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To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: James Butrica <jbutrica@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
Subject: Re: decline of classical knowledge: late-breaking report

>Just minutes ago, when the Texaco Met Quiz panel was asked to name
>two kwpha proswpa in Berlioz' "Les Troyens," a panelist answered
>"Andromache and her son---the widow and son of Ajax."  "No,"
>she was corrected, "it was another Trojan hero."  "Oh, Achilles,"
>she guessed.
>
>Oh dear.  If this quiz, which has for over 40 years served for me as
>the yellow light on the end of the pier of true pedantry, is fumbling
>classical questions so badly, this is going to be a very grim
>century.  (Need I point out that Father Owen Lee is not on the
>panel today---though our beloved local Speight Jenkins is).
>
>David Lupher
>Classics Dept.
>Univ. of Puget Sound

But did you catch the intermission feature earlier this season with the
clip from the Milton Cross days in which the venerable Mr Cross was heard
to refer to Publilius Syrus as Publius? [Sorry I don't recall the context;
probably a quotation of some maxim. Of course, Cross being Cross, I'm sure
that the error was in the copy that he was reading, but otherwise -- How's
that for pedantry?]

James Lawrence Peter Butrica
Department of Classics
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, Newfoundland  A1C 5S7
(709) 737-7914


.