Being Mr. Kenny

A friend and I were talking about old books, specifically how they write “to-day” and “to-morrow”, all hyphenated like that, and also how they blank out place names. Like, “He lived in the fair city of B——, in the county of S———”. Quite pointless.

Anyway, I also complained of the fact that they didn’t really ever seem to have a strong grasp on the concept of a sentence. Maybe they weren’t invented back then, who can know. But I thought I’d have a go at writing a passage in the style of an eighteenth century author. It’s actually quite fun. The rules seem to be that you must go on forever, and talk about whatever you want. You don’t even need anything in particular to say, you just have to use a lot of words. It’s a lot like blogging.

I guess the only difference from blogging is that you do have to know how to use punctuation. Here, however, you don’t use it to ease reading, but to trip up and confuse your readers as many times as you possibly can. You are permitted — nay, encouraged! — to make detours and digressions, and wander off to wherever you please.

In the eighteenth century, the use of semicolons and dashes — like this — permitted sentences to go on for fucking ages — why, an expletive! — before coming to a stupid inconclusive conclusion; — and here let it be said that the very existence of an inconclusive conclusion is in question — the question — to use the vernacular (and to further confuse this sentence) — begs the question! — a sorry state of affairs I’m sure you’ll agree; — but I have made that error so common amongst young people — namely that of serious digression — I must make a return to my original intentions; — and indeed, alas and alack, I find that I have forgotten my original intentions — but this by the by because — as I am sure you can see — I have kept this sentence alive for more than a paragraph now — which is of the most critical importance, and what is more, no one is any the wiser — ha ha! — for I have not actually said anything of any import; — though do note that I have used an exclamation mark and not put a capital after it — and why not? — I may even ask a question but then continue as if nothing happened until one finds that one is left with a feeling akin to that which causes you to ask, where did I leave my glasses? — but more importantly — and here I insert the most egregious irrelevant and pointless baggage into this already overloaded sentence (just because I can) — I note that I have not yet used the subjunctive — a pox be upon this wanton lack of grammatical excess!