Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Insufficiently Pedantic Pedants Complain About T-Shirt


“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”, attributed on this T-Shirt to “Shakespere”. Hilarity ensues, from people making fun of their spelling.

Thing is, that is one of the several ways his name was actually spelled during his lifetime. Spelling wasn’t quite so standardized back then.
“…of "non-literary references" in Shakespeare's lifetime (1564-1616) the spelling "Shakespeare" appears 71 times, while "Shakespere" appears second with 27 usages.

Thus, in their haste to mock this clothing company for a typo, people have passed up an opportunity to show off even more their own obscure literary knowledge, by not being pedantic enough.

Plus, if you really want to be pedantic about this shirt, complain about the fact that every teenage girl who wears one will think that it means “where is (my) Romeo?”