Вопрос, конечно, спорный. У нас Бернса традиционно относили к английской литературе. Считать ли шекспировскoe "contumely" существующим английским словом? Несомненно. Однако...
Most people choose to be ignorant, and I am no exception. This is why, after 40 years of putting it off, I still haven't learned what "contumely" is. I first encountered "contumely" in a Shakespearean passage in which Hamlet, musing about life and death, complains of having to endure "the proud man's contumely." My response was not an immediate trip to the dictionary, which was 100 feet away and up a flight of stairs, but a surge of sympathy for Hamlet.
"There's no point in looking up 'contumely,' I told myself, because with my brain as packed as it is, I'll forget what it means within 30 minutes of looking it up."
This is what I have just told myself again when deciding once more not to look up 'contumely' in the dictionary. Obviously, we are dealing here with a common case of willful ignorance. I am not simply ignorant on the point, but determined to remain so.
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Date: 2016-10-31 11:23 am (UTC)ill-tongu'd, wicked scawl
Makes us the butt of a' his scawl
Вопрос, конечно, спорный. У нас Бернса традиционно относили к английской литературе. Считать ли шекспировскoe "contumely" существующим английским словом? Несомненно. Однако...
Most people choose to be ignorant, and I am no exception. This is why, after 40 years of putting it off, I still haven't learned what "contumely" is. I first encountered "contumely" in a Shakespearean passage in which Hamlet, musing about life and death, complains of having to endure "the proud man's contumely." My response was not an immediate trip to the dictionary, which was 100 feet away and up a flight of stairs, but a surge of sympathy for Hamlet.
"There's no point in looking up 'contumely,' I told myself, because with my brain as packed as it is, I'll forget what it means within 30 minutes of looking it up."
This is what I have just told myself again when deciding once more not to look up 'contumely' in the dictionary. Obviously, we are dealing here with a common case of willful ignorance. I am not simply ignorant on the point, but determined to remain so.
Russell Baker