Thursday, July the 8th, 2010

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Thieving Beerpint

It saddens me to report that weedy poet Dennis Beerpint has been caught red-handed in an act of plagiarism. His verse “The Fountainhead : Homage à Ayn Rand” from his well-received recent collection A Series Of Homages To Female Right-Wing Russo-American Postage Stamp Collectors was, it seems, lifted word for word from this paragraph in Compound Words : A Study Of The Principles Of Compounding, The Components Of Compounds, And The Use Of The Hyphen by Frederick W. Hamilton, LL. D., published in 1918 by the Committee on Education of the United Typothetae Of America:

“41. Following is a list of words of everyday occurrence which should be hyphenated, and which do not fall under any of the above classifications.

after-years food-stuff sea-level

bas-relief guinea-pig sense-perception

birth-rate horse-power son-in-law

blood-relations loan-word subject-matter

common-sense man-of-war thought-process

cross-examine object-lesson title-page

cross-reference page-proof wave-length

cross-section pay-roll well-being

death-rate poor-law well-nigh

folk-song post-office will-power

fountain-head

These rules are the consensus of opinion of a considerable number of good authorities from DeVinne (1901) to Manly and Powell (1913).”

The only change Dennis Beerpint makes is to add an exclamation mark after “fountain-head”, presumably to remind himself to shout the word, triumphantly, at recitals.