes, it is, in fact, _swamped_ in a veritable sea of them! In fact,
even within the short excerpt relevant to this discussion no fewer than _six_
misspelled song-titles can be found, as well as at least one other misspelled
word! Among the errors are "Don't Push Your Foot on the Hearbreak", "james
And The Cold Gun", "Favourtie tracks", and "Symphoney in Blue". Mind you, this
is within a span of fewer than 500 words, in a section specifically devoted
to and primarily consisting of a listing of Kate's songs!
     Two conclusions must be drawn. The first is that given the amazingly poor
copy-editing in the magazine (IED has chosen to list only a few errors, and
only from among those that are found in one isolated passage--literally
dozens and dozens of other errors, some far more obvious, are strewn
throughout the rest of the publication's text), _it_is_not_the_least_
_bit_unlikely_ that an oversight by the inept and careless copy-editors
allowed the retention of the mistaken reference to _Night_of_the_Swallow_
as "Nice to Swallow".
     The second conclusion is that |>oug Alan begins to look more and
more like the worst and most harmful type of illiterate: the type whose
status as a student in a good school has led him to consider that he is
_not_ the illiterate he is, and who, buoyed by that false, unmerited
self-confidence, feels free to spout off his mouth on subjects which might
very well do undeserved damage to the reputations of worthier people than
himself--in this case, Kate Bush. What he needs is a good high-school-level
English course, so that he can acquire at least a minimal degree of
language skills (not to mention some much-needed humility) before he should
again be tempted to tell others how unimportant the rules are and to cite
as legitimate authorities for bogus Kate Bush quotes (and as the foundation
for more of his bathroom-oriented theories about Kate's works and statements)
sources as sloppy and linguistically ignorant as himself.

-- Andrew Marvick, who looks happily up at the big sky, never down
   at the ground, missing