Pen Name

choi

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Steven Hayward, Literary Camouflage; Eric Blair contemplated calling himself H. Lewis Allways, P.S. Burton, Kenneth Miles—or George Orwell. Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2011 (date in print) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576359331656789852.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_6
(book review on Carmela Ciuraru, Nom de Plume; A (secret) history of pseudonym. Harper, 2011)

Note:
(1) nom de plume  
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nom_de_plume
("Coined in English from French nom (“name”) + de (“of”) + plume (“feather”), by analogy with the borrowed nom de guerre")

"The term nom de plume is French in origin, although it is not in fact used in French as a general rule. It literally means 'name of pen,' and is typically translated as “pen name.” The term appears to have arisen in Britain, where people wanted to lend a more literary air to the practice of using a pen name, so they chose to use a French phrase. In France itself, pseudonyme is more often used to describe a pen name."
What is a Nom de Plume?  wiseGEEK: clear answers for common questions, undated.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-nom-de-plume.htm

(2) Mark Twain name origin.
(a) sounding line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_line
("At sea, in order to avoid repeatedly hauling in and measuring the wet line by stretching it out with one's arms, it became traditional to tie marks at intervals along the line")

What does this mean?  It says that instead of throwing the sounding line into a body of water, pull it out and measure the length of the WET line, sailors tied knots of various shapes and colors to mark the the length of the sounding line.

(i) To have a detailed look of a sounding line, please go to External link at the bottom of the Wiki page to
Allen Mordica, The Lead Line -- Construction and use. The Navy & Marine Living Society Association, Inc (located at North Attleboro, Mass), undated.
http://www.navyandmarine.org/planspatterns/soundingline.htm
("The above depths are called marks * * * Thus, at five fathoms, the leadsman calls, 'By the mark five[;]' in eleven fathoms, 'By the deep eleven.' He also calls halves and quarters of fathoms i.e., 'And a half six,'' for six and a half fathoms[;] 'A quarter less six,' for five and three-quarters")

* North Attleborough, Massachusetts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Attleboro,_Massachusetts

(ii) See also
The Mississippi River: "Half twain! Quarter twain! M-a-r-k twain!" UC Berkeley Library, undated.
("For most people, the name 'Mark Twain' is virtually synonymous with the life along the Mississippi River immortalized in the author's writing. Clemens first signed his writing with the name in February 1863, as a newspaper reporter in Nevada. 'Mark Twain' (meaning 'Mark number two') was a Mississippi River term: the second mark on the line that measured depth signified two fathoms, or twelve feet—safe depth for the steamboat.")

(iii) fathom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathom
(There are 2 yards (6 feet) in an imperial or U.S. fathom; Originally based on the distance between the fingertips of a man's outstretched arms)

(iv) How the sounding was done.

Measuring water depth: Echosounding
http://www.punaridge.org/doc/factoids/Sound/Default.htm
("Historical Note    To measure ocean water depths  before the development of echosounders, a heavy line was lowered to the seafloor. The length of line that it took to reach the bottom was measured and recorded.  This was called 'sounding'.  The H.M.S. Challenger is shown in the figure to the right with a line over the side. The Challenger expedition which set sail in 1872 and lasted four years, was considered the first purely oceanographic investigation. During the expedition 492 soundings were made using a heavy line.")

HMS Challenger (1858)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Challenger_(1858)
(launched 1858; undertook the first global marine research expedition: the Challenger expedition)

(2) James Tiptree, Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.
(James Tiptree, Jr. (1915-1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Bradley Sheldon, used from 1967 to her death; it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman)

* Tiptree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiptree
(a village in the English county of Essex, situated 10 miles (16 km) south-east [sic; should be south-west] of Colchester and around 50 miles (80 km) north-east of London)


(3) George Orwell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell
(Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell; wrote a novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949))
(4) George Sand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sand
(Amantine (also "Amandine") Lucile Aurore Dupin; 1804-1876; best known by her pseudonym George Sand; was a French novelist and memoirist)
(4) Brontë family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family
(Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), Anne (1820-1849); their father Patrick (1777-1861)He survived his entire family, and six years after Charlotte's death he died at the age of 84; Charlotte's husband was the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls; section 5.1 First publication : Poems, by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell)

So I am clueless about what it means when the review says of Carmela Ciuraru: "she draws a straight line from the dysfunction of the Brontë family to the sisters' decision to publish as brothers with the last name of Bell."


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