Curiosa: Shakespeare happens

[nebroadwe]

Sometimes I find it difficult to do my job, as when, in a drowsy mid-afternoon slump, I scan the columns of William Jaggard's Shakespeare Bibliography in search of a citation that matches the characteristics of the object in front of me (the edges of whose pages are gently disintegrating into jaundiced dust as I breathe upon them), and find myself increasingly prone to misreading Mr. Jaggard's -- let us say, unfortunate? -- yes, unfortunate choice of abbreviation for the name "Shakespeare":

Sh--

As in, Our English Sh--. And The Lover's Sh--. And A Poem; with an Ode to Sh--. And First Annual Jubilee Oration Upon Sh--. And the oft-cited Sh-- Works. I keep reminding myself that Jaggard is cataloging Shakespeare's works, not Swift's, but it's not doing any good ...

Comments

[ravensnow.livejournal.com]

Ha! I begin to suspect that many critical essayists don't re-read their works with an eye to how readers might perceive their use of language and--in this case--abbreviation.

By the bye, are we sure there are no Swift works named A Poem; with an Ode to Sh--? Once upon a time, I wrote an essay on one of Swift's elegies... I know I've never laughed so hard while writing another paper.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ha! I begin to suspect that many critical essayists don't re-read their works with an eye to how readers might perceive their use of language and--in this case--abbreviation.

Well, to give Mr. Jaggard his due, he originally published his bibliography in the early twentieth century, a much less profane age than our own. [snort]

By the bye, are we sure there are no Swift works named A Poem; with an Ode to Sh--?

The discovery thereof I leave as an exercise for the reader. Mind you, if there isn't one, there probably should be, given the man's rather, um, concave view of the human person.

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing*

Oh dear, between this and the "Harry Potter genetics test," my flist is an awfully silly place today.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Not asking, not asking ... oh, heck:

What's the "Harry Potter genetics test"?

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

Another of my friends posted a copy of a genetics test she wrote for her class using Harry Potter examples. I can't link to it since it's f-locked, but here's a sample question:

a. (5 pts) The gene for hair color is autosomal, and the black hair allele (R) is dominant over the red hair allele (r). Ginny Weasley has red hair, and marries Harry Potter, who has black hair. We know that Harry's mother Lily had red hair, and his father James had black hair.
i. What are the possible genotypes of everyone involved? (Indicate uncertain alleles with a ?)
Lily:_____________
James:____________
Ginny:____________
Harry:____________
ii. What possible hair color(s) (phenotype!) could Harry and Ginny's children have? (Note: the author actually messed this up, so don’t rely on prior knowledge of the books for this!)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful! Takes me back to trigonometry, where we solved triangulation problems in which Batman and Robin had slapped a tracking device on the Joker's getaway vehicle ("Holy cosine, Batman!").