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"Any educated person...."
Mar. 15th, 2012 02:39 pmWe were discussing this a while back - the phrase that probably dates you back to the 30s, and grammar schools, and the implicit assumption of a shared set of background knowledge that any reader of decent fiction could be relied upon to know, so that, for instance, Dorothy Sayers could drop a letter in French into a story and not bother to supply a translation.
I'm trained in science and IT. I stopped studying language and literature at 16. I'm not religious. I was not alive in the 1930s. I therefore find it mildly amusing/pleasing when I comment on a friend's post on Facebook (yes, stop shuddering in horror), they answer with a Bible quote in Latin, and I laugh, having got the joke. Clearly we are both "any educated person".
The other half, incidentally, who claims to be Christian, didn't recognise the quote even when I translated it for him.
I'm trained in science and IT. I stopped studying language and literature at 16. I'm not religious. I was not alive in the 1930s. I therefore find it mildly amusing/pleasing when I comment on a friend's post on Facebook (yes, stop shuddering in horror), they answer with a Bible quote in Latin, and I laugh, having got the joke. Clearly we are both "any educated person".
The other half, incidentally, who claims to be Christian, didn't recognise the quote even when I translated it for him.