[PW] Anachronisms

[Wendy Miller]

I don't think you question that advice columns existed in the 19th or early 20th century, just whether there might have been a Miss Lonelyhearts presiding over one before Nathanael West's novel appeared.  For information on advice columnists and their nom de plumes, this article might give some help.  I don't have access to issues before 1990 but here's the citation --
The Journal of Popular Culture
Volume 11 Issue 2 Page 345-352, Fall 1977
To cite this article: W. Clark Hendley (1977)
Dear Abby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and the Eighteenth Century: The Origins of the Newspaper Advice Column
The Journal of Popular Culture 11 (2), 345–352.
doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1977.00345.x

About "no clue" I must call myself clueless.

Wendy Miller

________________________________________
From: project-wombat-fm-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org [project-wombat-fm-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of Fuller, Thomas (US - Washington D.C.) [tfuller at DELOITTE.com]
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 10:11 AM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW] Anachronisms

My theater is preparing to present, this summer, a new musical by Tony
nominee Peter Kellogg based on the life of Nellie Bly, the pathbreaking
newpaper reporter who worked for Joseph Pulitzer.  I've been going over
the script, and a couple of things have caught my eye.

The purpose of this posting is to focus on one scene, where Nellie
writes to an "advice to the lovelorn" columnist.    She writes to "Miss
Lonelyhearts" sometime before her 1894 marriage to Robert Seaman, and
signs her letter "No Clue".

Question 1:  As far as I can tell, Miss Lonelyhearts was the creation of
Nathanael West in his 1933 novel, and is therefore totally out of the
picture in 1894.  Anybody have anything to the contrary?

Question 2:  Although "clueless" as a word dates at least to 1743, using
"no clue" to mean "I'm baffled" strikes my ear as a distinctly 1990's
trope.  I feel about it the same way I felt when the Leonardo DiCaprio
character in TITANIC, early on, said "Hey, I'm involved" -- nobody would
have said that, in that context, in 1912.  Anybody disagree?

-- Tom

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