Someone in my organization found a snippet of a novel in someone else’s office. It’s a copy of 1/2 paragraph from some novel, copied on a piece of paper. No one knows where it came from.
Said employee would like to use part of it in a presentation, but we’re
real tight on attribution for anything we show. If you could help us
identify the source of the following document I will buy you a beer if
you ever come to Montana.
(Chapter) "Sixteen
The papers on my desk are reproducing. The case law briefs are mating
with the witness statements, the cross-examination binder having it
off with the Post-It notes. Every time I return from the bathroom or a
sandwich run there’s a new litter of bewildered 8x1/2 11s blinking up
at me. Nothing I can do about it but turn my eyes from their hungry
faces, venture out into daylight once more for another interview."
My Googlefu is not strong enough to find this source.
Thanks
whistlepig
No idea, but I want to read it when we find out!
<imagines poor little papers blinking up at me plaintively as I run them through the shredder, with their tiny little papery screams>
I’m sorry to state the obvious, but is there any way of tracing it through that someone else’s office? That might be faster.
One thing to point out - the use of the expression ‘having it off’ strikes me as a very British expression. ‘Bathroom’ is more North American than British, but that’s in the process of changing. 8 1/2 x 11 is a North American paper size. As to the other stuff, I don’t know whether phrases like ‘case law briefs’, ‘Post-it Notes’ and ‘Cross-examination binder’ would be used in a British law office as well as an American one (I suspect ‘Sticky’ is more common in the UK, any one care to confirm or deny?). Based entirely on the spurious supposition of a UK writer doing something set in the US and allowing one Britishism to slip in, I’d guess Martha Grimes, but my wife has read all of it, and she shot me down on that one. She came (independently) to the Britishism of ‘having it off’ as well.
That’s the best I can do so far on four intriguing sentences…
I have no idea where the quotation came from, but having read Le Ministre de l’au-delà’s explanation, I’m impressed – and I agree with the analysis.
Some American writers occasionally use a British phrase. It almost sounds like something by Nicholson Baker.
Maybe it’s not from anything that’s been published. Maybe it’s not copied from a book, but part of a work in progress.
I found it. I did a passage search on Amazon.com using the phrase, “case law briefs are mating.”
This novel popped up:
Edit: I could actually check inside the book on its product page, and you will find it at page 138, Chapter SIXTEEN!
Wow - well done! I’m filing that search method for future puzzlers.
Interesting that the author is Canadian, and two Canadians (my wife and I) were following the red herring of mixing British and North American usages… Philology is not always the answer…
I bow to your superior Google-fu. Thank you for the cite and for showing a new way to search Amazon.
whistlepig
[taking his victory lap]
This is my first big Straight Dope “Eureka!” moment. Usually, these things are solved before I can type a single word. I’m so proud.
[/taking his victory lap]