Today I learned...

[Catrin Lewis]

I've heard it said that Shakespeare's works were written by fellows called de Vere or Marlowe, or Bacon ... which stems out of a biased point of view, viz. Shakespeare's humble birth. The argument is that someone who didn't go to university couldn't write such beautiful poetry and plays, or know so much about "foreign" places.
What this viewpoint ignores is the fact that London in Shakespeare's time -- and for centuries before, and after -- was and is a major port, and Shakespeare would've heard stories of "foreign places" from sailors, merchants, and (eventually, when his star rose) courtiers. All this would've stirred his already-fertile imagination -- not to mention that some of his plays (especially the histories, and some of the tragedies -- e.g. Macbeth) centre on the British Isles, so he wouldn't have had to leave England to hear the original stories.

So sorry, Shakespeare authorship questioners, but your question is bollocks.

Years ago I got into an argument with my younger sister about Shakespeare. She argued he didn't exist because his name was spelled in more than one way; ergo, he was made up. Like she'd never been taught how recently spelling has been standardized.

If I'd known then what I know now, I'd retort that in that case, she--- and I--- don't exist either, because our RL surname (her maiden name at the time) gets misspelled and bollixed up in all sorts of ways.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Imagine all the people one could rid oneself of simply by misspelling their names.

Of course, the drawback is waking up some morning to find one has vanished because of a typographical error somewhere.

 

[Luxuria]

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center."
- The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

Source: Nazi Propaganda | Holocaust Encyclopedia

___

This is a whole new level of insanity, I never knew about. I feel really bad for the Jewish People involved in this and it's insane that the Nazis were like, "WE GOTTA MAKE THIS Ghetto NOT look like a Ghetto! And fast!" It's like the bad guys decide to make it look like everything's great over at Evil HQ and there are 'no hostages'. The worst part is, it might have worked. The article doesn't say. @Homer Potvin, do you know anything about this event?

P.s. Sorry for the sad information dump. I just learned about it today and had to tell someone. My history class is currently on WWII. I am also shocked Mel Brooks didn't make a movie about this. Because it feels like something he could have totally wacky and had everyone escape and live happily ever after, in fiction of course.

 

[Catrin Lewis]

Today--- okay, it was two days ago--- I learned that Europe has its own native species of bison, adapted to forest living instead of grazing on the prairies. Apparently, the last wild one died in 1927, and all that was left was a handful born in zoos throughout Europe. Recently, however, they've been re-introducing them to European forests, including one in Kent, where they've done remarkably well.

That is, unless the YT video I saw on this was all inspirational bison-shit.

(Just looked it up. It's true. The creature is Bison bonasus, also called the wisent.)

 

[Catrin Lewis]

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center."
- The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

Source: Nazi Propaganda | Holocaust Encyclopedia

___

This is a whole new level of insanity, I never knew about. I feel really bad for the Jewish People involved in this and it's insane that the Nazis were like, "WE GOTTA MAKE THIS Ghetto NOT look like a Ghetto! And fast!" It's like the bad guys decide to make it look like everything's great over at Evil HQ and there are 'no hostages'. The worst part is, it might have worked. The article doesn't say. @Homer Potvin, do you know anything about this event?

P.s. Sorry for the sad information dump. I just learned about it today and had to tell someone. My history class is currently on WWII. I am also shocked Mel Brooks didn't make a movie about this. Because it feels like something he could have totally wacky and had everyone escape and live happily ever after, in fiction of course.

It never ceases to sicken me what was done by the Third Reich in World War II.

What's sickening now is how many people now, young people, especially, believe it either didn't happen, or, worse, that it was all justified.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

Decades ago, my husband, a friend of his, and I went to see Sophie's Choice, one of the most devastating films ever made. On the way home, we were all quiet, but later when discussing the film, the friend said flatly, "It never happened." What? "All that Holocaust stuff. It never happened. It's all made up." This was an intelligent, educated person who was about 33 at the time. He was the first person I ever met who truly refused to believe the available evidence. About the same time, another educated acquaintance expressed contempt for people who "just walked into the concentration camps and let themselves be killed." This woman was a mental health professional.

I dunno. Maybe the horror is so overwhelming to these people that they don't dare believe it ever happened, but it still seems like willful ignorance on a morally reprehensible level.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Decades ago, my husband, a friend of his, and I went to see Sophie's Choice, one of the most devastating films ever made. On the way home, we were all quiet, but later when discussing the film, the friend said flatly, "It never happened." What? "All that Holocaust stuff. It never happened. It's all made up." This was an intelligent, educated person who was about 33 at the time. He was the first person I ever met who truly refused to believe the available evidence. About the same time, another educated acquaintance expressed contempt for people who "just walked into the concentration camps and let themselves be killed." This woman was a mental health professional.

