http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/02/can_maya_angelo.html
Can Maya Angelou Write?
02 Feb 2007 04:34 pm
What on earth does this sentence mean:
follow up post:
Angelou Again
02 Feb 2007 06:21 pm
Yes, I know what truculence means, thank you very much. What I don't understand is how it makes grammatical sense in the sentence Angelou wrote. I think she meant the walls' truculent refusal to fall down. But as written, the sentence is ungrammatical. I can forgive the Washington Post's editors allowing Angelou's pretentiousness, self-righteousness and lame, exhausted metaphors into their paper. (Joshua? Please.) But I draw the line at patently bad grammar.
Can Maya Angelou Write?
02 Feb 2007 04:34 pm
What on earth does this sentence mean:
The walls of ignorance and prejudice and cruelty, which she railed against valiantly all her public life, have not fallen, but their truculence to do so does not speak against her determination to make them collapse.
"Truculence" to do so? Does she mean reluctance? Or is there some other meaning to truculence that I'm unaware of?
follow up post:
Angelou Again
02 Feb 2007 06:21 pm
Yes, I know what truculence means, thank you very much. What I don't understand is how it makes grammatical sense in the sentence Angelou wrote. I think she meant the walls' truculent refusal to fall down. But as written, the sentence is ungrammatical. I can forgive the Washington Post's editors allowing Angelou's pretentiousness, self-righteousness and lame, exhausted metaphors into their paper. (Joshua? Please.) But I draw the line at patently bad grammar.