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Double Negative

Dear Dan:

Why not attribute the anecdote recounted on p.169f. to Sidney Morgenbesser (responding during a talk by J. L. Austin)?  Fairness, plus greater pungency, would both accrue.

There’s even a Swarthmore connection: Morgenbesser, before his long and distinguished career at Columbia, taught at S’more.

This quibble aside, I very much liked the book.

Peter Walch

OK, I herewith attribute the anecdote to Sidney Morgenbesser and I thank Peter Walch for the suggestion, and for the kind word about the book.

Speaking of double negatives, the professor who taught me in my Milton seminar at Swarthmore, Thomas Blackburn, once roasted me for writing that some point of criticism was “not uninteresting.” He didn’t like me in general, and vice versa.

Dan Menaker

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