# Mistakes in classic literature
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 8, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227 "2004-05-08T21:43:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/181 "2006-10-27T14:43:39Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
That and “gay”: yes, I _know_ it had no homosexual connotations back then, but it’s still hard to resist a smirk at exchanges like ‘“All right. Gay’s the word,” said Scrubb. “Now, if we could only get someone to open this door. While we’re fooling about and being gay, we’ve got to find out all we can about this castle.”’
[/QUOTE]
Not to mention how Jill “made love to everybody.”
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/182 "2006-10-27T20:18:32Z")
[QUOTE=lee]
Not to mention how Jill “made love to everybody.”
[/QUOTE]
That one deserves a quote all of its own: “She made love to everyone - the grooms, the porters, the housemaids, the ladies-in-waiting, and the elderly giant lords whose hunting days were over.” Ewww. No wonder she remarks earlier “How wet I am!”. Yes, childish innuendo delights me.
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### Author:  [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/183 "2006-10-28T00:58:20Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Yeah, nit-picking Gilbert & Sullivan operas…
One of the Major-General’s talents is the ability to “whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.” However, Frederick will have his 21st birthday on Feb 29th 1940, that means he was born in 1852, and the show starts with him 21 years old in 1873. HMS Pinafore was not performed until 1878. Explain that one.
[/QUOTE]
Fredrick was born in 1852 so he’ll be 21 in 1940? There’s some bad math in there somewhere.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/184 "2006-10-28T01:09:52Z")
[QUOTE=betenoir]
Fredrick was born in 1852 so he’ll be 21 in 1940? There’s some bad math in there somewhere.
[/QUOTE]
No, he’ll have his 21st BIRTHDAY in 1940. Check the date. I don’t know who set that up, maybe the Royal Astronomer, but it is a paradox.
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### Author:  [@SkiDemon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkiDemon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/185 "2006-10-28T07:40:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> All right. Gay’s the word," said Scrubb. “Now, if we could only get someone to open this door. While we’re fooling about and being gay, we’ve got to find out all we can about this castle.”’
So CS Lewis is actually trying to recruit for the gay? 😛
I know this doesn’t count b/c it’s Stephen King, and I know how some people on the board think he’s a hack…BUT, in The Stand, Nick (the deaf guy) is deaf due to no eardrums. You CAN hear with no eardrums. Also, he isn’t sent to a state school for the Deaf, instead of that orphanage, when his mother dies.
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### Author:  [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/186 "2006-10-28T08:04:33Z")
[QUOTE=Kaitlyn]
Nope. We, the audience know that it was really King Hamlet’s ghost, but the Prince does not. When the King returns, Prince Hamlet questions whether he really is the ghost of his father or a demon in disguise sent to fool him into doing evil. He becomes convinced that it is indeed his father and vows to kill Cladius as soon as possible, but soon becomes wracked with doubt.
His “To be or not to be” soliloquy later on is just a restatement of that doubt, hence his staging the play to test Claudius’ reaction.
[/QUOTE]
Nice one, **Kaitlyn**. Ya beat me to it!
In _Julius Caesar_ Brutus is told twice of his wife’s death, reacting each time with surprise. The editors have glossed this as a mistake in the printing; Shakespeare revised the scene and the printers erroneously printed both the earlier and later version. (It’s a clear sign that the copy text for the play was ‘foul papers’, the term used for Shakespeare’s own manuscript, rather than a copy prepared for the playhouse.)
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/187 "2006-10-28T13:25:27Z")
[QUOTE=SkiDemon]
I know this doesn’t count b/c it’s Stephen King, and I know how some people on the board think he’s a hack…BUT, in The Stand, Nick (the deaf guy) is deaf due to no eardrums. You CAN hear with no eardrums. Also, he isn’t sent to a state school for the Deaf, instead of that orphanage, when his mother dies.
[/QUOTE]
In the unabridged version, that mistake is corrected to generalized “birth defects.”
The serial installment of The Green Mile have Percy Wetmore rubbing his mouth while in a straitjacket! King cut that line in the complete paperback.
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### Author:  [@SkiDemon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkiDemon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/188 "2006-10-28T22:17:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> that mistake is corrected to generalized “birth defects.”
You positive? I mean I remember the Sheriff asking Nick why he was deaf, and Nick replied with “no eardrums, no vocal cords” and then the Sheriff saying “classic birth defects”
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### Author:  [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/189 "2006-10-29T04:02:10Z")
Hmmm…if memory serves, in **Huckleberry Finn** , Mark Twain mistakenly uses the word “mortified” to mean “has undergone rigor mortis” when in fact it means “embarassed.”
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### Author:  [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/190 "2006-10-29T04:35:21Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation]
Hmmm…if memory serves, in **Huckleberry Finn** , Mark Twain mistakenly uses the word “mortified” to mean “has undergone rigor mortis” when in fact it means “embarassed.”
[/QUOTE]
My search on “mortif” in an e-text, [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Twa2Huc.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all](http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Twa2Huc.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all), found only this in chapter XXXII: “He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn’t save him. Yes, it was mortification – that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at.” That – the mortification – seems to me more like “gangrenous”.
Some of us may also have memories, perhaps classic, of feeling mortified when only a part of our body became blue. Baton Rouge indeed.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/191 "2006-10-29T05:30:56Z")
The word “mortified” had a literal, medical meaning before it acquired its figurative sense.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/192 "2006-10-29T07:47:09Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation]
Hmmm…if memory serves, in **Huckleberry Finn** , Mark Twain mistakenly uses the word “mortified” to mean “has undergone rigor mortis” when in fact it means “embarassed.”
[/QUOTE]
Memory could use a slight tune-up.
