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".

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 May 12 - 05:43 AM

LOL bubblyrat. I've got a library book out at the moment, about children's school Nativity Plays. It's called "A Wayne in a Manger!"

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:22 AM

Eliza ~~ And the film of Emma had the heroine meeting Frank Churchill in the middle of the village pond where her chaise had got stuck. Oh, very Austenesque to be sure ~~~

However, once we get on to film & telly adaptations as compared with the originals -- why, we should need half-a-dozen separate threads!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 May 12 - 06:45 AM

You're right, MtheGM. I'm a terrible 'stickler' and I do try not to grind my teeth with annoyance at these travesties. I suppose I'm turning into a crusty old curmudgeon, but it does render me apopleptic sometimes!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 May 12 - 07:17 AM

Eliza ~~ I have adopted a policy of not even watching, or visiting cinemas to see, adaptations of books I am particularly fond of. I find it saves me from much grief.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: mayomick
Date: 08 May 12 - 11:48 AM

I have a copy of The Works of William Blake - the cheap Wordsworth Paperback edition. I knew Blake's anti-religious poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell quite well before buying the book and was shocked to see that Wordsworth Publications had got one letter of one word wrong , which turned the anti-religious sentiment of the poem completely on its head .
Blake's original line "Brothels are made of bricks of religion" becomes "Brothers are made out of bricks of religion" in the Wordsworth edition.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 08 May 12 - 12:17 PM

There are ten commandments. I did that cut-and-paste thing and it's ten. Some of them are lengthy and filled with details and whys and wherefores, and lists, but there are ten.

See?

And God spake all these words, saying,

1.        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.
2.        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.
3.        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.
4.        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.
5.        Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6.        Thou shalt not kill.
7.        Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8.        Thou shalt not steal.
9.        Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10.        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.


Bob

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 08 May 12 - 02:37 PM

Songbob, is that you have used a criteria for dividing them that is kind of arbitrary. There really are 14 or 15 separate imperative statements there, and much more authoritative folks than you or me have divided them differently. St. Augustine figured 10 to be two commandments. The Talmud figures "I am the Lord, thy God" to be a commandment on its own.

The problem is that they aren't numbered--in fact the phrase "Ten Commandments" doesn't appear in Exodus nor Deuteronomy, where the commandments are listed (in the original Hebrew, the word is more like "sayings" or "declarations"), so scholars have divided them up on their own, because the Bible does say Moses was given ten of whatever you want to call them.

I'm not pointing any fingers, but if *someone* hadn't broken the tablets up and then had to recreate the documents from memory, we wouldn't have this problem:-)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 May 12 - 03:52 PM

Songbob: Your division corresponds with the one made by Philo of Alexandria, except that he has the first commandment begin with "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and counts the part before that as prologue to the whole set.

The Talmud, which doesn't use the word "commandment" but instead calls them "sayings," counts the part ending with "house of bondage" as the first one. It then groups no-other-gods with the no-graven-images clauses to make the second saying.

Augustine also groups no-other-gods with no-graven-images, but calls it commandment 1. He then splits "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house" from the other no-coveting clauses to make commandments 9 and 10.

Source: The Ten Commandments at Wikipedia.

Stim: Thanks for supporting my argument. But where do you find the word "ten" in the Bible, referring to commandments? I looked, and couldn't find it. (Remember that page and chapter headings, marginal notes, etc. were added by later editors and are not part of the original text.)

Jesus quotes several of the commandments in, for example, Matthew 19:18-19, but he doesn't say there are ten; neither does Paul where he quotes them in Romans 13:9.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Neil D
Date: 08 May 12 - 11:36 PM

And of course the line "Play it again, Sam" was never spoken in the movie "Casablanca".

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 May 12 - 12:00 AM

Indeed not ~ and the nearest the script comes to it is spoken, not by Bogart, but by Ingrid Bergman: something on the lines of "Please play it, Sam; play it just for me". & it is Sam's complying with this request that alerts him to the fact that "of all the bars in all the world..."

Ah ~ movie magic. They just don't make 'em like that any more...

Sigh

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 May 12 - 12:03 AM

The best exchange in that film [I can drift if I like ~~ it's my thread] is IMO:

"I came to Casablanca to take the waters".

"But there are no waters in Casablanca."

