Burgess Unabridged - the real blurb
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:05 am
The word 'blurb' was coined by the US humorist Gelett Burgess.
It featured in his 1914 book "Burgess Unabridged" – a dictionary full of invented words. It was the only new word in the book to catch on... but on reading a bit of it I was struck by the similarity to the way the Droogs speak in Clockwork Orange, which, it then occurred to me, was written by a certain Anthony Burgess. Coincidence or a load of shangus?
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It featured in his 1914 book "Burgess Unabridged" – a dictionary full of invented words. It was the only new word in the book to catch on... but on reading a bit of it I was struck by the similarity to the way the Droogs speak in Clockwork Orange, which, it then occurred to me, was written by a certain Anthony Burgess. Coincidence or a load of shangus?
<embed src="https://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?do ... &viewMode=" quality="high" pluginspage="https://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" play="true" loop="true" scale="showall" wmode="opaque" devicefont="false" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="doc_502112837939199_object" menu="true" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" salign="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" align="middle" height="500" width="100%"></embed>