suck powers activate!

[angevin2]

So I mentioned two posts ago that the old Folger Richard II I bought was heavily annotated by its previous owner, or one of its previous owners anyway, as all the notes appear to be in the same hand and the same ink. Most of them are fairly elementary and somewhat charming things like "England" in big letters next to Bolingbroke's line "My mother

Comments

[paraleipsis]

I think the answer to this is twofold; your annotator evidently meant "such", but it is equally evident that he or she most definitely wrote "suck".

Handwritten Freudian slips may be funnier than Freudian typos, but as I once wrote out the phrase "communist panty" I am in no position to judge.

[angevin2]

but as I once wrote out the phrase "communist panty" I am in no position to judge.

*falls over in complete hysterics*

Also now I am envisioning red underpants with hammers and sickles on them. They would TOTALLY SELL.

[lnhammer]

Given the h in who, I think this person writes suck and such identically.

---L.

[so_lily_briscoe]

My favorite part is that s/he (does it say bad things about me that I want this to be a man?) underlined the entire speech. And then circled "Richard's." Since, you know, it's important to remember who's being discussed, after all. This particular reader seems likely to forget. I believe the D&D theory of "suck powers" applies here.

Come to think of it, I rather like "suck powers" as an account of another person's intellectual capacity. I hope you will do your best to introduce "SP" into your grading system this term.

I was delighted recently to encounter my first Rigorous and Obviously Smart Previous Owner and Copious Annotator -- I was prepared to write off the entire species, but this little lady is my new best imaginary friend.

[angevin2]

Sadly this annotator seems to be a woman, as the name "Julie [something illegible]" is written on the inside front cover. She is not, however, quite as unfortunate in her annotations as the person who wrote, in an old copy of 1 Henry IV I acquired today:

Hotspur -- always talks of manliness, reasonableness -- but Hotspur is totally emotional --> womanly

I would assume this annotator is a man (I can't tell; the name on the cover is "D. Montgomery"), but I have seen some astonishingly antiquated assumptions about gender in papers by female students (in fact, most of the papers I get with antiquated assumptions about gender are by female students), and I don't know if that says something about young women today or just my university.

Also, "suck powers" is TOTALLY going into my personal lexicon. Because it is too awesome a phrase not to use at every opportunity.

[sollersuk]

No-brainer for someone with secretarial experience. I know a lot of people who write their h's like that; the k usually has a very much more definite loop in their cases.

[17catherines]

My thoughts exactly! But then, I'm a secretary to doctors who are also academics...

[saltedpin]

I'm not sure what 'suck powers' are, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out.

[elettaria]

I think it's "sucks powers". You know, emotional vampirism or whatever.

[eye_of_a_cat]

I want that to be a capital J, and the twiddle on the end of the k to be an s, making it an apostrophe-less 'Jack's powers', which... doesn't actually make that much more sense, so I dunno.

'Suck powers', OTOH, are what I have instead of writing skills these days. *stabs chapter*

[a_t_rain]

Yeah, my first guess was "just powers," but I can't make it mesh with the end of the word, so I think "such powers" is probably correct.