ABSTRACT
Mr Graves’s way of speaking did not displease Watt. Mr Graves pronounced his th charmingly. Turd and fart, he said, for third and fourth. Watt liked these venerable Saxon words.
(Samuel Beckett)
T H E N O N -A U T O N O M Y O F L A N G U A G E
A man and a woman are waiting for a bus at a request stop. He remains silent, but she keeps talking to him, or rather at him, for she accuses him, in no uncertain terms, of having made a pass at her. Her insults, her threats, her attempts at striking an alliance with other members of the queue founder upon his inscrutable silence. The more he remains quiet, the more she talks, exposing her frailty, her need for affection, her anxiety, and anger. When the bus eventually comes, he boards it, and she remains by the stop, and immediately attempts to seduce the first man who joins the queue.
