Stephen Isabirye

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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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I don't think I'd take English lessons from someone called Wong Hon Long....
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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

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Katharine wrote:I've just tried Google with the phrase "(an) emotional frantic". It didn't show up, so at the moment the use of such a phrase doesn't seem to have increased enough to make it appear. Although admittedly I didn't search more than the first few pages. Maybe it's more widespread in the US?
Katharine, you may be right in your suggesting that "an emotional frantic" could be an unofficial American idiom, for a few days ago, I guess it was a Professor who used the expression on a program on National Public Radio; a BBC affiliate. either he may have picked it up on our discussion of the expression on this thread, which I doubt, or it may have existed sub-consciously in the American literary psyche. It doesn't even appear in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Maybe, the word, in a way, could be heading to a form of linguistic "slang" and maybe I could have contributed to that aspect, unfortunately or fortunately...
Poppy wrote:Here is your post, Katharine:
Katharine wrote:Minerva, I was interested to read that you are proof-reading the book. Although I can't help wondering why? I've read a few sections of the book and found it full of basic errors, such as poor spelling.
Poppy & Katharine, I guess for you "poor spelling" means American-style of spelling is wrong, while British spelling is right. I double-checked the book for spellings and there were little or no major spelling problems. Anita said there were no major spelling errors. Maybe, she is a bit more familiar with American-style of spelling than most of you are. Yes, the word processing tool I used has an American-style spelling checker. I never attempted to use the grammar check since that would have created maybe even more problems. In addition, the book primarily at the onset was aimed at the American audience in a pioneering effort of having written the first book on Enid Blyton in North America, with special emphasis on the USA. In addition, people in other countries not used to American-style of spelling have complained about their word processing programs such as Word, Word Perfect, etc, of only recognizing, American-style spelling in their spelling/grammar-check spelling. So the problem of spelling has to do not with spelling much as it has to do with tossing a coin as to whether to use British or American-type of spelling. Both choices present various challenges depending on where one is writing from.
Stephen I.
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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

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Domino wrote:The trouble with the 'Anecdotage' is that it is the wrong title for a book aimed at the wrong market, in the wrong style, by the wrong publishers. Worse still, the vocabulary, grammar and spelling used merely suggest incompetence. It doesn't really matter how this came about; it is the perception of the book that will determine its appraisal.
You seem to be under the delusion that you would gain personal kudos from writing an academic study. Yet the academics (be they professors or students) who might be interested in such a work are hardly likely to buy a book that purports to be about the Famous Five, a single series by Enid Blyton. It is noteworthy that, even as its author, you could not sustain such a limited approach.
Your use of the word 'anecdotage' is completely misconceived (as has been pointed out by others on this thread). I am not clear what you thought it meant.
I think that it might have been possible to write an academic study of children's literature in Africa, contrasting the approach of African writers to that of European or American writers. I think that educationalists, with the best of motives, introduced Enid Blyton books into the schools to assist the pupils in reading English. Of course, inadvertently they put forward ideals and values that were essentially British and not always relevant to the average African student. From your posts in this thread. I gather that this would be one of the points you seek to make.
Equally, you could have written a non-academic book recalling how much you enjoyed the Famous Five adventures as a child, yet in adulthood have come to the conclusion that they were not as perfect as you once imagined them to be (if indeed that is your position).
What is of paramount importance is that you cannot write in an academic style and aim at the popular market or vice versa.
I think that you genuinely deluded yourself in the venture and choosing self-publishing (which is never to be relied on to give a correct and candid assessment of one's work) was a cardinal error.
You have stated that you did proof-read the 'anecdotage'. I would go so far as to say no author should ever rely on themselves to proof-read adequately. It is only too easy to misread what you have written as what you intended to write.
You have on several occasions sought to draw solace from the many famous authors whose works were rejected before eventually being published and recognised as seminal works. This is perfectly true, but their books were nevertheless publishable. It is also a fact that many authors have written books that have never seen the light of day before going on to write publishable works. There is no shame in that.
I think you are intelligent enough and big enough to accept that your book is in reality a failure and to try again, taking on board the many criticisms that have been made about it.

