Volume 12, Number 9 · May 8, 1969
Basic Richards
By D.W. Harding
So Much Nearer: Essays Toward a World English
by I.A. Richards
Harcourt, Brace & World, 288 pp., $7.50
Design for Escape: World Education Through Modern Media
by I.A. Richards
Harcourt, Brace & World, 158 pp., $2.45 paperback (paper)
When, like other civilizations, ours has become a matter for archeology, we can be sure that decipherment will identify a large group of writings given up to warnings of disaster and urging action before too late. If Design for Escape turns up, a glance at the Preface will put it in this class, but instead of the political, economic, moral, or scientific remedies he expects, the archeologist will note that this unusual example begins with a typographical exercise, a set of nine variants of our usual quotation marks. Dr. Richards offers them as means of distinguishing among the different uses to which the ordinary marks are now put: to suggest, for instance, that the word so marked is nonsense, or that it must be taken in some specially defined sense, or that we are discussing the word itself rather than using it for what it means.
Review, 3147 words
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