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March 11, 2011

Strange But True!

Q. What's perhaps the truest yardstick for a fictional work's success, going well beyond a hefty advance, rave reviews or sales in the millions?

A. Characters from the story are so colorful and unforgettable that they take on a life of their own and become immortalized in the pages of English-language dictionaries, says Anu Garg in “The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two.” Think of that mean-spirited, bah-humbugging miser Scrooge, protagonist of Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.” Ultimately, Scrooge is reformed but his penny-pinching earlier self lives on in our culture.


 
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