How all occasions do inform against me

[desperance]

See how I give myself away entirely? When I am balked of something, in a place where I feel I should have free access to do entirely as I like (and, yes, I do mean the Lit & Phil), my first instinct is to cry "I am an elf and a kinsman here!"

Which gives me away twice over: first, like Peter and Harriet, that regrettable habit of reacting instantly with my flash knowledge of someone else's words, as though I had no true feelings of my own but have to live within quotation marks, ironic or otherwise; and second, of course, that I turn first to Tolkien (or else that he rises first, that I know LotR better than pretty much anything else; but actually I think it is because Tolkien's - what shall we say, emotional grammar? - bit deepest into me, when I was most vulnerable).

Oh, and third, of course, that it should be the romantic elves I turn to. Such a giveaway...

Comments

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

Well, almost all words are someone else's (making up too many of your own tends to confuse people), and phrases are just big words that haven't condensed their spaces out yet.

More intriguingly, I'm increasingly sceptical of communication as the primary role of language, it seems designed much more as gang colours for showing group membership (shibboleths and all that). In that sense you are precisely correct to give yourself away with it, and to choose phrasing that reveals your clique affiliations, and specifically to use it to claim kinship.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

At least with Peter and Harriet you are in good company