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2020-08-01, 10:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
It's interesting that you bring up the other uses of "wherefore". Even with the word appearing multiple times in the play, let me try to illustrate why so many people make the mistake of translating "wherefore" as "where".
Here're the original lines:
Originally Posted by William Shakespeare
Here's a modern translation:
Originally Posted by Translation
And now we have people mistaking "wherefore" for "where":
Originally Posted by Incorrect translation
So it really isn't that unreasonable for people to conclude that "wherefore" means "where".Last edited by Ortho; 2020-08-01 at 10:39 PM.
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2020-08-01, 10:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
I don't know how you think "where should I cry now" makes sense.
And this also ignores the context around the lines.Last edited by mindstalk; 2020-08-01 at 10:47 PM.
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2020-08-01, 11:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-08-01, 11:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
As in, "I want to go cry somewhere private instead of here." This is Juliet's soliloquy when she just found out her husband got banished for killing her cousin, so I'd say that's not an unwarranted reaction.
I think you've misunderstood my position. I'm not arguing that "where" is the best (or correct) translation of "wherefore". I'm trying to explain why the mistake isn't as unreasonable as it's been made out to be.Last edited by Ortho; 2020-08-01 at 11:20 PM.
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2020-08-02, 07:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
When Juliet asks "wherefore art thou Romeo?" she knows exactly where he is. She's looking at him and talking to him and immediately after that, she starts talking about how he should change his name or she should change hers. If you actually read the words instead of just moving your lips and making sound come out because your English teacher is watching, then it's pretty obvious she's talking about "Why did the man I love have to be from the family that is the enemy of my family? Names aren't that important, are they? Roses, sweet, etc."
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2020-08-02, 09:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
I think there are two reasons why that particular verse can be easily misunderstood.
The first one is that I have almost always heard isolated from the rest, so the setting isn't clear.
The second one is that, if you know the story, then the verse itself is a bit confusing. The problem isn't that he's Romeo, it's that he's Montague.Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2020-08-02, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
When Juliet asks "wherefore art thou Romeo?" she knows exactly where he is.
Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
This could make sense if 'wherefore' meant "where from". But that would make all the other uses even less sensible than "where" makes them. And we have a word for "where from": 'whence'.
The second one is that, if you know the story, then the verse itself is a bit confusing. The problem isn't that he's Romeo, it's that he's Montague.
Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name!
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd
Granted a confusing clarification, implicating both 'Montague' and 'Romeo'.
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2020-08-02, 04:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
Yea, I think that what she means in that verse is a more general "Why did it have to be you, Romeo?", and later she indicates that the problem isn't him specifically, but what both Romeo and Juliet are part of, i.e. warring families, and that this they could (would) change.
EDIT: Although she does finish with So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd...Last edited by Vinyadan; 2020-08-02 at 04:53 PM.
Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2020-08-03, 09:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
I would agree that, in most of these cases, these lines seem only slightly off. "Oh Romeo, where are you, Romeo" works vaguely as it could be "where are you now, Romeo?" and is fine, since she is talking to herself (especially since he reveals himself to be right there moments later). Beyond that, I think the issue is context -- Juliet is sitting by herself and talking to herself. Why couldn't she be asking about his location, then wondering if a name change (as mentioned, strangely his first name, which isn't the problematic one) would solve these problems? I think the context is a major issue. If, in among a series of slightly odd sounding dialogue, something sounds like a where term that kinda-sorta might not make perfect sense, are you going to notice that this slightly unusual wording is the one you aren't getting right and wonder what is up enough to go inquire. And that leads back to my primary conjecture -- most of the people who don't go about finding out what wherefore actually means fail to do so because they don't notice the issue, and they don't notice it because they don't care enough. Not some willful ignorance but instead the polar opposite -- benign non-investiture. Considering how many people experience Shakespeare through a class assignment they just want to get through or watching a play in which their child is performing, this seems at least highly plausible as an explanation.
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2020-08-03, 10:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
There is also the fact that the line itself is using nonstandard grammar, presumably for artistic/poetic reasons:
"All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?"
"Wherefore weep I then" is V-S-O (heck, an argument can be made that it is in fact O-V-S, what with the semi-independent "all this comfort" clause before the question). Thus, the problems to the listener do not start and end with correctly interpreting the meaning of "wherefore", it is that the brain, wired as it is to expect S-V-O is now scrambling to re-arrange words to understand the sentence, and only then will it stop to think what "wherefore" means. But this is a play, you don't have the time, the next line is likely being delivered. So the brain takes a shortcut, assumes that "wherefore" is "where", and since it is already modifying the sentence, it assumes that makes some sense ("maybe she has a more austere room for being sad in?"), and keeps going.
That "wherefore" is also practically a false friend is also an issue. Classic example: if a woman tells you in Spanish that she is "embarazada", pro-tip: they aren't embarrassed.
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2020-08-03, 06:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-08-04, 02:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
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2020-08-04, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Shakespearean English, or "Why is misunderstanding easier than learning?"
That was roughly a point I was also going to mention. "Oh but how could the sentence make any sense if we don't read it the way it was meant?" It's Shakespeare, none of it makes any sense to most people who are experiencing it!
Shakespeare himself didn't even know how to spell his name at the time. He invented new words or for the first time in writing put down words in the a guise that in a couple of centuries only will be familiar to most readers. And the text is already "poetic". It is a bit like reading Norse stuff with kennings.
It is all theses and thouses hastes. So if we already have to shorten and rearrange letters to make words into normal English, an drearrange words into proper sentences why wouldn't we do it here when we have a word that seems like we know what it should be.
I come back to my earlier point about having to know that there is something we should be missing here. I would also like to emphasize that taking the position that everyone who gets it wrong is willfully ignorant and dumb (to bring it to it's point). It may not exactly be what some posters mean exactly, but that is how it tends to read. That's how you really get people's backs up and gets us the position the OP was also puzzled about, the "I don't want to learn am proud of it" problem.
There are 5 pages of discussion with a lot of people agreeing on how it could easily be misunderstood and providing logical chains of thoguht of how we end up from A to C. Please accept that it is a possibility, and has happened often. Often enough to be it's own trope in Bugs Bunny. Where of course half of us heard it in the first place.