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Examples

  • That it was so the very name Porlock shows, for Port-locan means an enclosed place for ships, under which name it is mentioned twice in the

    Lynton and Lynmouth A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland F. J. Widgery

  • "Ah, yes -- the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment.

    Chennai 2010

  • But how do you propose to lay your hands on the so-called Porlock? "

    Chennai 2010

  • "Ah, yes -- the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment.

    The Valley of Fear Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1914

  • But how do you propose to lay your hands on the so-called Porlock? "

    The Valley of Fear Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1914

  • But how do you propose to lay your hands on the so-called Porlock? "

    The Valley of Fear 1914

  • "Ah, yes -- the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment.

    The Valley of Fear 1914

  • But how do you propose to lay your hands on the so-called Porlock? "

    The Valley of Fear Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1914

  • But how do you propose to lay your hands on the so-called Porlock? "

    The Valley of Fear Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1914

  • "Ah, yes -- the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment.

    The Valley of Fear Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1914

Comments

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  • Today as I was working on a translation of a poem, I got a call from someone offering my company security services (which I don't need). I wanted to tell him that he must be from Porlock, but of course he would not have understood. The reference is to a note Coleridge appended to his poem "Kubla Khan". Writing of himself in the third person, he says:

    "On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!"

    June 1, 2022