Lost in Austen--a couple of little niggles

[avevale_intelligencer]

One is that Darcy's reaction to discovering the book was wildly out of whack. It's printed and bound in a completely different way from any book he's ever seen, and when would Amanda have had the time to write it *and* get it published? It's as if she'd driven up in a Lamborghini and he'd complimented her on the breeding of her horse.

And the other, sadly, is that I'm fairly sure that in Jane's time they still knew the fairly important distinction between the words "apprise" and "appraise." The former word seems to be vanishing, and the latter is being generally used in its place, in complete defiance of its separate derivation, as it is here. One appraises an artifact or a situation, and then one apprises someone else of one's appraisal. This is not language developing and growing. This is language losing fingers.

Apart from that, yes, still fun.

Comments

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Are you speaking of the book or the movie - and if the latter, which one?

[armb.livejournal.com]

New TV series in which a modern character gets into the world of Pride and Prejudice (I haven't seen it myself):
http://www.itv.com/Drama/perioddrama/LostInAusten/default.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117666/

[rozk.livejournal.com]

On the first point, that was my first reaction, but then I reflected that actually, if I picked up a torn up book and discovered it was all about me, I might not think straight either. Let's see how this plays out next week - this may be clumsy or it may end up being a crucial plot point...

On the second, yes, precisely.