• CombatWombat@feddit.online
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    14 days ago

    We use a fair number of those venerable old Saxon words, but they’re mostly considered impolite, as Samuel Beckett reminds us in his novel Watt

    Watt conceived for Mr Graves a feeling little short of liking. In particular Mr Graves’s way of speaking did not displease Watt. Mr Graves pronounces th charmingly. Turd and fart, he said, for third and fourth. Watt liked these venerable Saxon words. And when Mr Graves, drinking on the sunny step his afternoon stout, looked up with a twinkle in his old blue eye, and said, in mock deprecation, Tis only me turd or fart, then Watt felt he was perhaps prostituting himself to some purpose.