Trouble Brewing and Aristotle

I was poring over the proofs for the new book this week.  I use the word ‘poring’ advisedly, because that’s one of the words I had to change.  ‘Poring’ means to examine something closely (in this case, a dead body) whereas ‘Pouring’ refers to the cup of tea (or stiff whisky) the porer needs after having so pored.

You need to be on your toes when proof-reading.  There’s all the usual stuff, such as random commas, missing scene breaks – they could really trip the reader up – and dialogue without speech marks.  Spelling mistakes, as such, are rare, because of Microsoft Word’s handy little spelling tool which flags up a misspelling with a red line.  However, you have to keep your eye on Word.  A word can be spelt correctly, but still be the wrong word.

For instance, in ‘Trouble Brewing’ (Brilliant book!  Order it now!) there’s a scene when a character is describing what happened to him in the war.  (First World War, as the book’s set in the 1920’s)  Anyway, he says that after being caught in a shell burst, he woke up in a casualty-clearing station.  A casualty-clearing station, as you might know or can guess, was the first port of call for injured troops, a sort of MASH-type unit to deal with the immediate effects of injuries, from patching-up to referral to a permanent hospital.

Only my chap didn’t end up in a casualty-clearing station, he ended up (in the proofs) in a causality-clearing station.  Whoops.

Now causality is associated with Aristotle, and brings a whole different slant to the  scene.  Naturally, I have Aristotle at my fingertips, as you would expect.  (Okay, I checked on the internet!) but I had the idea that the poor bloke would encounter something like this:

“Hello, Doctor.  I believe this is the causality-clearing station”

“Indeed it is, young man.  Let me see, you have the Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created, do you?  Good, good.”

“Yes, Doctor.  That would be this nasty hole with the bullet in it.  It’s creating quite a pain in the… well, nevermind, but I’ll have to watch how I sit down for a bit.”

“I see.  As a matter of fact, by referring to the aforesaid bullet hole, you are confusing the Material cause with the Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created.  Guard against this!”

“So what do I do now?”

“Hmm.  Have you formulated the Formal cause, or the expression of what it is?”

“Yes.  I’ve got a pain in my Final cause, or the end for which it is.”

“In that case, take two aspirin and lie down. Next case! Hmm.  I see you need your axioms testing…”

By the way, I came across a blog I really liked about Agatha Christie and how she’s not so cosy as some people think.  Here it is:

http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.com/2011/11/rant-against-word-cozy.html