I dunno. Maybe the horror is so overwhelming to these people that they don't dare believe it ever happened, but it still seems like willful ignorance on a morally reprehensible level.

People have tried to present conspiracy-style arguments to me in the past.

"The earth in that area was not substantial enough for mass graves." Really? All possible terrain in the region?

"There was not enough gas for that many people" Weirdly implying that gas was the only form of execution. I guess that might sneak past some people?

Of course it also doesn't hurt to remember that Jewish people weren't the only group persecuted, just the largest portion.

 

[Homer Potvin]

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center."
- The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

Source: Nazi Propaganda | Holocaust Encyclopedia

___

This is a whole new level of insanity, I never knew about. I feel really bad for the Jewish People involved in this and it's insane that the Nazis were like, "WE GOTTA MAKE THIS Ghetto NOT look like a Ghetto! And fast!" It's like the bad guys decide to make it look like everything's great over at Evil HQ and there are 'no hostages'. The worst part is, it might have worked. The article doesn't say. @Homer Potvin, do you know anything about this event?

P.s. Sorry for the sad information dump. I just learned about it today and had to tell someone. My history class is currently on WWII. I am also shocked Mel Brooks didn't make a movie about this. Because it feels like something he could have totally wacky and had everyone escape and live happily ever after, in fiction of course.

Yeah, it was known as the "model ghetto" and for a time after the Wannsee conference was used to house the Jewish WWI veterans who skated the extermination line, probably up until 1944 or so IIRC. It was all propaganda bullshit but the conditions might have been 3% better. The thing to remember about inspections and the Red Cross subterfuge is that every country in Europe and US had refused the entry of Jewish emigres during the Holocaust and were looking for any evidence to exculpate their own guilt in condemning them to death. The second thing to remember, particularly with Holocaust deniers, is that humans are indescribably stupid creatures who will believe anything. Literally anything. Sheep have better deductive reasoning skills, so I won't insult the sheep by comparing them to us.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center."
- The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

Source: Nazi Propaganda | Holocaust Encyclopedia

___

This is a whole new level of insanity, I never knew about. I feel really bad for the Jewish People involved in this and it's insane that the Nazis were like, "WE GOTTA MAKE THIS Ghetto NOT look like a Ghetto! And fast!" It's like the bad guys decide to make it look like everything's great over at Evil HQ and there are 'no hostages'. The worst part is, it might have worked. The article doesn't say. @Homer Potvin, do you know anything about this event?

P.s. Sorry for the sad information dump. I just learned about it today and had to tell someone. My history class is currently on WWII. I am also shocked Mel Brooks didn't make a movie about this. Because it feels like something he could have totally wacky and had everyone escape and live happily ever after, in fiction of course.

Yeah, it was known as the "model ghetto" and for a time after the Wannsee conference was used to house the Jewish WWI veterans who skated the extermination line, probably up until 1944 or so IIRC. It was all propaganda bullshit but the conditions might have been 3% better. The thing to remember about inspections and the Red Cross subterfuge is that every country in Europe and US had refused the entry of Jewish emigres during the Holocaust and were looking for any evidence to exculpate their own guilt in condemning them to death. The second thing to remember, particularly with Holocaust deniers, is that humans are indescribably stupid creatures who will believe anything. Literally anything. Sheep have better deductive reasoning skills, so I won't insult the sheep by comparing them to us.

I've heard about this too. The even sadder part is, it probably wasn't even the only place where this happened.

A not-so-fun fact: in the ghetto at Terezin (the Czech name for the German Theresienstadt), some of the Jewish children created secret newspapers and other means to communicate, entertain, and educate other children. Here are some of them:

Kamarad (Comrade) Magazine
Children's drawings from the ghetto (on Facebook)
Even more children's drawings

Sadly, there is no happy ending. Very few of these children survived.

It's important to note that Holocaust denial began as soon as the war ended, when top Nazi officials and German citizens were confronted with evidence of atrocities, such as documented in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives. They claimed ignorance, portrayed the stories as Allied propaganda, or argued that atrocities were accidental side-effects of war rather than intentional genocide.

