RARA-AVIS: The English Language

Lawrence R. (goldensam@sprintmail.com)
Sun, 09 Aug 1998 20:14:13 -0400 Re:
"Hard-Boiled Women Authors and Genre
Sorry for causing all this heated debate :)"

It would be gratifying if people who engage in discussions about
literature in English of whatever genre would use the English language
with a decent minimum of skill.

How can a woman author write, or for that matter, do anything, after
she has been hard-boiled.
If the writer means "women authors of hard-boiled detective fiction" she
should say that. This imbecilic type of discussion has already disrupted
and decimated at least one other mystery list.

I would suggest that the a major requirement of a true aficionado of
Dashiell Hammett, father of the Maltese Falcon, the eponymous rara avis
of this list, would be the lack of whining over whether men or women
write better. Surely Hammett knew that men and women were NOT the
same, which has nothing to do with one being 'better' than the other.
If he didn't Lillian Hellman sure as hell would have reminded him!

Alfred Kinsey

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.