when asked whether he knows who is behind an undertaking, van Rijn replies that he knows who the undertakers are - and, although he does not add this, they might be just about to kill him;
he warns one of these "undertakers" that Old Mother Hubris always finds an empty larder, thus juxtaposing the harmless nursery rhyme figure with the overweening pride that brings Nemesis;
having ordered a computer program that translates Anglic language, Arabic numerals and metric units into their Planha equivalents, he adds "'...whatever else kind of ics is useful...'" (The Van Rijn Method, pp. 669-670).
"...ics..." is not good English and probably not good Anglic but comprehensibly summarizes at least three kinds of symbols in just three letters and is the sort of abbreviation that, if used often enough, would be incorporated into the language and included in later editions of sufficiently comprehensive dictionaries.
Sorry for short and infrequent posts, folks. I am starting to acquire a few more domestic responsibilities and, right now, am intermediate between Latin class preparation and Zen meditation group. Later.
2 comments:
Quite possibly my favorite van Rijnism was when he spoke of aggressively seeking something he wanted "like a bulldozer going after a cowdozer." (I can't, at the moment, recall which story that was in.)
Dear Mr. Birr,
Ha, ha!!! I remember that one too! Altho, like you, I'm not sure which story or novel it's in. Old Nick's fractured Anglic and comic malapropisms often display shrewd insight as well as comedy.
Sean
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