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Re: Missee Lee (was 15lb Pike caught in Martham)


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Posted by Peter Hyland on October 22, 2017 at 03:54:08 user Peter_H.

In Reply to: Re: Missee Lee (was 15lb Pike caught in Martham) posted by Ed Kiser on October 21, 2017 at 08:48:17:

Ed - Latin in ML :- you need to remember that when AR wrote ML in 1941 Latin was still a standard subject in most schools in the UK, so he assumed his readers would get the jokes. He had thrown away his school Latin Grammar, so had to borrow one from the children of Margaret Renold and of course they had one. I went to school in the 1950s and of course did Latin, and I found the 'learning Latin' passages in ML entertaining and ingenious - it was through Latin that they persuaded Missee Lee to release Captain Flint. I still laugh every time I read Capn Flint stammering "magnissimus . . .Magnanimous?"

AR was entitled to assume his British readers would get the Latin jokes. He was not to know that 70-80 years later Latin would be taught in very few schools. "Those little Latin samples" are part of the period charm of AR, and I would not like to have done without them.


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