Dave Domino
It is heartening to note that you posted the above comment conveniently and maybe coincidentally on October 2, 2013 i.e. then the fourth (now fifth) anniversary of the publication of my book.
As my reply to poppy/Katherine suggests the crisis in spelling maybe which type of spelling system one takes, British or American. I decided to stick with the latter for the reasons I give in that reply. Nonetheless, , from time to time, I have gone over some passages in the book and saw some parts ( not mentioned even on this forum elsewhere) that need some updating, especially in writing style and expression. Maybe should I give my self another life-sabbatical, I may be in a position to update my book. That may not be possible in the short term because when I gave myself a three-year sabbatical to write this book, I almost lost my shirt in it. However, I will be on the lookout for any opportunity that affords me the chance at updating this book. There are many things that I need updating about. Nonetheless, the ideas, at least most of them will remain the same, since I am convinced that most, if not all of them are true or have some substantial truth in them.

As for Professors and students wanting to be in interested that "exclusively" on The Famous Five. You may be right it is getting somehow "crowded" for books written on The Famous, after David Rudd, Norman Wright and me have written three books on this series. Although some would consider three books on the same series, excessive, some would consider that mount small and in any case, it depends on how the author approaches the subject and what his/her emphasis is. Initially, I had wanted to publish a book on The Famous Five through the rhyming or the usage of rhymes as my unit tool of analysis. The President of Chorion who then owned the rights to most of Enid Blyton's properties turned down that suggestion. As a way of circumventing that refusal, I decided to embark on summarizing the 2i books in an almost poetic manner, but using a newspaper-type double columns. Unfortunately, my publisher was unable or unwilling to follow my original typed script. So that is how I ended with how the book was published.

As for the usage, "Anecdotage,'"it inevitably followed my decision to summarize all the 21 Famous Five books in what I would consider an anecdotal manner. at this stage, I had not even heard of the word, "Anecdotage." However, after looking up the word, "Anecdotes," since I felt was describing a couple them, there the word "Anecdotage" was, which in my opinion and the way it appeared in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary meant a plurality of anecdotes. So instead of using the word "Anecdotes" which to me appeared to too much of a verbose word (though in reality that may not have been the case), I decided to use the more technical word, "Anecdotage,"; i.e. a word that would collect all the anecdotes in one wordage, ""Anecdotage." Thus that is where The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage . Thus, it is heartening to learn, at least from my perspective that the word, "Anecdotage,' which in some quarters was described as being a "dying" word has been rejuvenated and in many instances if one googles the word, the title of my book will be side-by-side it. The other criticism of the title of my book was that I did not include, "Enid Blyton" in it and that is a profound regret I have. Should I get the chance of updating the book, I plan on titling it, The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage; An Enid Blyton Periscope. I guess we discussed this aspect sometime back on this thread.
One of the reason's I included chapters 'Enid Blyton," "Language," "Stereotyping, "Familial Politics" was to differentiate it from the other two books written on the Famous Five, but above all I was reacting to the criticism of Eva Rice's first edition of her book on Enid Blyton, titled, Who's Who in Enid Blyton that she had not analyzed objectively some of the issues embedded in the books. unfortunately, those chapters grew as big as my anecdotal summaries of the 21 books. Fortunately or maybe unfortunately, it is these chapters that have drawn much debate and I am sure the fate of Blytonian literature hinges on how we address the issues and questions I raise in this book. Maybe, if these chapters were not added on, the anecdotal summary of the 21 books would have been, eh, let us see-boring read.
Another observation of Blytonian literature is that since few or relatively few books have been written on Enid Blyton, the few authors or writers on her and her books have been compelled to try and handle her vast numbers of books. Maybe, ideally, in the future, depending on other distractions being contained, it would be better to have individual specialists analyzing and writing books exclusively on say, Malory Towers, Secret Seven, Naughtiest Girl, St. Clare, Adventurous Four, etc. maybe we could get a lot out these books using this methodology.
One misinformation I would like to correct that you make is of educationalists introducing us to Enid Blyton's books in Africa. Anyway, books by Enid Blyton like elsewhere were introduced to children via word of mouth. Though the educationalists were aware of them, few of them actually took them seriously as evident by not a single Enid Blyton book having been placed on either the curricula or syllabi as official educational reading material, though in essence, they would turn a blind eye to our reading them since they knew that they would improve upon our vocabulary and linguistic expressions in English.
As for my book being a ""self-published,' I can be rest assured that I said what I wanted to say as opposed to several "Traditional" publishers who may restrict what one writes about in several instances.
Stephen I.
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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

