BS: The most pertinacious errors

Subject: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:21 AM

One of the most persistent is the episode in Alice in Wonderland which people will always call The Mad Hatter's Tea Party. It is never called that in the book, because it isn't the Hatter's party at all, but the March Hare's -- at the end of the previous chapter, Alice, told by the Cheshire Cat that in one direction lives a Hatter and in the other a March Hare who are both mad, has decided to visit the Hare, as she had seen Hatters before. The chapter in which the tea party occurs is simply called "A Mad Tea Party". Yet people will insist on calling it, as I say above, 'The Mad Hatter's Tea Party'. The language maven Nigel Rees, to whom I once pointed this out, agreed, but suggested it was probably due to the fact that the Hatter has the more prominent speaking role, saying much more than the Hare. But I still think this qualifies as one of the great uncorrectable common errors.

(BTW, I do love Carroll's ésprit in inventing a mad creature called a March Hare to go with the Hatter, on the analogy of the two traditional similes, 'As mad as a hatter', predicated on the occasional effects of the mercury used in hat-making, and 'As mad as a March hare', referring to the behaviour of hares in their Spring rutting season. There is, of course, no such specific creature as 'a March Hare'! Several people to whom I have pointed out that the designation is Carroll's invention have said they had never realised this.)

Any other examples of this sort of persistent error to which people seem so dedicated that, if you point it out, they do not wish to know, thank you?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: DMcG
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:46 AM

Surely the 'fact' that people believed the world was flat until fairly recently? That one seems unstoppable. As does the imagined black death/Ring-a-Roses link.

These illusions seem unlikely to softly and silently vanish away.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: DMcG
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:55 AM

... But for 'Alice', one of big ones is the number of people who think the second book is called 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'.

(Most Carroll enthusiasts also get riled because, since Disney's hacked the books about, many people are confused about which scenes are in which book.)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:02 AM

I'm bound to think of some other, more literary, ones but the first thing that springs to immediate mind is the most famous non-line in film history. I mean of course "Play it again, Sam" from Casablanca, which Bogart never actually says.

Michael, have you come across John Sutherland's books on great errors & inconsistencies in Victorian literature? A true kindred spirit - do read him if you haven't already.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:38 AM

Thanks, Bonnie ~~ but I, together with my late wife Valerie whom he cites in the intro to "Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?", when his books came out was in constant correspondence with John Sutherland: in the intro to "The Literary Detective", he wrote that I had 'pursued [his] various suppositions with the relentlessness of an amiable Hound of the Baskervilles', going on to quote several instances, and concluding,'I could go on - and so, as I know to my cost and instruction, can Mr Myer. I am thankful that he did not examine my PhD thesis.'

~M~

He seemed a friendly and well-meaning man, but a bit vague and disorganised ~~ kept inviting us to join him for lunch at UCL, but then could somehow never be pinned down to a date; so, alas, for all his cordial gestures we never actually met. Oh, well...

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:54 AM

[facepalm] Sorry! :-(   Is there an aaaarrrrghhhh!!! emoticon?

It's been ages since I read any of those books - my subconscious is probably now going to recycle stuff I got from him, ad infinitum...

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:58 AM

I should perhaps point out that "The Literary Detective" [OUP 2000] which I refer to above is an omnibus volume containing three of Sutherland's 'literary errors' books ~~ Is Heathcliff a Murderer?; Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?; Who betrays Elizabeth Bennet?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:20 AM

Or "Quick, Watson! The needle!"

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 May 12 - 09:21 AM

i expect everyone knows this one, but, of course, Frankenstein refers to the creator of the monster and not the monster itself!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 May 12 - 10:46 AM

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." In the book, Rhett never said it.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 May 12 - 11:45 AM

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast."

Not "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast."



"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio."

Not "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, well."

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:03 PM

Nowhere in the whole canon does Sherlock Holmes actually say, "Elementary, my dear Watson." The nearest is in some exchange such as, "'Wonderful, Holmes,' I exclaimed. 'Elementary,' he replied.'"

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 May 12 - 01:47 PM

Repeatedly, repeatedly!! I hear, in national radio broadcasts, a comment like, "Hollywood is the epicenter of the film industry."

And I reply aloud to the radio (wasting my breath, of course), "No, it's NOT the epicenter of the film industry! That asserts that the center of the film industry is thousands of feet to miles underground!"

"Epicenter" is a technical word meaning "The location on the surface of the Earth directly over the center" of (whatever, usually an earthquake). It is NOT a synonym for "center" or "the very center"!

