I don’t know what “coat-trailing” is
Some catchy expressions from Claude Rawson’s review of The Cambridge History of English Literature 1660-1780 in the March 10 TLS:
“A fondness for sweeping enumeration”
“Vaguely panic-stricken geniality”
“Feel-good gesturing”
“Knowing, coat-trailing, and oblique”
“Maverick excellence”
“Self-undercutting in-jokes”
“Shandean foolery”
“Forays into trendiness”
“Competitive tribal incantation”
“Hapless peroration”
“Freewheeling pseudospecificity”
“Doctrinaire feminizations”
“Flaccid programmatic pieties”
March 21st, 2006 22:51
Never mind that – it’s “feel-good gesturing” that worries me. Literary hand jobs? Who knows?
March 22nd, 2006 02:48
How dare you import your dirty themes into the sovereign nation of propriety that is this blog.
Athough now I can see what you mean.
March 22nd, 2006 06:17
But but but! It was a self-undercutting in-joke! Surely you see what I mean?
March 22nd, 2006 06:27
Ah. My mistake. Please carry on.
March 22nd, 2006 23:35
I found five more. These will be incredibly handy on the cocktail circuit, I’m sure.