Punning for fun with book titles
QUESTION I read a horror story called How Grim Was My Valley (a play on How Green Was My Valley). What other titles of novels have been twisted to similar effect?
Les Dawson’s Come Back with The wind, a comic novel about the north/ south divide in england, always tickled me. There is also stuart Maconie’s book Pies and Prejudice: In search of The north. several classics have been turned into horror novels, such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. a nice pun is android Karenina, though I can’t vouch for the story.
Dylan Thomas wrote Portrait of The artist as a Young Dog, an homage to James Joyce’s a Portrait of The artist as a Young Man. The Harvard Lampoon has a whole series of parody books: Bored of The Rings, The wobbit, Lame of Thrones, and The Hunger Pains.
Terri Perkins, stratford-upon-Avon, Warks.
QUESTION What is the origin of the word ‘Wow’?
wow! is such a natural exclamation that it feels as if it must have been with us for a long time.
The first published reference is from scotsman Gavin Douglas’s translation of the aeneid by Virgil, completed in 1513: ‘out on thir wanderand spiritis, wow! thow cryis.’
It’s thought that ‘wow’ is a modification of the interjection ‘I vow!’ which was common at the time. However, the word then disappears from the written record for three centuries or more.
The first modern usage is from nada The Lily, an 1892 historical novel by H. Rider Haggard: ‘wow! My father, of those two regiments not one escaped.’
During the 20th century, the word became popular in the U. s., taking on new forms. In 1920 ‘wow’ was used as a noun, as in ‘this concert is a wow!’ and four years later it could be used as a verb, so you could ‘wow’ someone with a dazzling display.
Julia Barnes, shrewsbury, shropshire.
QUESTION What are the most bizarre items ever sold on the internet?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, in March 2005, Terri Iligan put her identity up for auction on eBay, with the winner buying the right to legally change her name. The winning bid was $ 15,199 and her new name is GoldenPalace.com. s. P. Rees, Hereford.
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