{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4514",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4514,
    "subject": "TWK: Able's Prose Style",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2005-11-04T23:25:01+00:00",
    "last": "2005-11-06T19:43:28+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<729f09180511041525u90f9c6agef05399223af5df6@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mike Sakasegawa",
        "address": "saxon75 at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-11-04T23:25:01+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TWK: Able's Prose Style",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello all. I'm relatively new to the list--I posted briefly as Hitsuji a\ncouple of years ago and then dropped out. Anyway, I recently finished\nreading The Wizard and had a question.\n\nAs far as I noticed, Arthur never once uses a contraction in the prose\nportions of his letter to Ben. It seemed odd to me, because his dialogue\nuses as many contractions as you would normally see in a 20th century\nAmerican teenager's speech, but I was unable to spot a single instance of a\ncontraction in the prose. I was wondering if anyone thought there was any\nsignificance to that.\n\n-Mike"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<BAY103-F150209E83FDC027AEB209088620@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Bob Miller",
        "address": "bob_bageera at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-11-06T02:42:46+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TWK: Able's Prose Style",
      "in_reply_to": "<729f09180511041525u90f9c6agef05399223af5df6@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "An HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: /pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20051105/2cefe6ff/attachment.htm"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<729f09180511061143u20f691b3wbfb40998928a1d9f@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mike Sakasegawa",
        "address": "saxon75 at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-11-06T19:43:28+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TWK: Able's Prose Style",
      "in_reply_to": "<BAY103-F150209E83FDC027AEB209088620@phx.gbl>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Contractions are a perfectly legitimate grammatical construction, and\ngiven the first person perspective and the characterization evident in\nthe narration, it struck me as odd that there were no contractions to\nbe found.  Since it stood out to me so much in TWK, I feel like I\nwould have noticed if they had also been absent from the other Wolfe\nworks that I've read, but I don't recall that being the case.  I'll\ninvestigate further when I get the chance.\n\n-Mike"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On 11/5/05, Bob Miller wrote:\n\nThat comment about the lack of contractions is probably apropos now, MIke.  All it really means is that GEne Wolfe is not an incompetent writer or does not deliberately use bad grammar.  <chuckle>  I well remember being dropped from an A to a C in an inclass essay because I used a couple contractions.  My ego still smarts from the ruler to it.\n\nBob"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}