The Wagstaff Theory of History


In the TLS for March 16, 2012, the eminent Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells reviewed three books under the title “Rhetoric from Satan to Twitter“. I especially liked this bit on You Talkin’ To Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama:
“… at times, [author Sam] Leith expects his reader to understand phrases such as ‘locus standi’ (oddly not italicized) and ‘sub specie aeternitatis’, and at other times, influenced by what he disarmingly calls his ‘constitutional childishness’, he interlards his discourse with racy anecdotes, recondite allusions to popular culture, consciously bad puns and mild obscenities.”
I think I speak for many of us in giving thanks that no bloggers with whom I have been from birth acquainted engage in such dubious tactics more than is strictly obsessive.
And I for one am horrified to learn that there is someone out there over Thee Internyets who uses his alloted </= 140 characters to Twit people, much as I am to this day upon finding my backside sore after my every shift in the local jackboot factory wearing my Kick Me T-shirt. The nerve of some people!

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