Key aspects of early, post-1945 denial include:

• The "Atrocity Propaganda" Claim: Many Germans initially claimed that reports of death camps and mass graves, such as those exposed at Auschwitz, were fabrications designed to justify Allied occupation and vilify Germany.
• Shifting Responsibility: Rather than a flat "it never happened," many early deniers claimed that starvation and disease in camps were results of wartime supply chain failures rather than purposeful extermination policies.
• The Myth of "I Didn't Know": A widespread reaction among the German populace was claiming ignorance of the systematic mass murder and distancing themselves from the atrocities.
• Denial as Defense: During the early trials, Nazi perpetrators and their sympathizers used denial to try and discredit the evidence against them.

These early efforts laid the groundwork for later organized holocaust denial, often driven by virulent antisemitism and the desire to rehabilitate the image of National Socialism.

In one telling instance, an American commander summoned a young German nurse to his office to show her the horrific pictures of the inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp. (This was one of the largest camps within Germany, holding over 260,000 prisoners and causing over 56,000 deaths). At first she looked horrified, but then her face relaxed and she said, "But it's only the Jews."

 

[JLT]

As usual, American Heritage, which occupies the role that used to be Webster's before the debacle of 1961, has a good Usage Note regarding sneaked / snuck on the page for sneak.

I assume you are referring to the Merriam-Webster's edition of 1961, which was "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive," a change that left many people agitated. It was more interested in the language that people actually used rather than the language that educated people thought should be used. Me, I'm going with Webster. (There's a good book called The Story of Ain't, for those who are interested.)

Imagine all the people one could rid oneself of simply by misspelling their names.

Of course, the drawback is waking up some morning to find one has vanished because of a typographical error somewhere.

I know you're facetious, but it's a real problem with the so-called "Voter Reformation" agitation in the US, where legislation allows the denial of the right to vote for people who weren't registered with exact name on their driver's license or birth certificate. If your birth certificate reads "Harold Edwin Browne" but your license reads "Harold E. Brown" or "Harold Edwin Brown," that's grounds for bumping you off the voter rolls.

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto,

An old theme of the "Potempkin Village" which was lately used to describe Tucker Carlson's glowing report of living conditions in Russia. His guides were careful to show him only the well-stocked supermarkets and the bustling town squares, all staged to impress him.

Today--- okay, it was two days ago--- I learned that Europe has its own native species of bison, adapted to forest living instead of grazing on the prairies. Apparently, the last wild one died in 1927, and all that was left was a handful born in zoos throughout Europe.

I saw one myself, in a zoo in Frankfurt, Germany, when I was a child. It looked smaller than the American bison.

Here's another thing I heard that may be new to you: Americans are often derided for calling the bison a "buffalo" but I am told that the bison is actually a sub-species of a larger group that includes the water buffalo. So all bisons are buffaloes, but not all buffaloes are bisons. I'm assuming that the term "buffalo" was attached to the American bison because more Americans were acquainted with water buffaloes and such than with the wisant. It's the same thing that caused us to call that strange antlered animal a "moose" (a native term) rather than an "elk" when in fact it's identical to the Scandinavian elk, which few colonists had ever seen

Lighted also comes to mind, though not surgically topical to your point. I like how it sounds, but would probably stick with lit so I don't sound weird.

I'm still trying to figure out when to use "lit" and "lighted." It seems to make sense to write "She lighted the candle. The lit candle showed where the bloodstain was."

And don't get me started on "shone" and "shined."
.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

I'm still trying to figure out when to use "lit" and "lighted." I

They're both acceptable past-tense forms of "to light." I prefer to use "lit" to describe both illuminaton and drunkenness.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

I prefer to use "lit" to describe both illumination and drunkenness.

Is it possible to use "lit" as short-hand for "literature"? That's what students (and some teachers) did at my high school, many years ago, to describe subjects like English Literature, etc.

You can also use "lit" for smoking ("He lit up a cigarette" etc.), or for people being happy ("Her face lit up in pleasure to see him" etc.)

 

[Also]

It was more interested in the language that people actually used rather than the language that educated people thought should be used. Me, I'm going with Webster.

It still depresses me when national news anchors, among others, routinely and confidently misuse words like disinterested, enormity, infamous/obscure, electrocute, loath/loathe, refute/rebut, and the like. Why destroy the meaning of such useful words? How did it ever reach this point? Oh wait, yeah — it's cuz Webster's Third New International Dictionary said it's all good as long as somebody actually did it somewhere once. I've even seen people miscorrect these and others like them in low-rent critique groups, advising other writers exactly wrong.

Why bother to use a word with a very specific meaning if you're going to use it for something else? Just because it sounds novel? Is that so cool as to be worth sacrificing good and usually specialized words?

