Arc 4
Three essays that turn the hearing on its makers. The standard is built of a harvested slice, written, English, leisured. Its judgments are legislated nightly by raters no academy ever convened. And the boundary of the sayable is negotiated by neither party, with no minutes and no appeals.
TAM_EAR_4-01
The Harvested Slice
The standard is made of vernacular, and the vernacular it is made of belonged to somebody
Bembo built Italian out of one dead man's Tuscan, and fourteen vernaculars became dialect by the promotion. The new standard is made of a slice too: written, English, leisured. …
TAM_EAR_4-02
The Rater's Ear
The academy that never convened, and the grammar it never published
Faith rates prose at night in Nairobi, three hours after the pharmacy counter, and her clicks legislate. Every previous standard had an academy with names and a published grammar. …
TAM_EAR_4-03
The Unwritten Boundary
The negotiation over what can be said, conducted by neither party, with no minutes and no appeals
Redford censored the English stage with no written rules, and he could still be summoned. The negotiation over what the models may say has no examiner, no letter with the lines …