Monday, September 16, 2024
Etoniana
Sir,
I wondered if you might be interested in a few notes on some recent posts.
In re Maurice Baring’s account of verse composition at Eton (Laudator Temporis Acti: Latin Verse Composition): verse composition now plays no part in the curriculum at Eton (eheu), though while I was there one master ran an ‘Option’ (a sort of extracurricular class) writing Greek iambics, which, through a quirk of the timetable, the most competent Hellenists could never attend. The reference to a tutor’s tearing up a copy of verses is not perhaps a figure of speech — to this day, when a master requires a boy to redo a piece of work, he is said to give him a ‘rip’. In my time this was usually signified by a small tear on the edge of the page, but tradition held that formerly it would be completely destroyed.
In re Ronald Knox (OE)’s reference to boys concealing their Christian names (in Laudator Temporis Acti: Gods and Dogs): this practice continues, though perhaps from different motives. There was a boy in my house who would introduce himself as ‘Jack’; you can imagine our delight when we learned his real name was Atticus.
Yours sincerely,
Timothy Doyle
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I wondered if you might be interested in a few notes on some recent posts.
In re Maurice Baring’s account of verse composition at Eton (Laudator Temporis Acti: Latin Verse Composition): verse composition now plays no part in the curriculum at Eton (eheu), though while I was there one master ran an ‘Option’ (a sort of extracurricular class) writing Greek iambics, which, through a quirk of the timetable, the most competent Hellenists could never attend. The reference to a tutor’s tearing up a copy of verses is not perhaps a figure of speech — to this day, when a master requires a boy to redo a piece of work, he is said to give him a ‘rip’. In my time this was usually signified by a small tear on the edge of the page, but tradition held that formerly it would be completely destroyed.
In re Ronald Knox (OE)’s reference to boys concealing their Christian names (in Laudator Temporis Acti: Gods and Dogs): this practice continues, though perhaps from different motives. There was a boy in my house who would introduce himself as ‘Jack’; you can imagine our delight when we learned his real name was Atticus.
Yours sincerely,
Timothy Doyle
