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Energised Fences

by
December 2003–January 2004, no. 257

Death Sentence: The decay of public language by Don Watson

Knopf, $29.95 hb, 198 pp

Energised Fences

by
December 2003–January 2004, no. 257

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface, he laments the chaotic state of the language: ‘When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be regulated.’ He despaired at the scope and futility of his task:

Death Sentence: The decay of public language

Death Sentence: The decay of public language

by Don Watson

Knopf, $29.95 hb, 198 pp

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