When Dogs Could Talk: Among Words in a State of Grace, by N. Scott Momaday Essay [email protected] Mon, 01/29/2024 - 21:29 Illustration by Marla Johnson“When Dogs Could Talk“ appeared in WLT’s landmark 2007 issue devoted to endangered languages, guest-edited by Sydneyann Binion and David Shook, who were linguistics majors at the University of Oklahoma at the time. We reprint it here in Dr. Momaday’s memory. My friend, the late Vine Deloria Jr., once chided me for remarking too often a time when dogs could talk. I had to admit that he was probably right. I had discovered that Kiowa elders used this formula to indicate something that had happened far back in time. This or that happened a long time ago when dogs could talk. It seems to me a charming and appropriate expression. It is the kind of thing that reveals more and more of itself in the fullness of time. That, by the way, is a mystery which distinguishes the oral tradition, and it is a foundation of language itself. Language seems always to exceed itself, and certainly it exceeds our grasp of it. We know that a certain province of experience is ineffable, that there are limits to what language can express. But the fact is, we have no inkling of what those limits might be. Lewis Thomas has told us that we are at the beginning of language. I suspect that to be true. One evening some years ago, when my eldest daughter was two or three years old, she came to me and asked,... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2024-01-30 03:29:38 UTC ]
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Weidenfeld & Nicolson has acquired an "extraordinarily gripping" debut novel by US... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pan Macmillan has acquired Off the Leash: The Secret Life of Dogs by cartoonist Rupert Fawcett,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Foyles head of marketing Miriam Robinson (pictured), literary agent Juliet Mushens, BookMachine... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time was, when a company got a winning product (or formula), it was set for a few generations, or at least for several years. Not so today—even less so in the content or in the digital space. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Little, Brown has acquired a non-fiction title by Damien Lewis, War Dog: The No-Man's-Land... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ray Bradbury imagined a world without the printed word, a universe where firemen started fires instead of stopped them, in a quest to burn forbidden books - till one of them started questioning why. Incidentally, the act of burning books is called "biblioclasm" or "libricide", and here's your... Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2013-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Oscar season is over, which means one thing: it’s on to the summer blockbusters. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Co.Create joined The Atlantic Digital, Vice, Gawker, and College Humor in a talk about how publishers are approaching native advertising. “The truth is, it’s messy shit and there’s no easy way through it." That’s Vice Chief Creative Officer Eddy Moretti talking about the realities of creating... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A publisher in Germany is to remove the offensive 'n-word' from one of its children's books, following a complaint from a parent. Continue reading at BBC World
[ BBC World | 2013-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Two of crime's biggest names will work together for the first time next year when Peter James... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Southern California author's first story collection draws from his experiences in high school basketball, plumbing sales and more.There's a subtle arc to Jim Gavin's first book, "Middle Men" (Simon & Schuster: 224 pp., $23). Gathering seven stories largely set in Southern California, it... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-02-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Time Warner is in talks to sell a large portion of its Time Inc. magazine division, including People, InStyle and Real Simple, according to a report Wednesday afternoon by Fortune.Headed for Meredith, Berkshire Hathaway or nowhere new after all?Fortune is itself a Time Inc. magazine but reported... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-02-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One key to selling more books is to produce great books, and people will recommend and buy them. Don't be satisfied with the merely good. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-02-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Vogue's longtime creative director writes about the names behind the pages. Do Anna Wintour, Pat Cleveland or Helmut Newton ring a bell?GraceA Memoir Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins is in early talks about merging with Simon & Schuster, according to reports in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Design wunderkind Scott Dadich, whose low-budget side project for Wired’s digital edition ended up becoming the template for all of Condé Nast’s tablet strategy, is returning to the magazine as its editor in chief, the company announced today. Dadich served as creative director of Wired from... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2012-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pearson shares open higher on news that two of the world's biggest publishers, Penguin and Random House, are in talks about a possible merger. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-10-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pearson has confirmed that it is in talks with Bertelsmann regarding a potential merger between... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publisher Pearson says it is holding talks with German media group Bertelsmann about combining their Penguin and Random House businesses. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After months of hype, the first adult novel from J.K. Rowling debuted with the third biggest print opening of 2012. At outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan, The Casual Vacancy sold 156,679 copies in its first week—enough to place it behind only No Easy Day by Mark Owen (254,046 copies) and Fifty... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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