Friday, October 24, 2008

Today's Moral

Don't mess with the Brits. Or pedants, for that matter. In response to my last post, "Greenspan: Wherefore Art Thou, Capitalism?", Phillip Philip (a well known British curmudgeon) writes:
Pedantry Warning As is clear from the context of Juliet's speech (Act II, scene ii), "wherefore" means not where but why, hence the absence of commas in the original. Were Baron Alan Greenback poetically inclined, he might prefer to go with Milton's "Whence and what art thou, execrable business practices?", or Marlowe's "Why, this is recession, nor are we out of it".
I'm somewhat partial to Milton myself.

Thank you for the correction, friend. Serves me right for having readers smarter than myself. No matter, I welcome pedants and their unprovoked outbursts if it serves the greater good.

3 comments:

Philip said...

Jolly good. Then you won't take it ill when I point out pedantically that my name has one L, not two.

Word Verification: perscar, an unfortunate dent in an embarrassing place.

Anonymous said...

Well, Philip the Brit beat me to it, and I am glad. I don't want to be known as Scott the Nag.

The Raj Man said...

Ahem, yes, thanks to the Brit and the Nag for the correction. Seriously, sorry about that...

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