It's gotten sooooo much worse than it was even a mere 20 years ago. Confusions like loath/loathe and smooth/smoothe and loose/lose are even appearing in supposedly edited and proofread novels from major publishers now. The industry slaughtered the old cadre of the most knowledgeable and experienced editors near the end of the pandemic.

Then of course there's the guaranteed millennial-or-later "dive bar" — a tiresome redundancy if ever there was one, that usually makes the writer look like a newbie to the notion of a dive.

There's plenty of creative, positive evolution going on in English. To take an example from about ten years ago, something like "because reasons," mostly specific to political Internet discourse. But changes coming from pure ignorance with no whiff of intent or wit... that's pure devolution, and I'll take a pass.

Now "ain't" has a long and subtle history. It's useful in dialogue as long as you make it authentic. And a few chestnuts like "irregardless" and "innurendo" and "rampid" can be invaluable in coding age, education, and socioeconomic level.

 

[Also]

German Propaganda went to a completely new level in WWII:

"In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center."
- The United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

Source: Nazi Propaganda | Holocaust Encyclopedia

___

This is a whole new level of insanity, I never knew about. I feel really bad for the Jewish People involved in this and it's insane that the Nazis were like, "WE GOTTA MAKE THIS Ghetto NOT look like a Ghetto! And fast!" It's like the bad guys decide to make it look like everything's great over at Evil HQ and there are 'no hostages'. The worst part is, it might have worked. The article doesn't say. @Homer Potvin, do you know anything about this event?

P.s. Sorry for the sad information dump. I just learned about it today and had to tell someone. My history class is currently on WWII. I am also shocked Mel Brooks didn't make a movie about this. Because it feels like something he could have totally wacky and had everyone escape and live happily ever after, in fiction of course.

There was a 12-episode 14-hour television series made of Herman Wouk's masterful epic "The Winds of War," followed a few years later by one of his sequel "War and Remembrance." These are largely unknown to post-Boomers, in large part (other than timing) because they're pre-HDTV, but they're deeply engaging (though I don't love Ali McGraw in the second one). Some of the characters end up in Therezienstadt.

I believe that both series can nowadays be watched for free on YouTube.

Wouk lived in the time he was later writing about, and on the American side of the whole WWII experience, probably no one has done it better.

 

[Also]

They're both acceptable past-tense forms of "to light." I prefer to use "lit" to describe both illuminaton and drunkenness.

I'm having trouble coming up with examples of "lighted" that do not sound clumsy or archaic to my ear. And that's unusual. Usually the strong forms of verbs (vowel changes rather than -ed) are the archaic-sounding ones that eventually fade out of use and recognition.

 

[Also]

Wouk lived in the time he was later writing about, and on the American side of the whole WWII experience, probably no one has done it better.

No slight intended to William Styron or Sophie's Choice — its scope is simply much narrower.

I think many of us could do without his Chapter 1 and its vicariously embarrassing settling of personal scores, but the rest is a tour de force. And incidentally, it contains the longest sections — pages upon pages — of free indirect style I've ever read. Not only do we spend much time in Sophie's head through her implied account to the narrator, we even see indirection-within-indirection as Sophie's account to Stingo puts us in the head of her friend in the Resistance by way of the friend's implied account to Sophie. And Styron was not the first literary author in the 1960s-70s to be explicit about sex — remember Durrell, Fowles, Roth, and others — but he was the first highly respected author to do it with such panache, such glee.

 

[Also]

Is it possible to use "lit" as short-hand for "literature"?

Sure. Hence "chick-lit" and many others.

 

[JLT]

It still depresses me when national news anchors, among others, routinely and confidently misuse words like disinterested, enormity,

I hear you. But "enormity" originally meant "greatness in size" without the inference of evil. It only acquired its present meaning much later. There are dozens of words whose definitions have morphed in this way.

Still, I appreciate your comments on how some words seem to be mistaken for similar ones. For some of it, culture is to blame. Nobody who has actually taken the reins of a horse would say that somebody was given "free reign" to act, but how many of us have actually ridden a horse lately?

Benjamin Dreyer once commented about the word "peruse:"

"I've given up on 'peruse,' because a word that's used to mean both 'read thoroughly and carefully' and 'glance at cursorily' is as close to useless as a word can be."

He has a whole chapter of these words in Dreyer's English, this century's counterpart to The Elements of Style.

I think that the best we can do is gently and courteously point out the mistakes when they are made, and move on. There are more important things to be depressed about.

 

[Homer Potvin]

There are more important things to be depressed about.

Haha... line of the day.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

William Styron

Sophie's Choice is a rare example of me preferring the movie to the book. I generally run out of patience before I run out of Styron.