Feeling sic…

I wrote to the London Review of Books with a correction but it wasn't printed, so you can have the doubtful benefit. I'm still unsure whether I'm being pedantic, paranoid, or postcolonial. Also: the author is Marina Warner, one of the greatest minds of her generation, so I feel a little conflicted about that too. Hey ho…

In the midst of a very interesting review of Thomas Laqueur's The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, I found these three words:

Jesu Grist (sic)

The subject was Dr William Price, the doctor, Druid, political activist and all-round Romantic polymath powerhouse who illegally cremated his son and spurred on the legalisation of the practice. An accomplished wind-up merchant and anticlericalism, he named his son Iesu Grist.

So what is the 'sic' all about? If it refers to 'Jesu', it's wrong. Price was a Welsh-speaker, and Welsh only uses 'j' in loanwords. The boy was called Iesu: not a misspelling of Jesus. If 'sic' refers to 'Grist', that's wrong too: Grist is standard Welsh for Christ.

The mistake, and the compounding addition of 'sic' suggests either Warner or the LRB (I'm hoping it's the LRB) has a rather anglocentric notion of culture in which a prominent intellectual's correct – if provocative – use of his native language can only be understood as an English mistake by an eccentric from the wild Celtic fringes.

Say it ain't so…

Wednesday conundrum

One of the problems of subscribing to the otherwise wonderful London Review of Books is that it keeps bringing to my attention books that I really, really want and of which I wouldn't otherwise have heard. Such as the Oxford University Press 2-volume Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley, the (temporarily) most radical thinker and activist of the Civil War period - in some senses the father of English communism and eco-activism.

The only slight wrinkle is that it's £189. What do you think?

Meanwhile, it's a great day of teaching: Milton and then Raphael Selbourne's coming to talk about his very interesting novel - set in The Dark Place - Beauty. After that, it's the school's prize-giving ceremony, or as I like to call it, The Montgomery Burns Awards for Excellence in the Field of Excellence (and plagiarism).

Actually, that sounds far too bitter: last year's graduates were stunningly good (I'm looking at you, Ed, amongst many others), and they deserve recognition - it's just that this particular event seems a little disorganised.