Posted by Tim Johns on April 23, 1999 at 17:39:43:
In Reply to: Re: Then, it happened... posted by Peter Hyland on April 20, 1999 at 10:08:39:
Three million cheers, Peter. If we agree that there was something
rather special and immediately recognisable about the way AR wrote
English, it seems entirely proper to try to pin down what that was,
and to the Devil with those who would snigger at such an enterprise
as 'Ultraliterary'. A paper for the Literary Weekend in 2001, perhaps?
About initial 'Then ...' My impression is that this is a structure used
in colloquial narrative by other writers (eg Kipling in the 'Just So'
stories) towards the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the
20th Century. I hope to be able to check this in the next couple of
weeks and will post my results.