There’s some question as to the exact date James Joyce came up with this word. It’s a fact that when Thomas E. Connolly transcribed and published one of James Joyce’s notebooks in 1961, it was under the title, “Scribbledehobble” in keeping with the first word in the book’s text.This notebook held the notes for his book “Finnegans Wake” that was published in 1939, and was seventeen years in the writing after his book “Ulysses” was published in 1922.
It isn’t difficult to see how James Joyce would feel compelled to mesh scribble with hobbledehoy to come up with scribbledehobble to describe either hurried, messy writing or the workbook with ideas written down quickly with little to no concern for appearance.
Anna Karenina principle
The Anna Karenina principle describes an endeavor in which a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms it to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavor (subject to this principle) is one where every possible deficiency has been avoided. The name of the principle derives from Leo Tolstoy's book Anna Karenina, which begins:Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Chesterton’s fence
Chesterton’s fence is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.
Cacophemism is a word or expression that's generally perceived as harsh, impolite, or offensive, although it may be used in a humorous context. Similar to dysphemism. Contrast with euphemism.
Hobbledehoyhood
The period or time of being a hobbledehoy; awkwardness adolescence.
scribbledehobble + cobble
An Atheistic Literary Style
An interesting essay might be written on the possession of an atheistic literary style. There is such a thing. The mark of it is that wherever anything is named or described, such words are chosen as suggest that the thing has not got a soul in it. Thus they will not talk of love or passion, which imply a purpose and a desire. They talk of the “relations” of the sexes, as if they were simply related to each other in a certain way, like a chair and a table. Thus they will not talk of the waging of war (which implies a will), but of the outbreak of war – as if it were a sort of boil. Thus they will not talk of masters paying more or less wages, which faintly suggests some moral responsibility in the masters: they will talk of the rise and fall of wages, as if the thing were automatic, like the tides of the sea. Thus they will not call progress an attempt to improve, but a tendency to improve. And thus, above all, they will not call the sympathy between oppressed nations sympathy; they will call it solidarity. For that suggests brick and coke, and clay and mud, and all the things they are fond of.
Literate Programming
I believe that the time is ripe for significantly better documentation of programs, and that we can best achieve this by considering programs to be works of literature. Hence, my title: “Literate Programming.”
Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs: Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.
The practitioner of literate programming can be regarded as an essayist, whose main concern is with exposition and excellence of style. Such an author, with thesaurus in hand, chooses the names of variables carefully and explains what each variable means. He or she strives for a program that is comprehensible because its concepts have been introduced in an order that is best for human understanding, using a mixture of formal and informal methods that re¨ınforce each other.
Jack of all Trades : Master of One
One of the remarkable things about Mr. Rogers’ work is that, without the preliminary trial-by-error which afflicts most would-be designers of fine books, his first book issued by the Riverside Press was the production of an accomplished master of his art. Thus one is unable to see retrogression or progression in the books shown in this exhibition, and although at first glance this seems a dubious compliment, on consideration it will be seen to be very high praise.
James Marshall
LSM: I like the half-title pages in the George and Martha books. They remind me of the titles in old-fashioned newsreels and silent pictures.
JM: I have always thought of them as a way of introducing kids to books—books with chapters and chapter headings. And with this-little-story-will-only-take-you-three-pages-to-get-through kind of feeling.
I have drawers and drawers of George and Martha stories. Some are finished, others not. I have always wanted to do a book —and I may do one—as a sort of scrapbook, or sketchbook with bits of stories—maybe even a sort of funny, juiced-up workbook for kids.
I have the beginnings, I guess, of a hundred stories that never went anywhere, which I know somebody could finish. I have one picture of cows dancing a tango-y dance, and the caption reads, “From the day the Hoovers learned they could dance, their lives have never been the same.” Then you turn the page and—NOTHING. I have lots of stories like that. Then I have middles of stories, and I think it might be fun just to put eight of them together and say, “Take it, kids—and send me the royalties!”
I have always thought my best stuff was in my sketchbooks. I have hundreds of sketchbooks. I like to work at night, I suppose because that's when my defenses are sort of low.
Ways of Telling: Conversations on the Art of the Picture Book (2002)
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By James Gillray (died 1815) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons
