Talk:Charlton Ogburn

Latest comment: 9 years ago by Graham.Fountain in topic Spelling of quote on reorganization

original comment edit

This article is a stub, and its neutrality might be disputed, but I don't see a notability issue given his publications and his influence on a major debate in English literature. Perhaps it should be merged with Shakespeare authorship page?
— 00:38, 15 May 2007 70.108.153.62

History of the edits edit

As the person who seeded this article, I just want to thank all those who over the past two years have contributed to the entry. There is no need to merge this page with another. Ogburn is a person of "note" for many reasons, not the least of them his knowledge of the Shakespearean question (he is without a doubt the most important and influential Oxfordian of the last 20th century). His profile as a writer of numerous popular books on natural history, his life experience as one of Merrill's Maurauders as well as his authorship of the book chronicling that important chapter in WWII, and his prescient efforts to warn the United States State Department against he quagmire of Viet-Nam, are also noteworthy. The entry is developing nicely. Thanks! --BenJonson (talk) 17:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

In edits today I supplied a requested footnote on the classic status of Ogburn's Winter Beach. I presume editors know who Stewart Udall is. I deleted the call for a footnote to verify the point that Ogburn's book stimulated a revival of the Oxfordian movement. This conclusion is amply testimonied by the specific examples given in the article itself, and is also an example of "common knowledge" not requiring attribution. --BenJonson (talk) 17:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Apcocryphal Quotation edit

I'd like to remove this section if no one objects, as part of the "clean up." It doesn't fit well with the rest of the article and seems to have marginal relevance to Ogburn's biography.
— 03:27, 9 March 2010‎ BenJonson

Its notability depends on that of the purportedly mis-attributed quotations of Petronius. --P64 (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Fiction edit

Ogburn published at least one fiction, illustrated by Evaline Ness, The Bridge (Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
Review by Saturday Review. --P64 (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Having read Petronius in the original and knowing he didn't say it, I first looked into this myth about 10 years ago and found assertions on the web that Petronius Arbiter was the pen-name of a New York satirical journalist from the Fifties and Sixties. It's no longer possible (for me at the moment) to find any such assertion, but, given that Ogburn worked in the army/government, wasn't he restricted in what he wrote by the American equivalent of the Official Secrets Act, and is it possible that Petronius was a pseudonym he used? How do we find out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.181.66 (talk) 10:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Spelling of quote on reorganization edit

Does anyone have access to the original Harper's article "Merrill’s Marauders"?

The reason I ask is that Wikiquote has the quote from it as the following:

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

Rather than, as in the article here, the following:

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organising, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

It's just I'd be surprised if the original used, to quote from the OED, "the special French spelling in – iser" of "organise", rather than, as supported by the OED, Henry Watson Fowler, and Horace Hart, etc., the spelling based on Latin/Greek of "organize".

Maybe I should just go and make the spelling consistent (and correct), but I'm reluctant to change a direct quote I can't access.

Graham.Fountain | Talk 12:17, 27 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Since there were no nays, I've done it. Graham.Fountain | Talk 14:01, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Reply