Tuesday, March 25, 2014
A Tantrum in Latin Class
Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976), One Boy's Boston, 1887-1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962), p. 73 (on Dr. William Everett, nicknamed "Piggy"):
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My father who attended Adams Academy, Quincy, when Dr. Everett was headmaster, used to tell of one of these tantrums. A stupid boy in the Virgil class, reciting Latin, insisted, despite frequent correction, on pronouncing the name of the hero of the Aeneid as "Eé-ne-as." Finally Piggy could stand it no longer. He jumped up and down, banging the desk with his fists, exclaiming, "You goddam little fool, do you suppose that Dido would have fallen in love with a man who accented his name on the antepenult when the penult was long?"Hat tip: Ian Jackson.
