gwern comments on [FICTION] Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone - Less Wrong
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Notes while reading:
Overall pretty good, but I didn't get that much out of it and wouldn't pay $3 for it as opposed to, say, re-reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Thanks for the many notes.
European academics in Shakespeare's day were debating the legitimacy of the Philosophiae Doctor degree (e.g. the 1571 Oratio de doctoratu Philosophico). It was apparently an important point because in Catholic countries, a Doctor had the legal right to not be tortured, while a Master did not. The first doctorates are said to have been awarded by the University of Paris in the 12th century, at the same time the original Hamlet was first written down. I can't find the earliest use of the abbreviation PhD, but Reynaldo has a motive to choose that particular abbreviation.
Archaic "corpse."
Ah; I did not know that about the PhD. Maybe a clearer insult then from Claudius, or omit the PhD from the dramatis personae in favor of Philosophiae Doctor?
What I'd do: Use the phrase "Philosophiae Doctor" right up until the reveal.
I second this.
That might work too. Incidentally, good timing - I was pondering how to ping you to ensure that this was mentioned in the next Author's note and perhaps directly in the original chapter. Guess I don't have to, now...
Now that I think about it, could this also be an anachronism ?
That seems like an awfully precise number. Did people in ye olde Shakespearean times really measure time that precisely ?
That did bug me a little, but I couldn't think of any alternative. Shakespeare did use minutes in some places, like Puck boasts of doing something in 'forty minutes'. My current preferred alternative would be something like 'I did it half a watch ago' or perhaps 'I did it a score of minutes ago'.
It may be the usual conceit of 'forty' being equivalent to 'many', c.f. Noah's Ark and etc.
Doe the Bible ever use the 40 cliche for something other than days & nights? I don't remember (but it's not something I paid much attention to when I was reading the Bible).
Moses supposedly lived in Egypt for about 40 years and then fled for about 40 years before being in the Desert for about 40 years.
Leviticus 12:
7+33=40 days, 14+66=80 days.
See also the spies (40 days), Noah waiting to open the Ark (40 days), and more here.
The "embalming" is an interesting inclusion because it tells of an Egyptian practice, which might stem from the same cultural idea of 40 days/years being a complete unit or is a projection onto them, or be a transcription of an idea directly into metaphor, (nearly) ignoring the literal truth of how long it took, or be erroneous projection. Genesis 50:
I included the full length of that so no one says "Aha! Apparently the writers were willing to say '70 days' when something took that long, so the 40 is not a metaphor." Consider that the other mourning period is a multiple of 7.
In a word: yes, it uses it all over the place. I believe also in the original Hebrew for the OT; I don't know anything about the NT. I was going to list some examples, but you can grep the Bible just as well as I can.
EDIT: Oh, I misread your question. Gimme forty seconds to go look.
RE-EDIT: 40 years in the wilderness.
Using Gutenberg's KJV, I get 111 hits for ' forty '; filtering 'forty and' (for numbers spelled out like 'forty and two') gets me 72. Filtering out 'days' and 'years', none of them seem to be the trope; so the Bible seems to use it solely for days and years, but not months, minutes, weeks, etc.
Cool.
It was just a reference to Watchmen. Rot13 spoiler:
Bmlznaqvnf, va Jngpuzra.
Ur qrgnvyf uvf cynaf gb, onfvpnyyl, gevpx gur jbeyq vagb guvaxvat gurl ner haqre nyvra vainfvba gb pbrepr gur angvbaf bs gur jbeyq gb onaq gbtrgure va crnpr ntnvafg n pbzzba rarzl. Ur qbrf guvf ol perngvat n ynetr-fpnyr jrncba bs znff qrfgehpgvba cbjreshy rabhtu gb naavuvyngr Arj Lbex nyzbfg ragveryl. Bapr haqre gur oryvrs gung gur jbeyq vf haqre nggnpx ol rkgreany sbeprf, uhznavgl jvyy havsl va crnpr ntnvafg gurve creprvirq nggnpxref.
Jura gur urebrf nfx uvz, "Guvf vf znqarff! Jura jrer lbh rira cynaavat gb qb guvf?" gur ivyynva erfcbaqf jvgu bar bs zl snibevgr yvarf va nalguvat rire. "'Qb vg?' V nz abg fbzr genqr frevny ivyynva. Qb lbh ubarfgyl guvax V jbhyq tvir lbh gur vagvzngr qrgnvyf bs zl znfgrejbex vs lbh unq NAL punapr bs fgbccvat vg sebz unccravat? V nyernql qvq vg guvegl-svir zvahgrf ntb."
Phg gb gur pvgl bs Arj Lbex orvat boyvgrengrq naq arneyl nyy bs vg'f pvgvmraf xvyyrq va bar fvatyr oynfg.
[/hadhbgr] V unccra gb unir ernq guvf whfg n srj zvahgrf ntb va n pbzcyrgryl haeryngrq sbehz, naq gubhtug bs gur eryngrq yvar va Engvbanyvfg Unzyrg, fb V pnzr urer, fnj guvf dhrfgvba, naq pbcvrq gur ragver fcbvyrerq nern bs gung cbfg.
Well, yes, everyone gets the reference. That doesn't bear on whether it is an anachronism for anything written as an Elizebethan work. 'Anachronism':
If minutes were not commonly used in that period (as might make sense given the rarity of accurate mechanical clocks and limited accuracy of the ones that existed), then using minutes may be an anachronism.
I agree with gwern regarding the Death Note reference... of all your pop culture references, this one is definitely the most contrived, and thus it feels a bit out of place.
Strange, that's the one reference that I only got on a reread -- it seemed to flow decently enough by itself (I've taken the King, I'll need Laerters, after K & L will there be some M & N further) that I didn't realize it was referencing anything at first. So I don't think it felt out of place.