From Newsgroup: sci.lang



This is from a very famous Brit academic journal in the 1940's:


>>> Sir A. Conan Doyle's influence has been so great in
detective
writing alone that his successors to that realm must needs in
self-defence make light of an obligation they cannot wholly deny.

_______________


I thought this contained a typo or typoes !!!

I had to have my teacher (AI) parse and explain it to me!
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang


"HenHanna" <HenHanna@Posting.from.CsiPh> posted:

Sir A. Conan Doyle's influence has been so great in
detective writing alone that his successors to that
realm must needs in self-defence make light of an obligation
they cannot wholly deny.

I thought this contained a typo or typoes !!!

I had to have my teacher (AI) parse and explain it to me!

Parsing complex sentences was once one of my hobbies; this
sentence is a real dilly!

First dispose of "needs." The suffix "-s" looks weird, but is NEITHER
a plural marker nor a verb inflection. It is an ancient marker that
converts a noun to an adverb; it also occurs in "always."
(Sometimes the "-s" becomes "-ce" as in "once" or "thence.")

I'm not sure how best to treat "make light of." Is it short for
"make light work of"?

The sentence in question has three clauses:
(1) (influence | has been | great (in | writing))
(2) (successors (to | realm) | (must (make light (of | obligation))))
(3) (they | (cannot deny))

There are TWO "that"s connecting clauses (1) and (2): One connects
the clauses' major predicates; the other connects "realm" back to "writing."
An implicit "that" connects obligation to the 3rd clause.

I think "to that realm" may be incorrect; I prefer "in that realm."

Objections?
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:37:35 GMT, James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

I'm not sure how best to treat "make light of." Is it short for
"make light work of"?

"... make light of" an obligation to Doyle/Holmes is to treat it
as not very serious. (When do you have to deal with the debt
at all?)

On the other hand, I can't understand how "make light work of"
fits at all.
--
Rich Ulrich
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

Le 06/06/2026 |a 21:37, James Dow Allen a |-crit :

"HenHanna" <HenHanna@Posting.from.CsiPh> posted:

Sir A. Conan Doyle's influence has been so great in
detective writing alone that his successors to that
realm must needs in self-defence make light of an obligation
they cannot wholly deny.

I thought this contained a typo or typoes !!!

I had to have my teacher (AI) parse and explain it to me!

Parsing complex sentences was once one of my hobbies; this
sentence is a real dilly!

First dispose of "needs." The suffix "-s" looks weird, but is NEITHER
a plural marker nor a verb inflection. It is an ancient marker that
converts a noun to an adverb; it also occurs in "always."
(Sometimes the "-s" becomes "-ce" as in "once" or "thence.")

I'm not sure how best to treat "make light of." Is it short for
"make light work of"?

The sentence in question has three clauses:
(1) (influence | has been | great (in | writing))
(2) (successors (to | realm) | (must (make light (of | obligation))))
(3) (they | (cannot deny))

There are TWO "that"s connecting clauses (1) and (2): One connects
the clauses' major predicates; the other connects "realm" back to "writing." An implicit "that" connects obligation to the 3rd clause.

I think "to that realm" may be incorrect; I prefer "in that realm."

Objections?

None. Rich has dealt with "make light of".

The sentence is overblown, and can be simplified without altering its structure:

<Blue pencil>
Sir A. Conan Doyle's influence has been so great in detective writing
alone that his successors must in self-defence make light of an
obligation they cannot deny.
</Blue pencil>

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From Newsgroup: sci.lang


Rich Ulrich <rich.ulrich@comcast.net> posted:

On Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:37:35 GMT, James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

I'm not sure how best to treat "make light of." Is it short for
"make light work of"?

"... make light of" an obligation to Doyle/Holmes is to treat it
as not very serious. (When do you have to deal with the debt
at all?)

On the other hand, I can't understand how "make light work of"
fits at all.

Yes. I just wondered how the phrase should be diagrammed. A transitive
verb is normally followed by a noun, not an adjective. We can just
treat "make light" as a unitary verb, but what if we want to break it
down word by word?

FWIW, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/make_light_of informs us with:

...
Etymology
From "Make light work of".

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From Newsgroup: sci.lang

On Sun, 07 Jun 2026 09:18:39 GMT, James Dow Allen <user4353@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

(After I explained Make light of but balked at Make light work of...]

FWIW, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/make_light_of informs us with:

...
Etymology
From "Make light work of".

Google tells me that 'make light of" dates back hundreds of years.

A side note gives the Wiktionary comment -- to which my reaction
so far is that someone just made that up for Wiktionary.
--
Rich Ulrich

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