"I was mish-informed."

More magic!

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 09 May 12 - 12:19 AM

Jim, the number ten is mentioned in Exodus 34:28-at the end of the part where Moses goes to Mt. Sinai. Here's the King James Version:

28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

And here's from the Complete Jewish Bible:

28 Moshe was there with Adonai forty days and forty nights, during which time he neither ate food nor drank water. [Adonai] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 May 12 - 05:42 AM

Another literary one ~~ I have been amazed by the people who say that Romeo & Juliet anticipated marriage, or had premarital intercourse, or whatever phrase they choose: whereas in fact that exceptionally moral young couple took the trouble to make their way to Friar Laurence's cell to be married in order that they could go ahead with it, in accordance with their consciences & upbringing.

'Well, anyway,' such people will grudgingly go on, 'they were below the age of consent.' The number of people who seem to imagine that the age of consent is some sort of law of nature, rather than a piece of ad hoc late-Victorian legislation, is astonishing. As is the number who don't even know what it is; no less a writer than Kingsley Amis predicated the whole of a novel 'Girl 20', on the erroneous conviction that it was 18; whereas it has been 16 ever since the concept was formally introduced into our laws at all, follo2wing a press campaign by W T Stead on child prostitution, in 1885 ~ tho a prior law only 10 years before had set it at 13.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 09 May 12 - 07:35 AM

Speaking of the Ten Commandments, most biblical scholars agree that in the original Hebrew the sixth one means "Thou shalt not murder," a rather narrower prohibition than "Thou shalt not kill."

Which opens up various lines of discussion about God, war, and capital punishment.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:24 PM

I have noticed that this "Thou shalt not murder" business gets tossed around a lot by "Christians" who support wars and the death penalty, and are trying to justify it. People killing people was not a problem in the old testament, as long as it was done for the right reasons.

In fact, given that many of imperatives handed from Adonai to Moshe involved putting transgressors to death, it would have been a problem to then tell them that they couldn't kill. He was tough on those who violated his commandments-- Exodus 22:17 "And he who is reviling his father or his mother is certainly put to death".

Anyway, Adonai did make distinctions between killing and murder, to wit:

Exodus 22: If a thief is caught breaking into a house at night and is killed, the one who killed him is not guilty of murder. But if it happens during the day, he is guilty of murder.

So, the idea that it is desirable, or even possible, to interpret the
Bible literally, seems to be a "pertinacious error"--

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:27 PM

And consider the significance of the singular 'thou' and not 'you'. It means YOU PERSONALLY, Songbob -- or Stim -- or Michael -- or ...

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: olddude
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:27 PM

Most of the tea party folks I know still think the world is flat so that is not a good example

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 May 12 - 02:41 PM

There is a popular rock band called "Eagles" commonly referred to as "The Eagles".

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 May 12 - 05:26 PM

Ah, now ~~ as to "The" in names and titles. Handel's "Messiah" is nearly always called "The Messiah"; it is something some people do [or used to and it has sometimes stuck] put a "The" at the beginning of the titles of what were generally accepted as outstandingly great works* ~~ I even once found a rather old-fashioned book on Milton, when I was studying him for my Higher Schools exams 62 years ago, which referred throughout to "The Paradise Lost"!

~M~

*whether this can be held to apply to "Eagles"/"The Eagles" is not for me to venture an opinion on...

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 09 May 12 - 05:49 PM

Also:

The proof is in the pudding.

No, the proof OF the pudding is in the eating.

And, pride goes before a fall. It actually goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

And when did the carrot on the stick, dangled in front of the recalcitrant donkey, become the carrot AND the stick, the latter to beat the donkey with?

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 May 12 - 06:02 PM

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MtheGM - PM
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.
surely, king cnut?or to those suffering from dyslexia, king cunt.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 09 May 12 - 06:29 PM

I've read more about this Ten Commandment thing, and have found a couple more "pertinacious errors".

It develops that there is a general Jewish view that Adonai gave the Hebrews 613 Commandments that are all of equal importance, not 10, and that the "ten matters" are not commandments at all, they are actually categories that the 613 commandments fall into.


If that wasn't enough for you, here's a bit more to chew on. The fact is that those commandments were just for the Hebrew people, with whom Adonai made the covenant. They don't apply to the rest of us.

