{"id":77267,"date":"2014-09-24T16:48:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T20:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=77267"},"modified":"2014-09-24T16:57:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T20:57:50","slug":"admiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/admiration\/","title":{"rendered":"Admiration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Louisa_May_Alcott\"<\/a>

Louisa May Alcott<\/p><\/div>\n

We had typed our stories in the computer lab, and I remember thinking that mine looked professional. I was also pretty sure it was excellent. Fiction writing was not my strong suit\u2014I would never have ranked myself up there with Travis, whose stories were universally regarded as hilarious, or Vanessa, whose imagination gave birth to miraculous plots of which I was in awe. But this one (which, despite its modern setting, bore the strong stamp of Louisa May Alcott\u2019s influence) was better than my usual offerings, I had worked harder on it, and I was eager to see the teacher\u2019s glowing comments.<\/p>\n

But here is what she wrote: \u201cThis sentence does not make sense. This is not what \u2018admire\u2019 means. Find another word in the thesaurus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is what I had written: \u201cShe\u2019d admire to have you.\u201d I knew<\/em> it was accurate because Louisa May Alcott used this exact<\/em> construction in An Old-Fashioned Girl<\/em>, in the course of a house-party invitation. In my story, someone was being invited to a sleepover. I was indignant. I went home, spent a long time finding the passage in question, and then brought the book into class. But then the teacher was sick, and out for a few days, and I forgot to make my point.<\/p>\n

If you enter that particular construction into a search engine now, you will find much vindicating evidence. <\/p>\n

\n

For our sakes she should admire to have you; but on your own account, she would have you remain where you are. \u2014James Henley Thornwell, 1834<\/p>\n

We should admire to have you visit us, and eat some of our new fashioned peas or Osage plumbs as they are called. \u2014Ellen D. Goodnow, 1856<\/p>\n

If you can do anything I should admire to have you for they would be very acceptable about this time for the weather although not very cold is not much like summer. \u2014John Webster Chase, 1863<\/p>\n

I\u2019d admire to have you come. And I can give you some real Cap\u2019c cooking like you have never tasted before. \u2014Good Housekeeping<\/em>, 1922<\/p>\n

It is a very pretty house and I would admire to have you see it. \u2014Lyle Saxon, 1939<\/p>\n

The holy saints & angels know how much I should admire to have you as support for me in my brief span of my remaining academic life. \u2014Garnett Sedgewick, 1940<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d admire to have you eat a bite with us,\u201d Morgan said. \u2014Popular Science<\/em>, 1956<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I could go on.<\/p>\n

Maybe I should write that teacher, but somehow I\u2019m not sure the situation will arise again. And editorially, she may have had a perfectly valid query: Why, she might have asked, was a ten-year-old protagonist in the year 1991 using nineteenth-century vernacular? Well, for that, at any rate, I would have had a watertight answer: my character had taffy-pulling and quilting to do. Obviously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had typed our stories in the computer lab, and I remember thinking that mine looked professional. I was also pretty sure it was excellent. Fiction writing was not my strong suit\u2014I would never have ranked myself up there with Travis, whose stories were universally regarded as hilarious, or Vanessa, whose imagination gave birth to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[15425,8892,6028,12985,15427,15426],"class_list":["post-77267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-admire","tag-childhood","tag-louisa-may-alcott","tag-nineteenth-century","tag-usage","tag-vernacular"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLouisa May Alcott\u2019s Definition of Admiration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on using nineteenth-century vernacular in modern-day stories.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/24\/admiration\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Admiration by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 24, 2014 \u2013 We had typed our stories in the computer lab, and I remember thinking that mine looked professional. 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