What brings about Mittie’s second violation of a Council edict? [116] What particular regret does she express when reporting the incident to her daughter? [117] Fun, huh? For lovers of linguistics it very well may be. Unfortunately, the storyline itself is boring as phuk. Ella Minnow Pea features an expansive and often exotic vocabulary, plentifully augmented by neologisms and especially by portmanteau words, hybrids that combine the sounds and meanings of two different words. Which of the following words are ‘real’ and which are coinages? Define the real words and suggest definitions (and etymologies) for the invented ones : leapdash, multypewritudes, empyrean, extirpated, posteritified, lucubrating, biblio-shelves, promulgated, anser-herd, littoral, vocabulazy, pisciverous, anodized, ineffable, aposiopesis, caesura, scissoresonance, hurlatory, delishmerelle, heavipendence, pureplicity, taciteries, partete, Nollopimpotents, immotility, intensured, rectilitude, apostates, stagnationality, pyrrhic, Pentapriests, humongolacity, concomitate, fenesters, gripgrasping, illicitabetical, Screnity, grocerateria, conciliteurs, pharisaic nemisister, invisilibinguista, expurgatory-tangibull, tenebrous, learny-house, impregness, exanimate, genoerasure, espy-ation, unilearnity, gopher-mental, intoxi-tipsy

Ella Minnow Pea Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

Tassie: "F" leaves us tonight. I haven't even the strength to curse those beasts with that epithet you taught me never to say. Describe the challenge that Nate issues to Mr. Lyttle. [94-6] What is it intended to prove? Why does the rest of the council agree to it? [99-100] What is the significance of the term “Enterprise 32”? [107]How does the Council go about enforcing its rulings? [21, 29, 119] In particular, how does it find out which of its subjects are using forbidden letters? Proponents of free speech frequently ignore the impact of lies on passions and emotions, of the inability of people to process information rationally and logically. How many in the WEIRD countries are aware of the tragedy sweeping through Myanmar right now because radical Buddhists have been spreading lies about their fellow Muslims citizens? People are being killed and burnt alive because of these lies. Ella Minnow Pea -eighteen years old - lives on Nollop. She collects the falling alphabet letters and takes them to the town council….who says those letters will not be needed or used any longer. They saw the missing letters as a sign from the grave of Nevin Nollop himself. The town council, in their wisdom, decide that this is a sign from the Great Man himself, expressing a Nollopian desire that the letter Z be utterly excised - fully extirpated - absolutely heave ho'ed from all oral and written communication. The original subtitle for the book (for the hardcover edition) was: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable.

Ella Minnow Pea Character Analysis - LitCharts Ella Minnow Pea Character Analysis - LitCharts

Mark Dunn is the author of more than twenty-five full-length plays, including the widely produced Belles and Five Tellers Dancing in the Rain. He has received several national playwriting awards and is currently playwright-in-residence with the New Jersey Repertory Company and the Community Theatre League in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ella Minnow Pea is his first novel. Suggested Reading

Anyway, this sentence is on Nollop’s statue and when a letter falls off, the island council decree that it is a sign from Nollop that that letter cannot be used in speech or writing. We are expected to believe that a culture that was built on reverence for the written word destroys all its libraries overnight because one letter fell off a statue (what sort of important statue has letters glued on, rather than carved?). The punishments are harsh for individuals too – exile for a third offence. Of course, gradually other letters fall off, and they are banned too, hampering communication and creating a culture of fear.

Ella Minnow Pea Themes | LitCharts Ella Minnow Pea Themes | LitCharts

Presumably to add some much needed excitement to the story, an arbitrary deadline is set to devise an even shorter pangram and thus disprove the council’s theory. Pretty pointless when there is at least one perfectly grammatical and shorter pangram that is common knowledge, so it was just a case of waiting for it to crop up, as it duly did. Their perseverance was impressive but ultimately irrelevant: it was the serendipitous wish of an alcoholic falling off the wagon that saved them.Nate rescues Tassie from the island’s prison, and both of them escape with Mittie to the U.S. Gwenette gains a third offense and so she is also banished, leaving Ella entirely alone on Nollop. Georgeanne comes to Ella’s door looking for Mittie, wondering if she has moved in with her sister, but Ella greets her and shares her company. Additionally, Ella meets another woman, Tanya, who is one of the other few remaining people on Nollop, as well as Professor Mannheim and his assistant Tom. Working on Enterprise Thirty-two together and they manage to find a 43-letter pangram. Ella Minnow Pea is described as “a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable” on its cover. Already you get the sense that this is not going to be an easy, relaxing summer read, and indeed it isn’t, but that should definitely not count against it. Mark Dunn’s ‘novel in letters’ is a quirky, clever, cautionary tale that aught to be read by book lovers and word geeks all over!