[lit-ideas] Re: Der Finhest How-where
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:02:33 EDT
Oops. Apology. Indeed it was THEIRS! Gallic confuses me, or rather
Ritchie's misquoting it. I thought she had meant "The" as in German "Der". I
see
she meant 'their'. So Churchill is right:
In a message dated 4/12/2010 10:48:36, rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
Churchill said,
i. 'Let US therefore brace ourselves to OUR duties,
and so bear OURselves that if the British Empire and its
Commonwealth last for a thousand years, MEN
--- [which, by necessity do not feel they belong]
will still say, 'This was THEIR finest hour.' "
R. Paul comments:
"Let US brace OURselves to OUR possessives."
"Their finest possessive, indeed"
It struck me that perhaps Churchill did not want to MEAN (even if that's
what he ends up doing) what he does, when he says
"Men will say"
I will simplify this by saying, "A man says".
"A man says"
--- what:
THIS is the adage, which was NOT new when Nigel was alive, but it is old
enough to be called an adage today. I was using the advantage of the PRESENT
to talk about things:
"THIS was THEIR finest hour"
--- Convoluted.
What does the man mean, "THIS"?
It seems to contradict all the futurity of the previous passage. Who said
Churchill was a good speaker? All those I know subscribe to this view I find
clumsy speakers theirselves (sic).
"THIS"
by which Churchill possibly meant 'THAT' and as such I will render it here:
This man says:
"THAT WAS"
for if it was their finest hour that was, it has to be 'that'. "This was"
does NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!
"That was their --"
whose? Nobody was referred to in the previous passage except a majestic
'we' as in "Land of Hope and Glory" -- the bombast of Empire.
"That was their -- i.e. the British imperalists --
Finest Hour."
----
This even without ever going to dissect that greatest idiocy, best rendered
in French as 'finHest How-where', der.
---
JLS
Not far from the Islas Malvinas.
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