<'Rant mode off>

There! Now I feel better.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 May 12 - 02:27 PM

A dear friend of mine often refers to the Thomas Hardy novel "Far From the Maddening Crowd", which always makes me giggle.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:00 PM

Words change and add meanings. Epicenter, meaning center (i. e. center of world finance) has been added to modern dictionaries .

Epi- Several applications; over (orig. meaning of epicenter), upon (epiphyte), besides (epiphenomenon), attached to (epididymis), outer (epiblast), after (epigenesis), etc. It had several of these meanings, depending on context, in the Greek.

Attempts to put a fence around a word (Uncle Dave O post) are doomed to failure.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:01 PM

"All that glitters is not gold." Too true. All that glisters isn't either.

"He was hoisted by his own petard." No, he wasn't. He was hoist - already in the past tense.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:17 PM

Talking of past tenses ~~ "He hoves into view". No he doesn't ~ he heaves into it; hove is the obsolescent strong past of heave, and "to heave into view" was the original somewhat poetic phrase equivalent to "appear".

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:35 PM

Hove into view is still most prevalent in the nautical sense;
The three canoes hove into view
He hoved to and dropped anchor (past of "to move in an indicated direction" is hove.

The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary 10th Ed. (1996-) lists hove as past and past part. of heave

Obsolescent?

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bert
Date: 06 May 12 - 03:45 PM

And Nelson did not say "I see no ships" he said
"I really do not see the signal"


----------------------------------------------

Thomas Grey wrote

Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes        
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;        
   Nor all that glisters, gold.

----------------------------------

And didn't we have a thread a while back that established that the song went

"Overhaul, overhaul on your davit tackle falls"

Not "on your davit tackles fall"

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:23 PM

I cannot but feel that argument as to the 'correct' version of any folksong is bound to a vain endeavour, fatal to any thread such as this, for the simple reason that there is, by definition, no such thing; and trying to find it ~~ why, you might as well try to stop a bandersnatch.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:27 PM

BTW, Bert (& Bonnie) ~~

Thomas Grey write nothing of the sort, though Thomas Gray did.

And he was not making an original observation, but citing an old proverb, in which 'glisters' and 'glitters' had previously both appeared in different versions; so 'glisters' for 'glitters', in this context, is not an error, pertinacious or otherwise.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:28 PM

wrote nothing of the sort, dammit!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:38 PM

I was referring to the Shakespeare line.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 12 - 04:47 PM

A petard was an explosive placed upon the end of a pole and was used to blow open city or castle gates. To be "hoisted" by your own petard would mean that it went off prematurely and you might, indeed, be "hoisted."

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:41 PM

For some reason it's not in the current Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, but "All that glisters is not gold, Often have you heard that told;" ('Merchant of Venice', Act 2, Scene VII, lines 65-66)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:48 PM

Exactly ~ thanks Dave. See, Bonnie? I knew you meant Shax; but "often have you heard that told" ~ Will was admitting he was quoting, not coining ~ a standard traditional proverb in which 'glitter' could appear as well as 'glister'. So those who say "All that glitters is not gold" do not necessarily purport to be quoting Shax.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:53 PM

We never called him "Shax" -- his proper nickname is "Billy Bob." We used to sit around the tavern near The Globe or The Rose and drink beer; Billy Bob usually got a snootfull and tried to quote himself. You should have heard him trying to say, "If it were done when 'tis done then 'twere well it were done quickly" followed by "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" when he could hardly stand up.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 May 12 - 05:54 PM

On the other hand, Rap ~~ "hoist with his own petard" is an original Shax quote; from Hamlet. "Hoisted" would indeed make perfect sense; but the word Will used was "hoist":- "it is the sport to see the enginer Hoist with his own petard"; and here there is probably no traditional antecedence to the line; so 'hoist' it must needs be!

Another error, BTW, is to render Shakespeare's 'enginer' as 'engineer': for obvious reasons, but wrong just the same.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:16 PM

The belief that Einstein's equation E=mc^2 has something special to do with nuclear power is an unsinkable journalistic canard.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:26 PM

How about the idea that God gave Moses ten commandments? The word "ten" does not appear anywhere in the original text, and there could be more or less than ten depending on how you divide them up.

Here's the entire chapter of Exodus 20, in the King James version. I have removed the verse numbers and diddled the punctuation a bit to remove some clues. I suggest you copy and paste it into a word-processing program and insert line breaks where you think one commandment ends and the next one begins; then count them and see how many you get:

And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: gnu
Date: 06 May 12 - 06:36 PM

"Thou shalt not elect George W. Bush" woulda been a good one. Another... thou shalt not elect Stephen Harper to kiss Bush's ass.