Post by Katharine »

Enikyoga wrote:
Katharine wrote: I've read a few sections of the book and found it full of basic errors, such as poor spelling.
Poppy & Katharine, I guess for you "poor spelling" means American-style of spelling is wrong, while British spelling is right...... Anita said there were no major spelling errors.
Stephen, I don't know how long ago I posted this comment, so can't remember exactly what was in my mind when I wrote it. However, I doubt I would have confused American spelling with poor spelling. Although I personally dislike the way that American spellings are creeping into everyday usage in the UK, I wouldn't criticise someone for using American spellings if they are not based in the UK. As I'm sure I've said before, I haven't read the whole of The Anecdotage, so possibly spelling mistakes don't feature widely throughout. Maybe the bits I have read contained a few, and I assumed these were widespread throughout the rest of the book. It was a generalised assumption on my part. As Anita didn't spot any major spelling errors, then I would accept her comments as I know she has read the whole book.

I still feel that the sections I read of the book had a number of basic spelling and grammatical errors, but as it's so long ago since I read them, I can't recall what they were. Although perhaps the mis-spellings were only a tiny a percentage of the whole book, those coupled with the (in some places) poor grammar made me feel no desire to spend money on the book to read the rest of it.
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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Enikyoga wrote:Anita said there were no major spelling errors.
What I actually said was that I didn't recall noticing many spelling errors. Whether that was because there weren't many or because I was so distracted by the poor grammar, I'm not sure!

People who haven't read the book only need to look at your posts to get an idea of what the grammar and punctuation are like!

Anyway, you're going over old ground, Stephen. We haven't yet had a comprehensive list of Enid Blyton's "linguistic errors". Neither have you told us whereabouts in George Greenfield's book he states that Enid Blyton "would from time to time call him for advice pertaining to whether commas had to be or not be included in some of the sentences in her books".
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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

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Enikyoga wrote:Should I get the chance of updating the book, I plan on titling it, The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage; An Enid Blyton Periscope.

Stephen, I would love to help in suggesting new/alternate cover design options should you ever decide to unleash such a newly monikered Anecdotage upon an expectant and unsated global market.
How about it?
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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I'm just wondering what parapets the periscope is going to peer over. Goodness knows what it might see!
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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Lordy Lou, Stephen. I come to the conclusion that you are beyond help.

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Re: The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage

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Enikyoga wrote:Initially, I had wanted to publish a book on The Famous Five through the rhyming or the usage of rhymes as my unit tool of analysis. The President of Chorion who then owned the rights to most of Enid Blyton's properties turned down that suggestion. As a way of circumventing that refusal, I decided to embark on summarizing the 2i books in an almost poetic manner, but using a newspaper-type double columns. Unfortunately, my publisher was unable or unwilling to follow my original typed script. So that is how I ended with how the book was published.
What an outrage.
Is there any justice left in this world?
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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Does Stephen mean that he wanted to write a book in rhyme about the Famous Five? If so, I can't see why that wouldn't be given permission to be published, any more than the book he did produce.
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

Post by pete9012S »

Who knows Lady K why Chorion answered that way.
It could be Steve's prose got up their nose,
and denied the the Doc from having his say? :D
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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Pete, you really should write a book, or be on TV or something, your many talents are wasted. :lol:
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

Post by pete9012S »

Well my wife often says I am a waste of space.... :oops:
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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I'm sure she doesn't really, but if she does, then tell her to get her own coat next time she says she's cold. :wink:
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Re: Stephen Isabirye

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Katharine wrote:Does Stephen mean that he wanted to write a book in rhyme about the Famous Five? If so, I can't see why that wouldn't be given permission to be published, any more than the book he did produce.
Our friend didn't need permission as he self-published it.
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