Waugh: oil-fading

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Marius Hancu - 08 Jan 2010 11:50 GMT

Hello:

What does "oil-fading" to you?

Is this "spreading the oil" on their backs? Is it common?

-----
... while we had been rolling one another in the mud at football and
gorging ourselves with crumpets, Anthony had helped oil-fading
beauties on subtropical sands and had sipped his aperitif in smart
little bars ...

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, p. 693
----
--
Thanks.
Marius Hancu

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Don Phillipson - 08 Jan 2010 12:22 GMT

> Hello:
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, p. 693

The hyphen is superfluous i.e. an editorial or typographical
error. Sun-tan oil was a novelty in the 1920s, i.e. this
sentence shows how avant-garde Blanche then was.

Signature

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

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Peter Duncanson (BrE) - 08 Jan 2010 12:33 GMT

>Hello:
>
>What does "oil-fading" to you?
>
>Is this "spreading the oil" on their backs? Is it common?

If think that is what it means. It is not common in my experience. In
fact this is the first time I have met "oil-fading". I don't know why
there is a hyphen; it may be an error. "Anthony had helped [to] oil
fading beauties...". The "fading beauties" are people whose beauty is
fading and Antony helped to spread [suntan] oil on their bodies.

>-----
>... while we had been rolling one another in the mud at football and
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, p. 693
>----

Signature

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

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Marius Hancu - 08 Jan 2010 12:47 GMT

On Jan 8, 7:33 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:

> >What does "oil-fading" to you?
>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> >Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, p. 693
> >----

You're right. I should have checked other versions at Google Books
first. There's no dash there.

Thanks.
Marius Hancu

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

Waugh: oil-fading