Weekend Economists Writing Like the Dickens, February 8-10, 2013 [View all]

[Demeter]

Q: Do you know where the phrase hurts like the dickens comes from?

A Let’s focus in on dickens as the important word here, since there are lots of different expressions with it in, such as what the dickens, where the dickens, the dickens you are!, and the dickens you say!

It goes back a lot further than Charles Dickens, though it does seem to have been borrowed from the English surname...MORE AT LINK

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dic3.htm

Regardless of how it started, the phrase lives on. Here's a Caroling Group riffing on the theme:

Like the Dickens, a cappella quartets, began its singing career in the summer of 1992. David Craven (Company Owner & Caroler) and Kelly Treadway (Strategic Partner & Caroler), along with Kelly's husband Greg, were brainstorming together about a holiday entertainment company and happ'd upon the slogan, "Carolers who sing like the dickens” and thus the creation of Like the Dickens...

http://www.likethedickens.com/about.html

But no one or nothing is more entitled to the phrase than--WEE'S BIRTHDAY BOY OF THE WEEKEND--200 YEARS YOUNG---MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY TO



Charles John Huffam Dickens ( 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular.

Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens left school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into debtors' prison. Although he had little formal education, his early impoverishment drove him to succeed. Over his career he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens sprang to fame with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens went on to improve the character with positive lineaments. Fagin in Oliver Twist apparently mirrors the famous fence Ikey Solomon; His caricature of Leigh Hunt in the figure of Mr Skimpole in Bleak House was likewise toned down on advice from some of his friends, as they read episodes. In the same novel, both Lawrence Boythorne and Mooney the beadle are drawn from real life – Boythorne from Walter Savage Landor and Mooney from 'Looney', a beadle at Salisbury Square. His plots were carefully constructed, and Dickens often wove in elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor chipped in ha'pennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers. YOU COULD SAY JK ROWLING IS HIS LITERARY DESCENDANT, IF NOT AS POLISHED....

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is one of the most influential works ever written, and it remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. His creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. YES, WELL, TIMES WERE SIMPLER THEN. LESS FOCUSED ON THE NEUROTIC...

BUT FIXATED ON THE PROFIT MOTIVE! POST WHAT YOU'VE GOT.