Comments on: Gamaliel and “Gamalielese”

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 04:00:45 +0000

Curzon, the wit is the thing. He IS funny, and that is why, as you say, we still remember him.

But we need to look at the presidencies of the 20s a little more carefully. Mencken’s clever barbs have framed our understanding of those times for too long. Paul Johnson (and here) may overpraise Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, but it is good to see a countervailing assessment of these GOP presidents, if only for balance.

BTW, the discussion of Gamaliel in this post is excellent, and I had never seen all these elements tied together. The passage where Gamaliel talks the elders out of killing Peter, in Acts, is one of the best examples of prudent decisionmaking there is.

By: Curzon

Curzon — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:03:45 +0000

Lex: Well said. He was as foul a commenter as there was in those days, his saving grace only being that he added some wit to his barbs, for which he is remembered today.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:11:00 +0000

Mencken cannot be taken as an accurate critic of anybody. He had nothing good to say about any politician in his day. He despised Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and FDR. They weren’t all idiots. In fact, none of them were idiots. Here is Harding’s inaugural address. Not our modern style, but not all that bad either.

Mencken was a smug egotist. People who actually had to go about the business of running things should given a more fair assessment than the amusing but vicious barbs from Mencken.

By: J.Kende

J.Kende — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:58:04 +0000

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Law: the rest is commentary.”Â?

You left out the most important part: ...”Now go study.”

The entire saying is the response to an absurd request to Hillel asking that he sum up all of Judaism while hopping on one foot.

By: sembawang squid

sembawang squid — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 14:42:30 +0000

Always good to read a Mencken barb. I can barely imagine his reaction were he to see what’s going on today…

By: von Kaufman-Turkestansky

von Kaufman-Turkestansky — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:53:32 +0000

Wow. I just looked at the Warren Kinsella link (sorry, there’s an HTML tag messing it up, mea culpa again). http://www.warrenkinsella.com

By: von Kaufman-Turkestansky

von Kaufman-Turkestansky — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:48:02 +0000

I guess the alternative would have been to coin the term “Warrenish” to describle Harding’s English; that might have been a disaster for Canadian mandarin Warren Kinsella:
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.htm