Yeah, I know... lame. But, I can wish eh?

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 May 12 - 07:15 PM

...the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates...

Hmm...doesn't say anything about your wife. I wonder how Zipporah and Moses' other wife, the Cushite woman, felt about this.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: gnu
Date: 06 May 12 - 08:56 PM

I am kinda wonderin about the cows. I mean, what were they doin? Chewin cud? Ain't that what they have to do? Or, maybe they were suppose to chew the cud but not eat any NEW grass on Sunday? It just seems so, well, such a bunch of... ya know... just seems soooo.. ya know?... decorum prevents further comments.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:17 AM

There was passing reference by David Mitchell in yesterday's (UK) Observer - in an article about the power of royalty - to King Canute's "bravado", and therefore arrogance, in trying to halt the tide.

Wrong, as usual. Canute was demonstrating to sycophantic courtiers, by failing to halt the tide, that even powerful kings are subject to the greater laws of nature - and that he was just a mortal man.

And, by the way, did Jimmy Cagney ever actually say, "You dirty rat!" ?

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:30 AM

I think those commandments would be fewer than ten, not less!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:58 AM

My late wife Valerie, in her novel Culture Shock [Duckworth 1988] observed that "History has given Canute the wrong footnote". Nicely put, I have always thought.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bert
Date: 07 May 12 - 10:21 AM

MtheGM, ain't it a bummer, when you post a message to correct someone's mistake and you make a mistake in that very message. That will teach you to be so bloody pedantic;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 01:20 PM

Bummer indeed Bert ~~ but the point still holds, eh?

;-) right back 2U!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 May 12 - 01:33 PM

""I am kinda wonderin about the cows. I mean, what were they doin? Chewin cud? Ain't that what they have to do?""

Oxen pulling a plough Gnu, or pulling a cart carrying the family to church?

The reason why orthodox Jews walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 May 12 - 02:54 PM

I used to do that, walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath. I tried sell "Catholic Digest" to the folks coming out. Never could figure out why sales were so slow....

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 07 May 12 - 02:55 PM

Perhaps I am out of line here, but surely "The Most pertinacious errors" ought to include such things as "the physical characteristics of one group people make them intellectually, culturally, and economically inferior to another." or "Any entity that has the power to do so has the right (if not the obligation) to obliterate people, cities, landscapes, oceans, mountains, and the skies themselves if they interfere with a master plan." Given that, literary mis-attributions are annoying.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 07 May 12 - 04:19 PM

And of course there's the old perennial Alice in Wonderland, referring to the book Alice's adventures in Wonderland; not to mention the sequel Alice through the looking glass, actually named Through the looking glass, and what Alice found there.

Taking of commandments, if you count up the thou shalts and the thou shalt nots in the Bible, you'll find over 600; and that's without the abominations! (Did you know 'divers weights' are one?)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Bert
Date: 07 May 12 - 05:00 PM

Right MtheGM, I won't get that wrong again. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 May 12 - 05:41 PM

Steve Parkes: Point taken re the title[s]; but there are many precedents for abbreviated or summarising titles for works with more elaborate titles being generally accepted for everyday intercourse when speaking of them: as ~~tom jones wiki
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a DREAM [Bunyan]; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman [Sterne]; The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling [Fielding]; The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account) [Dickens].

So I feel no obligation to apolgise for Alice In Wonderland ~~ although, I repeat, I do take your point.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 May 12 - 06:43 PM

Or The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson or The Adventures of Huckleberrry Finn.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 08 May 12 - 04:58 AM

My apology, Michael -- I always forget in cyberspace no-one can see you wink! I hadn't meant it as a serious criticism. Maybe Max could arrange an "irony" tag or something ...

Still, there's nothing quite so much fun as being pedantically nit-picking over someone else's eye-motes!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:05 AM

I still get hopping mad at the film of Pride and Prejudice when Darcy emerges from a swim in the lake. He never did such a thing, and Jane Austen would have been amazed.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: bubblyrat
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:31 AM

"Good King Wensless Last Looked Out " .....etc .
"He did it in one foul swoop" ( one often hears )

          Advertisement in this week's Henley Standard ; -

       For Sale ; 4M Garden Patio Sun Canape

Interesting thought !!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: bubblyrat
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:35 AM

Oh yes ,and I believe Cyril Tawney intended us to sing "CALL away the Dghaisa " , not HAUL away ( Innit ??)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:42 AM

My Cyril Tawney Songbook agrees, but prints the phonetic "dyso".