The Shakespearean epithet "aw[e]ful, pompous, and artificial" was adapted by Charles II, who used it, with highly complimentary intent, to describe his first impressions of Sir Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral.
Long, long ago, when the late C. S. Lewis spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, I attended his public lectures on Shakespeare, where I learned, among other things, that Shakespeare's "sad slut" was neither doleful nor promiscuous. The ahistorical use of even notionally common words is a fraught enterprise. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