In order to be "Righteous Gentiles" we need to follow The Seven Laws of Noah. Roughly, the are:   

1. Prohibition of Idolatry
2. Prohibition of Murder
3. Prohibition of Theft
4. Prohibition of Sexual immorality
5. Prohibition of Blasphemy
6. Prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is alive         
7. Establishment of courts of law

I just found out about these, but I check them over, and I think I am good.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 May 12 - 09:12 PM

This isn't the right time for year for this particular biblical quibble, but -- there is no warrant in scripture for the belief that the Magi were kings, or that there were three of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 10 May 12 - 07:57 PM

Or, indeed, that Jesus was born in a stable (beyond it being a logical place for a manger)

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 11 May 12 - 03:34 AM

Personally, I always reckon that the most accurate nativity narratives are those given by Mark and John.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 May 12 - 05:31 AM

"One pence" ~~~


aaaarrrrghghghghghgh

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Flash Company
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:26 AM

Actually, I find 'One Pee' an even bigger abomination in referring to currency!
Nice to see Bonnie so often in the early part of this thread!

FC

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:47 AM

Agreed, FlashCo. 'Pee' an abomination for any amount. But correct is surely "One penny". You can no more have 'one pence' than you can have 'one mice'.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Amos
Date: 11 May 12 - 11:56 AM

Kick a duck to London, just to make it quack.
Hay penny, straw penny, sad and bereft.
One pee, half two pee, all the way back,
You should have thought of that before we left!

Dad

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 May 12 - 05:32 PM

If we're talking about the nativity story, there's no
biblical basis for "no room at the inn", either. Never
mentioned.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: frogprince
Date: 15 May 12 - 08:02 PM

Uncle Dave: Luke 2:7.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 May 12 - 08:41 PM

Here it is, Uncle Dave. Not meaning to be offensive, but what reason did you have for saying that? It is really easy to Google the Bible.

Luke 2:7 King James Version
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Musket
Date: 16 May 12 - 07:34 AM

Let he who is stoned commit the first sin.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 16 May 12 - 10:27 AM

"Inn" can also be translated as "guest room". In this scenario, M, J & J were put up in the part of the house where the animals were kept. It's still common in less well-off countries than our own for the cow/goat/sheep to share living space with the people; it helps keep the place warm & saves on fuel.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 May 12 - 10:52 AM

"Gone and never called me mother" always does it for me - as not quoted in Easy Lynn
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 May 12 - 11:06 AM

The 'gone, gone [or dead, dead] and never called me mother' quote does indeed not appear in Mrs Wood's novel East Lynne, it probably appeared in some of the many stage adaptations. Wiki agrees with this ~~

"The much-"quoted" line "Gone! And never called me mother!" (variant: "Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!") does not appear in the book version of East Lynne. Both variants come from later stage adaptations."

It is, to be sure, in either variant, a fine dramatic line, to be spoken with staring eyes and clutched forehead.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 12 - 06:48 AM

And then there's the mystery of the Marie Celeste. Never happened,. she was Mary.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 12 - 06:49 AM

Sorry about the 'Guest' bit. It was Billy Weeks, looking for his cookie.

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 May 12 - 06:51 AM

Mike:
Would have thought it interesting to have extended your idea to take in actual misprints, or ambiguous phrasing which have radically altered the meaning or interpretation of what was intended by the author - this would have been my choice - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible
Used to have a little book of them entited, 'The Child's Garden of Bloomers' long disappeared in the mists of iniquity.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 May 12 - 07:05 AM

An interesting idea, Jim; but I think perhaps worth thread of its own. That would be a place also for unfortunate juxtapositions, like the thread-title game taken into the outside world. It is perhaps not the first tome [honestly can't rtemember] that I have related here my favourite advertising hoarding, one of those monster ones you used to see, at a narrow junction so only room for two display boards; on which appeared the unforgettable warning

VD CAN BE CURED    ---- I GOT IT AT THE CO'OP

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: The most pertinacious errors
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 17 May 12 - 08:59 AM

Hi guest/Billy

I understand that the misspelling of the name to Marie was because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story based on the events using that spelling - which eventually became the refeerence popint no doubt due to his popularity.
I
guess similar happens today when we think that the way Hollywood tells the story is the way it was...