Upon a re-read of Atlas Shrugged, I found myself tripping over the phrase “music of Richard Halley.” The phrase comes up often throughout the book, from the first chapter where Dagny asks the breakman, “You like the music of Richard Halley?”
Wouldn’t it be much more simpler if characters just referred to it as “Richard Halley’s music”? It’s more natural and informal and would have helped the dialogue flow better. Do you think the use of "of"s was intentional to amplify the idea of ownership, capitalism, etc. in the book? Or is it just the way people spoke back then?
If you do a Google search on expressions like “Music of Beethoven”, “Music of Bach”, “Music of Rachmaninoff” and even “music of Bono”, you’ll find that this is very commonly used, even today.
I don’t think it has any implied meaning, it is just standard English. Such as “the ideas of Ayn Rand” or “the miracles of Jesus Christ”. I don’t see why this would stop the dialogue flowing.
What always made me trip up was “I know it.” I’ve never in my life heard someone say that. What I have heard is, “I know.” I’m betting that the former is actually the proper way of saying it, and our society is simply degenerating, grammatically.
Upon a re-read of Atlas Shrugged, I found myself tripping over the phrase “music of Richard Halley.” The phrase comes up often throughout the book, from the first chapter where Dagny asks the breakman, “You like the music of Richard Halley?”
Wouldn’t it be much more simpler if characters just referred to it as “Richard Halley’s music”? It’s more natural and informal and would have helped the dialogue flow better. Do you think the use of "of"s was intentional to amplify the idea of ownership, capitalism, etc. in the book? Or is it just the way people spoke back then?
I think it does express an added sense of the importance of Richard Halley, because of his music, to Dagny. As always, Ayn Rand knew exactly what she was doing. The dialogue cannot be improved.
What always made me trip up was “I know it.” I’ve never in my life heard someone say that. What I have heard is, “I know.” I’m betting that the former is actually the proper way of saying it, and our society is simply degenerating, grammatically.
It is a striking usage, and I haven’t seen any discussion of the point (for example it doesn’t seem to be discussed by her talking about her writing, or by those who knew her). She almost never uses “I know that.” which would be standard English usage – once in AS (p. 274), a few times in Fountainhead especially where there are emphatic contrasts (“I know that… I know that, too”). I don’t know about older forms of English such as Shakespeare or Middle English, but in Modern English, the exchange on p. 66-7 of AS:
“What’s the matter, Eddie?”
“McNamara quit.”
She looked at him blankly. “What do you mean, quit?”
“Left. Retired. Went out of business.”
“McNamara, our contractor?”
“But that’s impossible!”
“I know it.”
isn’t a context where “it” could be used. Either “I know it is”, or “I know that”, meaning “I know that fact is impossible”. I think in Russian, in such contexts you’d say “Ja znaju eto” and there’s no distinction made between “I know it” and “I know that”; I’d be hard-pressed to state the rule for when you need to use “I know it.” vs. “I know that.”
The “of” that tripped me up was in Galt’s oath, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” While it is common to say “for the sake of…”, it would be rather unusual to say, for instance, “I am doing it for the sake of Jill and for mine”. It would be more natural to say, “I am doing it for Jill’s sake and for mine.” Any change would have ruined the artistry of Galt’s oath, and in fact it probably shouldn’t be as natural as dialogue, but I did trip over it.
For me, the “it” in “I know it” in Atlas Shrugged expresses a more self-controlled, unemotional knowing, the “it” underlining that which is known, as opposed to simply the fact of knowing, as in “I know”.
She looked at him blankly. “What do you mean, quit?”
“Left. Retired. Went out of business.”
“McNamara, our contractor?”
“But that’s impossible!”
“I know it.”
isn’t a context where “it” could be used. Either “I know it is”, or “I know that”, meaning “I know that fact is impossible”. I think in Russian, in such contexts you’d say “Ja znaju eto” and there’s no distinction made between “I know it” and “I know that”; I’d be hard-pressed to state the rule for when you need to use “I know it.” vs. “I know that.”
I have heard that used in that sort of circumstance. It is an exlamation of sorts. Similiar in meaning to, “You’re telling me?”
A comparison of incidence figures between don’t let’s and let’s don’t reveals that the former is used more frequently, i.e., except for the 1950s, the 1980s and the 1990s.
This practice dates back to the late 14th century, introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) in Canterbury Tales, Ship’s Tale, and Man of the Law’s Tale.
Getting back to the original question (never saw this thread til today). Does anybody here know Russian? In the romance languages, “of” is the standard way to express a possessive. If Rand grew up in a language that works this way, she would have used this locution through force of habit.
As for the current topic, “let’s don’t” and “don’t lets” both strike me as awkward at best, illiterate at worst. Maybe they were current when she was writing sixty or seventy years ago. At one point in the story the railroads form a cartel “‘the better to enforce’” laws and government policies. As I recall, the novel puts it in scarequotes, suggesting that Rand herself thought it was a lowbrow usage.
Getting back to the original question (never saw this thread til today). Does anybody here know Russian? In the romance languages, “of” is the standard way to express a possessive. If Rand grew up in a language that works this way, she would have used this locution through force of habit.
Russian declines its nouns, so the noun itself is altered, sort of like adding apostrophe ‘s’. But there is no individual word for “of” in Russian. The thing being owned usually goes first, and the thing that is owning gets modified and goes second (e.g. sobaka malchika = the dog of the boy). Personally, when writing, I use the “of” construct more often than apostrophe ‘s’, even though English is my only fluent language. So, I doubt it’s a language habit per se, it looks more like a stylistic habit.
