BS: The most pertinacious errors

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...

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: frogprince
Date: 15 May 12 - 08:02 PM

Uncle Dave: Luke 2:7.

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: 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: 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: 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 - 05:31 AM

"One pence" ~~~


aaaarrrrghghghghghgh

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: 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: 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,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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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?)