Conjectures on Original Composition  

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A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)
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A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

Conjectures on Original Composition is a 1759 essay by Edward Young concerned with originality, imitation, authorship and -- a posteriori -- genre theory and copyright.

In a letter to Sir Charles Grandison Young wrote:

"Originals are, and ought to be, great Favourites, for they are great Benefactors; they extend the Republic of Letters, and add a new province to its dominion: Imitators only give us a sort of Duplicates of what we had, possibly much better, before." Good authors are original, bad authors copy, and copying is no better than "sordid Theft."

Sir Charles Grandison

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