It’s in _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_. Tom tries to get out of going to school one morning by telling Aunt Polly, “Oh, auntie, my sore toe’s _mortified_!” She doesn’t buy that, so he switches his complaint to a loose tooth, which she promptly extracts.
Chapter 6.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/193 "2006-10-29T22:06:28Z")
Byrons mention of a "Sheer Hulk"as though it was a useless floating wreck!when in fact a hulk was the hull of an ex ship used for flotation in harbour and "sheers "were an 18th c primitive equivelent of a crane (but more akin to a pulley system )
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/194 "2006-10-29T22:14:18Z")
[QUOTE=Mapache]
I don’t know whether you’ll accept Patrick O’brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels as classics, yet, but they will be someday. I think they’re classics today, anyway. And most of the time his descriptions are incredibly accurate, but he does make a few surprising mistakes. In the first book he has Captain Aubrey taking a star sight at three A M on a stormy night, which you can’t do for several reasons. Also he describes Diana Villiers as fairly tall, but not quite coming up to Sophie Aubrey’s ear. Later he tells us that Diana is five feet ten, which would make Sophie at least six feet five (I have measured several women’s ears-to-top-of head tp figure this out). Also several of his characters change their names from one book to another; Akward Davis becomes Akward Davies, for instance, which is even more confusing because the first book has a big mean guy named Davies who is black, which Akward isn’t. Anyway OBrian is still the best writer of the past fifty years, IMNSOHO.
[/QUOTE]
Yep ,totally agree ,have read all of the Aubery/Maturin series many ,many times over ,was and still am gutted at his death.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/195 "2006-10-29T22:19:05Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation]
Hmmm…if memory serves, in **Huckleberry Finn** , Mark Twain mistakenly uses the word “mortified” to mean “has undergone rigor mortis” when in fact it means “embarassed.”
[/QUOTE]
Dont know of the context you`re quoting ,many years since I read it !but mortification actually meant at that time , (apart from the embarrassed sense)when a wound started to go gangrene .So Twain didn`t actually make a faux pas !
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2006, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/196 "2006-10-30T13:52:44Z")
[QUOTE=SkiDemon]
I know this doesn’t count b/c it’s Stephen King, and I know how some people on the board think he’s a hack…BUT, in The Stand, Nick (the deaf guy) is deaf due to no eardrums. You CAN hear with no eardrums. Also, he isn’t sent to a state school for the Deaf, instead of that orphanage, when his mother dies.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t have the book on hand, but you reminded me. I think there is an error in the scene where Nick’s getting beat up…it seems to me that there is some description of the fight sounds, although we are experiencing the scene through Nick, who of course, couldn’t have heard anything.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/197 "2006-10-30T14:38:43Z")
I was flipping through my copy of Martin Gardner’s \*\*The New Age \*\* and **weird Water and Fuzzy Logic** , and in one of these was a chapter that was originally an article in The Skeptical Inquirer on this very topic of blunders in classic literature. Several of his examples have already been cited in this thread.
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### Author:  [@Khangol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khangol)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/198 "2006-10-30T15:32:35Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation]
Hmmm…if memory serves, in **Huckleberry Finn** , Mark Twain mistakenly uses the word “mortified” to mean “has undergone rigor mortis” when in fact it means “embarassed.”
[/QUOTE]
The word _mortified_ also means _to undergo mortification; become gangrenous or necrosed_, a usage very common in the time period of both Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer. Twain was not one to make mistakes with words. (He frequently had his _characters_ use words in strange or mistaken ways, however, for comedic effect.)
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/199 "2006-10-30T16:58:22Z")
[QUOTE=DrFidelius]
No, he’ll have his 21st BIRTHDAY in 1940. Check the date. I don’t know who set that up, maybe the Royal Astronomer, but it is a paradox.
[/QUOTE]
And while we’re on the subject, when we first encounter Mabel and her sisters, they are tripping down to the sea to bathe… when we’ve already established that it’s Frederic’s birthday, February 29th. Trust me, you don’t want to go sea-bathing in Cornwall at that time of year! :eek:
Continuity error in _Annie Get Your Gun_, which I’ve just been in (the stage show): Annie and Frank have just had a tender love scene and they’ve both had to go and get ready for the show, whereupon the cowboys appear and announce their intention to go out on the town. Frank says “Sorry, I can’t come; I’m getting engaged tonight” instead of “Are you out of your minds? It’s showtime!”. And in case there was any doubt, once the musical number is over and with no change of scene, we carry on with Annie’s spectacular shooting feat.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/200 "2006-10-30T17:42:48Z")
[QUOTE=Giles]
Two things are going on there. (1) Pirates of Penzance was first performed in 1880, after HMS Pinafore, so that the audience would have been familiar with the earlier opera, and wouldn’t have done the calculations. (2) WS Gilbert obviously forgot (or did not know) in his calculations that 1900 is not a leap year, so would have subtracted 84 from 1940, giving 1856 as the year of Frederick’s birth, and 1877 as the year when the action of Pirates was supposed to take place, so there’s really only a 1 year discrepancy.
[/QUOTE]
And to further fan-wank the issue, we can assume that the Major-General, in view of his high station, was most likely a patron of the arts, and perhaps privy to an advance rehearsal of the music well before the show was staged for the first time.
It’s not at all shocking to realize that Frederic doesn’t know 1900 is a leap year. The whole idea of counting birthdays instead of years is relatively new to him, having himself only just been infomred by Ruth and the Pirate King of the necessity and rule. Frederic is only only one that has to have this misconception, since he’s the only one that makes the claim to Mabel. We can, if we wish, assume that Gilbert deliberately introduced the error into Frederic’s verse.
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